Our last few weeks in Italy were a whirlwind of activities and travel and preparation for repatriation back to the good ole’ US of A. Being that I didn’t have time to prepare individual posts given our frenetic pace, I thought I’d tell the story in pictures. It’s a big blur of locations and activities, including our home base of Cortona, plus Florence, Siena, Bologna, Ravenna, the Republic of San Marino, Assisi, Perugia, Chianti, San Gimignano, and Cinque Terre. We are so blessed! Looking at all the pictures, I still can’t believe it.
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' DayLooking across the cemeteryLarry and I liked the name on this grave: Simply "La Mamma"Cortona's distinguished former residentsLooking up at CortonaLooking up at the churchOne 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
Larry and I had read that the largest antiques market in Tuscany takes place in nearby Arezzo on the first weekend of each month – of course we had to be there to experience for ourselves. We set out one afternoon for the 45 minute drive north to check it out, and then spent at least another 45 minutes looking for a parking place. The antiques market attracts over 500 vendors and over 20,000 visitors so you can understand the challenge. Arezzo is a beautiful town, with one particularly stunning main piazza. We had a great time walking down the streets and through the stalls – they had everything from jewelry to china to silver to furniture to maps to cashmere sweaters.
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.
Beautiful Cortona garden
Shoes, anyone?
Ancient elders, Cortona
Dried porcini mushrooms, a staple in Tuscan cuisine
At the Saturday market
Town hall, Cortona
Town elders catching up on a Saturday morning
Piazza della Repubblica in Cortona
Cortona architecture
Engraved image set into the side of a house
More beautiful Cortona homes
Walking uphill, as usual
A shrine we found along the road
Cortona courtyard
Another friendly animal resident of Cortona. She was very affectionate.
This little kitty went to sleep in the sunshine . . .
Ancient homes
Walking in Cortona
Beautiful autumn ivy
I love these little three wheeled trucks, called Apes. They’re everywhere.
Cortona is nothing if not a lot of steps!
A view across the valley
Beautiful Cortona homes and gardens
A monastery down the road from our apartment in Cortona
Our sweet neighbor dog. We want to pack her in a crate and take her home.
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 valleySunlight on the hillside cottage belowMorning sunlight on the olive treesSunny hillsideSereneLooking down on the townThe Etruscan wallSome of our neighborsThe 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 homeCortona and the valley belowThe Val di Chiana belowThe Etruscan Wall surrounding the cityOut walking the dogSunlight in the valleyOut for the afternoon passeggiataAfternoon sunlight on the hillsideThe real BramasoleCharming villa set in the hillsideI'll take any one of these villas. I'm not picky.Majestic cyprus treesLooking down across the valley from the edge of the city parkOne of the only long, level stretches in Cortona. It's a pedestrian path that is part of the city park.Old friends enjoying the afternoonLooking over to Umbria: Lake TrasimenoPlaying 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 parkLooking up at a few of Cortona's many bell towersMemorial to the war dead in the city park
