Final Day in Cortona

Sorry that I had no blog about yesterday.  We have not had internet for the past two days.  Now I am sitting here listening to the thunder in the distance.  About an hour ago we had a really big hail storm.  We were so glad that we were inside.  The street was covered with hail, some quarter sized. Mike went up to the garden above the apartment and many of the flowers were ruined and the trees had a lot of damage.  So sad.  It's about 6:20 pm and we are going down to town for supper in about an hour, if it doesn't start storming again.

 Yesterday we went to the town of Siena.  Many people had told us that we really needed to see it before we go.  So, we found directions, located them on the map and headed out.  Getting to Siena and finding parking was very simple.  Probably because we have finally gotten used to how things are.  Siena itself was crazy.

Today is the first day of activities leading up to the Palio which is held in Siena twice a year.  This is a horse race around the Campo Piazza.  The first race is Saturday.  Lots of people were arriving in town just for the race and vendors were stocking up with supplies for the week.  The Campo Piazza was interesting to see with the dirt packed race track around the outside of the piazza.  I wondered just how many loads of dirt it took to make the track.

Bleachers around the dirt track.

Restaurants had their tables set up temporarily on the track 

Some streets had their flags and decorations out.

 We went to the duomo of town.  It was very interesting with paintings and statues on the outside and frescoes on the walls and ceilings inside.  This was one of the few churches which allowed pictures inside.  This style is typical of the fanciest.  Our favorite is the San Francesca church in Cortona.  It has some simple frescoes, but has wood beam ceilings and a simple altar area.

View inside duomo

Outside view of duomo

We then just roamed around and found a couple of interesting courtyards to visit.

Ceiling frescoes in entry to a courtyard.

Well in the same courtyard

A pigeon drinking from the water flowing into a fountain.

We had our first real Italian pizza from a place that is obviously family owned and run.  They were making lots of fresh pizza and other lunch items while we were in there.  The pizza was good.  We left town about 12:30.  We'd had enough of the craziness.  After returning to Cortona we rested, you know Italian siesta, then we walked back down into town.

We spent today washing clothes, packing, and generally getting ready to leave in the morning.  We did walk through town one more time.  I will blog more about today's events in a couple of days.

 We have come to really love the town of Cortona.  It has the old Italian flavor and is quiet and serene.  If we ever have another chance to return to Italy we will definitely return to this town.  I can understand why a person would spend three months every year living here.

We are heading to Fiumicino just outside of Rome tomorrow.  We will spend one night at a hotel on the beach then Friday catch a plane to DC.  I won't have internet when we leave here, so until I have a chance to blog later, this is it.  I'm ready to head back to the states, but am a little sad to be leaving. This has truly been a dream vacation.

I will add a blog about the sea and will have final thoughts about Italy in a blog when we have returned to the United States. Until then, Arrivederci!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011; 9:50 pm

Italian Siesta

In our time in Italy, one thing that we have discovered is that Italians take their siesta time seriously.  In any town that we have visited, at 1:00 pm sharp shops close down, Italians clear the streets, and everything becomes quieter (except for the tourists).  When we visited Orvieto the police even gathered together between 1:00 and 4:00 and took a rest from driving through the town.  When we arrived in Arezzo yesterday a man was begging for money on the steps of the church.  At 2:00 when we left town he was gone.  We decided that even the beggars take siesta time seriously.  On the days when we have visited Lago Trasimeno we have seen that the parents make their children get out of the water and take a rest during this time.  About the only places that we have found that are always open at this time are most sidewalk bars (Italians call cafes "bars").  Mike and I have gotten into the routine of resting sometime during this hot time of the day.  We will usually leave to do our touring early to middle of the morning.  We walk around a town until about 1:00 when we will buy a sandwich for our lunch.  By the time we have finished eating it is usually around 2:00 and we are ready to head back to our apartment.  We rest until supper time then head out again until after dark.  That is the best time of the day.  We either walk down to the piazza republica or sit out front of our apartment and watch the sun go down.

