Sunday, January 24, 2010

Cortona

Today, we went on a day trip to Cortona, one of the many Tuscan hill towns that has become more popular recently due to it being the setting of "Under the Tuscan Sun," which we've neither seen nor read, however. The weather was supposed to be gorgeous, and in Florence it was still nice, though on the train to Cortona it became progressively more hazy and cloudy. Oh well. We took a bus up to the town, and walked to its main square, where an antiques market was setting up. This being January, there were very few tourists to be found, and some restaurants were still on holidays until March. We got a slice of pizza, and then went past some of the oldest surviving medieval houses in Italy to the Duomo, which was closed, and the Museo Diocesano, which was opening again shortly. Inside the small museum, the highlights were an Annunciation by Fra Angelico and some works by Luca Signorelli. After this, we slowly made our way up the hill to the church of Santa Margherita, which houses the remains of the saint. Then we walked back down into the town, where we had to wait an hour for the next bus to the train station. A tip for tourists: don't go to Cortona on a Sunday. In the meantime, we had a coffee/tea and a "brutti ma buoni" from a local pasticceria. After the 15 minute drive to the train station, we saw that we had just missed the train back to Florence, so it was off to a bar for another hour and another coffee/tea to stay warm while waiting.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like fun, and those pastries sound ugly but delicious. ;) I wouldn't recommend watching "Under the Tuscan Sun." I thought it overly sappy and unrelatable. But who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it for the recognizable scenery. Can't say I've read the book, but anything's got to be better than the movie.

Ben said...

Yeah, that was pretty much the reason we've avoided it so far.