November 1st is All Saints Day and the residents of Italy celebrate by making a pilgrimage to their local cemetery to decorate the graves of their loved ones. The graves are then illuminated with artificial candles after dark. Cortona’s only cemetery is perched dramatically on the edge of the hillside – it’s spectacular! Larry spent some time in the cemetery with the tripod after we got back from the antiques market in Arezzo, with some beautiful results.

Cortona cemetery on All Saints' Day

Looking across the cemetery

Larry and I liked the name on this grave: Simply "La Mamma"

Cortona's distinguished former residents

Looking up at Cortona

Looking up at the church

One of the things I love about Italian cemeteries is their custom of putting a photo on each headstone. It's great to see their smiling faces and know how much they were loved.

Looking down on the cemetery from above

Halloween is an American holiday, for the most part. You do see small slivers and hints of it here and there in Europe – a few costumes or spooky trinkets trying to inch their way into the stores. It’s trying but it hasn’t quite caught on yet. We were planning on being a good example of the Halloween spirit in Cortona via our own little jack o’lantern display. The daughter of our landlady, Lucia, surprised us with a jack o’lantern on our porch when we came home on Friday night. She had taken some pumpkins from their garden and carved 3: 2 for their porch and 1 for us. We were touched by her attempt to make us feel at home and celebrate our American holiday with us.

Saturday morning we awoke early to go to the weekly town market – filled with everything from a mini drug store to shoes to vegetables to purses. I love the European tradition of the weekly market and it’s one of the things I wish I could export to the US. We had a great time shopping, eating, and observing the town come out to catch up on daily gossip. We managed to find one expensive pumpkin at a produce vendor in town and hauled our future jack o’lantern back up the hill to home, stopping to enjoy the view and visit with some friendly neighborhood animals along our way.

We spent the afternoon carving a two-sided jack o’lantern – Larry did an homage to ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch and I did a vampire (based on a drawing Larry did – I never progressed beyond the stick figure stage and can’t draw to save my life). One of our neighbors drove by shaking his finger at us as we put them out front and lit them – mumbling something about Lucia – apparently he doesn’t appreciate the encroachment of American holidays on his town. Larry said, “I kicked his tire and told him that Little Italy has been reduced to one block in New York City.” Lucia was so impressed with the vampire carving that she took pictures of it and vowed to try to replicate it next year.

Pics are small in the gallery below, but click on any picture to make it larger.

One of the things we’ve been enjoying most about our current location is the altitude. Cortona is a hill town, and we are at the very top of this particular hill town. The views to the valley below are spectacular, especially at sunrise and sunset. Larry went out one recent morning to capture some of the magical morning golden hour.

Morning mist across the valley

Sunlight on the hillside cottage below

Morning sunlight on the olive trees

Sunny hillside

Serene

Looking down on the town

The Etruscan wall

Some of our neighbors

The monastery down the road

Later in the day we decided to take a long walk around the other side of the hill, giving us a view of the valley on the other side, gradually descending and then spitting us out at the public park at the bottom of the town. The slowly sloping street is lined with tall, straight cyprus trees planted in honor of those young men from Cortona who died in World War I. One of the things I love the most about Tuscany (and Provence – they’re very similar in climate) is the vegetation. I love the silver-green leaves and gnarly trunks of the olive trees and the tall, dark, majestic cyprus trees, who seem to be standing watch over their domain wherever they are planted. This road also takes us past the real Bramasole (not the one used for the movie), Frances Mayes’ Tuscan home. It is a striking house with a lot of character. I especially like the varied coloring of the stucco. I’ve taken this same walk many times while we’ve been staying in Cortona and love every inch of it. It’s serene, peaceful, and beautiful.

The Etruscan Wall and the old city gate that we drive through to get home

Cortona and the valley below

The Val di Chiana below

The Etruscan Wall surrounding the city

Out walking the dog

Sunlight in the valley

Out for the afternoon passeggiata

Afternoon sunlight on the hillside

The real Bramasole

Charming villa set in the hillside

I'll take any one of these villas. I'm not picky.

Majestic cyprus trees

Looking down across the valley from the edge of the city park

One of the only long, level stretches in Cortona. It's a pedestrian path that is part of the city park.

Old friends enjoying the afternoon

Looking over to Umbria: Lake Trasimeno

Playing in the city park. The kids were a mixture of locals and British visitors. Language doesn't matter when you're a kid and you want to spin until you get sick.

Fountain in the city park

Looking up at a few of Cortona's many bell towers

Memorial to the war dead in the city park

While in Provence, Larry and I loved seeing the cute little baby olives on all the olive trees. Traditionally, olive harvesting time is in November and December, so we’re in Tuscany just in time to catch the harvest (and take home some fresh olive oil!). Recently we were on our way out shopping when we spotted some locals harvesting their olive trees. The harvesting process is extremely manual and difficult. They essentially need to be harvested by hand, then gently placed in crates where they won’t crush or bruise, before being taken to the local mill to be pressed into pulp, to harvest that beautiful liquid gold. Only the olives harvested in this manner will be turned into extra virgin olive oil. They lay nets out around the bottom of the trees to catch any olives that may fall – these olives will be damaged and therefore are not good enough to go into the best oil, so they will be used for soap or other secondary items. In order to produce the best, most pure, and least acidic olive oil, the olives must be pressed within 24 hours of picking, preferably in an oxygen-free environment (oxygen ruins the taste). I’ll bet you had no idea so much work went into that bottle, did you?

Harvesting olives

Hard work!

The other night I walked into the bedroom for some reason and saw a little bug scampering along the floorboard. Something about his shape caught my eye so I went closer to get a better look. I saw pincers. And then said, “Uh, Larry? I think that’s a scorpion.” Sure enough, it was. A little tiny baby one, trying to find a crack in the floorboard so he could get out of the light (they hate bright light, and they live in cracks between rocks, which is why there are so many near to these old stone walls and homes). Larry said, “I want to put him in a jar and study him!” So, he got a jar, caught the little guy (who was mad as he** at finding himself in this new glass prison), and named him Tony the Tuscan. Larry looked him up and found his species, and we figured out he was just a little baby (I hope his mother isn’t nearby!). We’ll be checking under the bed every night before we go to sleep from now on. The funny thing is I lived in Phoenix for two years and never came across a scorpion once.

He doesn’t like Larry at all. Every time Larry picks up the jar he charges at him through the glass (he doesn’t do it when I pick it up). Since then, we’ve decided to take him for a ride – so he’s away from houses – and let him go. He deserves to live his little life out in peace.

Tony the Tuscan