Today, Mike and I followed that routine.  We left the apartment about 10:00 am and went back to Lago Trasimeno.  We knew this would be our last chance to go there and we love the quiet and nature of the lake. On our way there we found a large field of sunflowers blooming.  This is a scene present on many posters and post cards of Tuscany.

Sunflowers in Tuscany

Sunflower

View of Lago Trasimino

We ate our lunch under the shade then went to a sidewalk cafe by the lakeshore and had a gelato.  Not much action, but very enjoyable.

Tomorrow we head to Sienna.  Several people have told us that we can't miss seeing that town.  Until then, Buonasera.

Monday, June 27, 2011; 9:10 pm

There Are Nice People in Italy

When we were planning our trip to Italy, Mike and I got mixed reviews about how the people would treat us.  Some people we spoke to said Italians can be rude, but not as rude as the French.  Others said Italians could be fairly friendly.  For the most part, we have found that the Italians in this region are very friendly.  By this region I mean southern Tuscany and northern Umbria.  Cortona is on the border of these two regions just barely in Tuscany.

Yesterday when we went to Arezzo, we discovered just how nice people in Italy can be.  Arezzo is a medium sized town about 45 minutes north of Cortona.  We rented our car in this town almost two weeks ago, but hadn't yet explored the old town area.  A book we have access to had a walking tour of the old part of town that sounded fun, so we decided to follow that.  In the book it said to park in a lot to the left of the train station.  We knew where that was because the car rental place is across the street from the train station.  When we pulled into the lot we noticed that we could only park for two hours at a time.  We asked a lady that pulled in if there were another lot close to the train station and she told us "no".  She tried to explain how to get to a free lot on the other side of the old town area, then went into the station.  This woman lives in Italy, but is originally from France and spoke French and a little English.  When she came out of the station about two minutes later we were looking at our map to be sure we knew how to get to the lot she told us about.  You have to be careful driving in the old towns in Italy because tourists for the most part are not allowed to drive through the historic areas because the streets are so narrow and to limit the amount of traffic.  That means you have to drive around the cities.  Anyway, this nice, nice lady noticed us and offered to let us follow her to the parking lot.  We thought she was headed there by the way she was talking, so we said yes.  We followed her making several turns.  When we got to the lot she pulled over, told us that was it, then just headed on her way.  Turns out, she went out of her way to be sure we got to the right place.  How nice.

The historic part of Arezzo was a pretty and quiet place.  May have been partly due to fact that it was Sunday.  The first thing we saw when we got into the town proper was the main church.  Like many others it was stunning on the outside.  This one was different because they let you take pictures inside.  They also didn't seem to mind having tourists there while mass was going on.  There were no services when we stepped inside, but about 15 minutes later a mass started even though there were tourists and even tour groups.  Kind of strange.  The frescoes and paintings were beautiful.

View inside cathedral of the church

Frescoes

From the church we went to the grand piazza.  This piazza was different than any other we have seen.  They have it decorated with community colors for an event that will occur in a couple of months.  While at the piazza I found a little store that said "Terra Cotta and Souvenirs".  I had been having trouble finding something to take home for people I wanted to get gifts for.  I expected a regular souvenir store but found something entirely different.  This store had some standard souvenir stuff, but primarily had tiles and crafts made in the store itself.  I found several things for myself and others and then discovered the second nice person in Italy.  The shop is run by a man and woman.  The woman only spoke very limited English, but was able to help me pick things out and understood what was for me and what would be a gift.  All purchases that were for gifts, she wrapped up to take home safely then as a present.  Very lovely.  I know it is her business to do this, but she was nicer than the normal store owner.  If it wasn't so far from Cortona, I might go back and buy more.   The shop is under the brown awning in the first picture below.

Building on piazza

Mike standing in the middle of the piazza

I'm next to an old well in the piazza.

Park where we ate lunch

Interesting trees

When we left town, we realized that we didn't know the way out of town toward Cortona.  We asked the girl in the tourist information center and she said to follow the signs to Cortona.  Only problem is there are no signs for Cortona until you get out of town.  So we took off in what we thought was the generally correct direction.  In towns in this area many streets are one way so you can't just go back the way you came.  We were proud of ourselves, because we were able to take the roads and get to the correct edge of Arezzo to head back.  We really liked the town of Arezzo.

