Italy Trip 2016 - day two (Cortona)

More on my recent trip to Tuscany...

Day two:  Cortona

Cortona hadn’t originally been on my radar, but two of our party had friends who live there, so we decided to add it to the itinerary.  Boy, am I glad we did!  Cortona is gorgeous! I'll try to give a good account of our day.  To try to make things clearer, my friends' friends will henceforth be known as The Locals.

view from the villa

We got up relatively early and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise behind our lovely villa.  I could take pictures of that view all day, every day.  It was just glorious. A smart gal pal had ordered some baskets of food to be preset in our villas, so we could have a little breakfast before heading out.  Of course, we couldn't make the oven/stovetop work, so I tried toasting bread in the microwave, which didn't really work well.  It made the bread into a cracker instead of toast, but at least it was a little something something to tide me over. The peach jam they left us was really tasty, though! After snacking, we got an early-ish start and drove about two hours in gorgeous scenery, through twisty-turny roads, climbing up up up – luckily, motion sickness did not rear its ugly head, though a little bit of ginger was passed around the car.  I should take a moment to thank my intrepid pals who were brave enough to drive through Italy.  I begged off; even though I felt guilty about it, NO ONE wanted me to drive.  I mean it.  Anyway. Finally, we could see some walls and knew we were getting close to Cortona.

Etruscan walls/gates

Cortona is mainly known to American tourists, I guess, as the city where author Frances Mayes bought her villa and wrote Under the Tuscan Sun.  Thankfully, since we were there in the winter, there weren’t a lot of tourists clogging up the squares and streets, looking for Frances Mayes.  It was nice to have tour guides, aka The Locals, through the city streets (which are pretty hilly, I must say!  My out-of-shape legs took a beating!), and to hear little tidbits from them.  They were really a ton of fun. Cortona is an ancient city, going back to the Etruscans, and we entered through the remaining Etruscan-era gate.  We took a look inside a lovely church, wandered the streets looking at the old family crests still existing on the stone walls, toured The Locals’ spectacular apartment, then went to lunch at Antica Trattoria.

yummy pici

Our host at the restaurant (Luca, maybe?) was charming and very generous with the food.  We thought we had ordered a couple of antipasto plates for the table, but instead each person got their OWN plate of antipasto.  It was amazingly delicious, but boy, was it a lot of food.  The house red wine was also amazingly delicious.  For my main course, I ordered the pici.  I had read that pici is a local pasta specialty, so I wanted to try it.  Again, I’m glad I did!  The pasta was very rich and dense, chewy but not tough.  Apparently, the pasta is rolled by hand and it’s sort of like a very fat spaghetti.  The tomato sauce that came with it was also delicious, very light and elegant, with just enough garlic to enliven it, but not blow out the taste buds.  It was really delicious and I’m so happy I gave it a try.  I will admit I’m a bit of a picky eater, so the fact that I tried something I’d never eaten before is kind of a source of pride.  It helped that it was a pasta, though. 

Le Celle monastery

Lunch was a pretty long affair (there was a lot of laughing and story-telling going on, so who cared how long we were there?!) – once we finished, we were starting to lose sunlight, so we all piled into the rental car and drove out to see more sites:  first, we went to Bramasole, Frances Mayes’ villa.  It’s quite lovely and overlooks an amazing vista.  We didn’t really stay long, we just parked long enough to get some pretty photos.  Then we climbed back into the car (there were eight of us in the car – the six travelers and The Locals - needless to say, it was jam-packed-full) and drove to Le Celle, the monastery that exists outside the walls of Cortona.  Le Celle is an 13^th century Franciscan monastery that extends through many acres.  It sits atop a beautiful stream that we did walk along, though it was pretty dark by the time we got down there.  That's the one thing about going in winter - the sun sets really quickly. I’m sorry I didn’t get better photos of the monastery, and we didn’t get a good look at the chapel because services were going on (though we did get a look at a tiny cell that St. Francis of Assisi may have used), but I did get a nice sense of the expanse and the serenity there.  

interior, Santa Margherita

Back into our clown car we went and we drove to Cortona’s most famous church, Santa Margherita.  Santa Margherita is the patron saint of Cortona - she died in the 13th century and her remains are on display in this church.  Again, we didn’t get to get a really good look at the church because services were going on. I did get a couple of photos, though you can't really see where she is on display behind the altar, darn it. Even Wikipedia doesn't have a good shot.  I don't know what's up with that.  We wandered around the grounds of the church for a bit before climbing once again into the clown car to drive back into Cortona proper.  Well, actually, we found a lot outside of the walls, since inside is a limited non-resident-driving zone.  

photo credit: Gregg Moore

We found a good parking space, walked back into the city, and did some window shopping and regular shopping.  There were a lot of lovely independent shops, with beautiful crafts and artisans making crafts.  There was an amazing store that sold stunning paper products, which I couldn't resist, and I got a lovely piece of pottery at another shop.  My tiles/pottery from my last trip to Italy are some of my most prized possessions, so I was happy to add to the collection.  We all just had a lovely time walking around, browsing, and soaking in the nighttime ambiance of the city.  We didn't want to be driving on those hilly, twisty-turny roads too late, though, so we finally left to make the rather long trek back to Selvetelle (home base).  I would definitely love to go back to Cortona - there were museums there that looked fascinating but there wasn't time to explore, and I'd love to see the monastery during the day.  It's always good to be left wanting more, I guess. But for now, back to the villa to get some rest before our next trek: a winery tour, an unplanned detour and then Siena...

photo credit: Gregg Moore