I couldn't write about nice people without mentioning the women that we are renting our apartment from.  I know that being nice is how they make money, but we often rent from people that just give you the key to the place and keep you supplied with clean linens.  Not Luccia and Patrizia.  They have done so much more that the regulars.  They invited us to an Italian festival, have eaten with us, and have given us produce from their garden.  I am so glad that we choose this place as our base for two weeks in Italy.

Until next time, Buon Giorno!

Monday, June 27, 2011; 10:23 am

Views from the Mountaintop

View east of Cortona

After the late night Friday night, Mike and I slept in.  There is a road that goes east from Cortona over the Appenine Mountains that we have been wanting to explore so that is how we started our explorations today.  We drove over the top of the mountain and turned around when the road became narrow and began going down the mountain.  This is a view from the top of the mountain looking to the east.  It is very hard to travel east and west in this area of Italy because of the mountains.  All of the major highways go north and south.

On our way back down this drive we went to the Medici fortress at the top of the hill.  The best part of this was the views from the fortress walls.

Medici Fortress

Inside the Medici Fortress

View of Santa Margherita Cathedral with Cortona below.

On our way to the fortress we noticed people waiting for a wedding couple to leave the church.  As in the US, June must be the month for weddings in Italy.  We have seen several weddings in the short time we have been in Cortona.  On our way back down by the church we saw this nun cleaning up after the wedding was over.

Nun sweeping up after wedding

After view the fortress we drove by the actual Bramasole from Frances Mayes' books.  This is not the one that is in the movie, but where she and her husband, Ed, spend part of their time each year.  This is the best shot I could get of the house from the road.  Bramasole is not in Cortona, but is about a mile up the mountain east of town.  We go within about 1/4 mile of it everytime we leave town.

Bramasole

After lunch and a rest we went to the Cortona Etruscan Museum.  This summer the museum had a display of Etruscan and Roman artifacts from the Louvre.  It was very interesting and educational.  It took over two hours to go through the entire display.  

We only have a few more days in Cortona.  Time is going by fast.  We'll try to take in some more of the area around Cortona in this short time.  Until later, ciao.

Italian Cheese and Wine

 One thing Mike and I wanted to do while in Italy is some cheese and wine tasting.  There are many places to taste wines in Umbria and Tuscany.  Some of the most famous wines in the world come from this area.  Our problem was that we would not do a wine tasting and have Mike drive and myself navigate him back to Cortona.  And as for the cheese tasting, we had not found a place that offers that alone.  So the solution was to do our own little cheese and wine tasting at our apartment.  We have become quite good at shopping at the local food market in Camucia called the Coop.  It is not a Coop as we know it in the US that is just its name. We know to take our own bags, where to find the fresh versus canned goods, how to weigh and tag our own fresh produce, and where the beverages are located.  When we shopped a couple of days ago we decided to pick out a few different cheeses to taste on our own.

What we selected was some pecorino from Pienza  (sheep milk cheese), a grotta cheese from Bontalegio (cheese aged in a cave), and a fontal (cow milk cheese).  The fontal tastes like a mild cheddar, the pecorino is a mild but tastey cheese,  and the grotta also is also mild but with a bit of aged taste.  Notice that none of the cheeses have a color other than white.  In Italy they do not add color to cheese, but let it have its original color.

We have randomly tasted some local wines until we went into a wine shop at the piazza republica in Cortona. There we found a large variety of wines from the Cortona region of Tuscany.  We also found out that this wine shop does wine tastings on Friday evenings in front of their store and also provide for a wine tasting dinner which they provide a shuttle for.  We decided that we would take advantage of that.

The first thing we did yesterday was walk to an area of Cortona that we had not visited before, the Duomo of Cortona and the Museo Dioesano.   There is a statue of Santa Maria Margherita in the piazza there as well as one of the oldest churches in town.  The museum contains many paintings by Fra Angelico, Pietro Lorenzetti, and Lucca Signorelli.  The paintings were, once again, beautiful with many colors and some gold paint in the clothing and of course the halos.  The best part was the original worship area which had frescoes on all of the walls and on the ceiling.  The paintings were dated from the mid 1300's to the 1500's.  I am amazed at how well they have been preserved.  Once again, I have no pictures because they do not allow photography on the inside.  You would think it is to protect the paintings, but the lighting inside these buildings is so harsh that I think it is just so they can sell their souvenir post cards.   And that is okay because it is their place not mine.  The inside of the Duomo had some very pretty frescoes at the back of the altar area, but otherwise was fairly sparse.

Statue of Santa Margherita

Museo Diocesano

Duomo - simple but still pretty on the inside

Later in the evening we came back to the Piazza Republica for the wine tasting.  There were many other tourists, of course, many from the United States and some from Australia.  We spent about an hour tasting about five different wines from the region and learning about them.  And they had several different cheeses to taste. So this fulfilled both types of tastings we wanted to do.  Our favorite was an aged pecorino.  I think the one we bought is a fresh pecorino.  One of the things we learned about the wines was that one of the wines Mike picked out and really likes is a Syrah from the Cortona area which is very famous.   About 8:00 pm the shuttle arrived to take us to the restaurant.  The restaurant was a surprise because it looks like it belongs in Texas and is run by a real Italian cowboy.  However, the food was true Italian.  We sat at a table with a couple from the US that have lived in the Cortona for about six years.  They make their living renting a renovated farmhouse to tourists.  The other couple at our table was a retired couple from Australia who have stayed in Cortona for a year and are about finished with their stay.  Both couples had interesting insights about what we should do with the remainder of our stay.   This was the second time that we felt like we were in an episode of "Anthony Bourdain" where he is around a lot of foreigners, eating a lot of local food, and drinking their local beverage.  The first time was at the wheat harvest festival.  This only will make sense to those who watch his show on The Travel Channel.   It was a late but very interesting evening.

We have five more days to spend in this area.  We have some specific things planned, but those may change daily.  That is the beauty of being in one place so long and not being on a tour.  Until next time, Ciao.

Saturday, June 25, 2011; 10:07 am

A Day of Rest and Relaxation

View of Castiglione del Lago from lake side.

Italy has been great, with all the churches, art, architecture, and other historical structures.  But, after a while, it all starts running together and a person needs a break from it.  Today we decided to go back to Lago Trasemino to hike and enjoy a picnic.  Not really much going on, so this will be short.  We went back to the same general area we went to the second day here, but instead of going into the town we stayed by the lake.  There is a side walk that goes for about a mile on this section of the lake.  We walked about half of it then had a picnic by the lake.

Trail next to Lago Trasimino

View of lake from our picnic spot

Something I have noticed about Italians is that they don't seem to enjoy water sports like Americans.  This is an extremely large lake without any obstructions in it .  In a lake like this in the United States you would see a large number of boats pulling skiers and a lot of jet skies.  I haven't even seen any boats for sports like that in a dock.  There are sailboats.  The first day here we saw a lot of sailboats in the water.  Today we didn't see any.  There were a couple of fishermen on the water and that was it.  Not to say that Italians don't like the lake.  There are always a large number of people laying out in the sun.  Italians of all ages seem to enjoy laying in the sun.  Everywhere we have been where there is a patch of grass in the sun, we have seen someone laying  out.  One group we saw today consisted of two older women and an older man.  When I say older, I mean my age or maybe a few years older than me.  They were spending the morning soaking up the sun.  When lunch time arrived, they pulled out a picnic lunch with some type of dish that required a bowl and a spoon, some cheese, and a bottle of red wine.  They even had a table cloth to throw over the rock they used for a table.  That's what I call a real picnic.
Later in the day, we sat and watched the sunset and the valley below Cortona.  These are sunsets like no other I have ever seen.  Pictures cannot capture the beauty of them.

Sunset from wall next to apartment

C

Cemetery just outside of town

Above is a view of a cemetery in the valley below Cortona.  From what I understand, there are tombs above ground, crypts, and mausoleums,  It is very intriguing to look at and is unlike any cemetery I have seen in the United States.  

Bells on church just outside our apartment

That is all for yesterday.  It looks like another beautiful day in Cortona, Italy.  So for now, Ciao.

Friday, June 24, 2011; 8:30 am

Florence - Art, Architecture, and Crowds

Santa Maria del Fiori

Florence, the city of the ruling Medicis, patrons of the arts and bankers.  Here is the location where the renaissance really began.  We rode the train from Camucia to Florence.  It was a ride that took about 2 hours.  We arrived at the Santa Maria Novella Church station which is in the middle of the old part of town. The first thing we planned was climbing the stairs to the top of the Campinile (bell tower) of the Santa Maria del Fiori which has the main Duomo of town.

It was quite a feat for a claustrophobic, acrophobic, klutz to climb 413 steps to the top of a 270 foot tower without slipping once.  I really had to work on conquering my irrational fears to make the climb up, then had to be really careful on the way down so that I did no slip.

Campinile

Below is the best picture I could get of the dimly lit, narrow, steep passageway.  Luckily,  at every landing there was a small window which let in fresh air and let us see out.  Also, there were two large open areas on the way up where we could catch our breaths and I could work on convincing myself that I could keep going.

Stairs up Campinile

Mary at halfway point

Mike with Duomo in background

View of  city from the top

View of Duomo from the top

The upper right photo shows people on the Duomo.  It was 50 steps higher and did not have a very high rail around it .  I enjoyed the view from the bell tower.

 After this climb we went to the Duomo museum.  It contained many of the original paintings, frescoes, and sculptures from the Cathedral.  Many were made in the 1400's and were very striking to look at.  The two things I enjoyed the most were the Pieta by Michelangelo and the Mary Magdalene by Donatello.  Both are pictured below.

Mary Magdelene

Pieta

 Next we walked to the Ponte Vechhio which is the oldest bridge over the Arno River.  It contains jewelry, gold, and silver shops.  This is where the crowd part of Florence really set in.

Replica of Statue of David

Mary in front of Ponte Vecchio

   Above, I am standing in front of the Ponte Vecchio.  Below are three more pictures of the bridge.  Mike is standing at the center section of the bridge.  Notice how green the river is. Yuch!   Mike and I have noticed that most of the streams we have seen are this color which means they are polluted with some type of organic matter (probably sewage).        
                                                 

Notice the green colored river

Mike on the bridge

  After leaving the Ponte Vecchio we had our first store bought gelato.  It was great both because it tasted so good and because it had gotten very hot out.

Doors of the Baptistry

Mary in front of Baptistry

After leaving this area, we walked back to the Cathedral to have one last look.  It is truly amazing and worth the trip to Florence in and of itself. On the doors of the Baptistry of the Cathedral are Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" copies.  The originals are in the museum we visited, but were not available for viewing because they were being restored.  Very disappointing. These two pictures show the copies.  They are amazing.  Oh yeah, and the crowds!

Santa Maria Novella Church

Finally, we made our way back toward the train, stopping on the way to tour the Santa Maria Novella Church.  We didn't go in many of the most popular places like the Accademia or the Uffizi because of the long lines.  None of the places we visited had lines or crowds inside and still had some remarkable art.  A couple of art novices like us can only take in so much in one day anyway.  Inside Santa Maria Novella were frescoes by Lippi and Ghirlandaio that were truly inspiring.  These took many years to complete and were very large.  There also was a painting by Masaccio the "Trinity" that was the first painting to appear 3-D due to perspective.  I have no pictures of these because no photography was allowed inside.  After this we headed home on the crowded train full of tourists and commuters.   Long, but very worthwhile day.  Mike and I have had enough of large cities.  We enjoyed the art, architecture, and history, but hate crowds.  We will keep to the Tuscan countryside until we have to head to Rome for our flight home next week.  Until next time.  Buon Giorno (Good Day)!