Cortona!

I know some of you might groan at my reason behind coming to Cortona, but I dare you to watch the movie Under A Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane and not want to come to this beautiful yet VERY hilly little town.  The author of the book lives in a house about 1 km from our hotel.

Casa Bramasole

We left the farm on Nov 2 and took our rental car back to Florence.  I also had some unfinished business in Florence.  I had to go to see the "real" statue of David.  The Accadamie Gallerie was built just to house this statue and as you walk into the hall where he stands your jaw just drops.  The hall that you walk along to get to David is full of incomplete works of Michelangelo which are just incredible in themselves, as you can see his vision from the first moment he starts carving into the marble.  The whole gallery took our breath away but now I can take another thing off my bucket list! Thanks Dave, you made my day!
 
To reach Cortona we took the train from Florence to a town in the valley called Camucia.  Rick Steeves' guide books suggest taking a taxi or waiting for the bus, but Joe read somewhere that it was just a 3 km walk up the hill to the village.  I know you probably already know where I am going with this one, but let me just discribe it for you.  The first km is actually walking along a major road way with not much of a sidewalk to speak of until you hit a small road that resembles the road going up to the top of Mt Tolmie in Victoria, only very narrow, and with a steeper grade...a much steeper grade.

Notice the 80 year old man walking up the street!

  We walked on that road for about 45 minutes until we then had to head up on a slightly gravel/slightly paved road through some farm land.  We were passed a few times by 4x4's and atv's with owners that were laughing at us hysterically as they drove by us.  After about 30 minutes on that dirt path I had to stop and put moleskin on both of my heels as the blisters had started to rage.  Joe's left butt cheek was starting to burn so we had a few moments rest before carrying on.

  15 minutes later we were ecstatic to see the town wall with a sign directing us to our hotel.  The city as you can tell it situated on a hill but the town itself is on a hill so we soon found out that our hotel was at the top of the city on the back side and according to our gps, only another 1600 metres to go from the city gate!  The signs said nothing of the elevation  of the 1600 metres but we had already walked for 1 1/2 hours, how much further could we be?

 Apparently a very long way if you take into consideration the altitude and the lack of oxygen going to our brains.  I am exaggerating of course but at one point we both looked at each other and started laughing our heads off at how ridiculous this journey had been.  All because Joe didn't want to wait for the bus.  Actually his exact words were, "By the time the bus gets here, we can be at our hotel having a cold beer!"

The town in the background is where we walked from.

To give you some perspective, because I know you think I am just being silly,  Mt Tolmie has an elevation of 124 m, where as Mt Doug has an elevation of 224 m,  Cortona, has an elevation of 494 m to the town and our hotel is another 100m up from there.  Our 7km walk took us just over 2 hours.  The really funny part was when we were about 300 m from our hotel, the owner came down in his car to get us.  He had passed us earlier on his way into town and thought maybe we were hotel guests but thought no one would be so stupid as to walk up from the village of Cortona with all our bags.  Little did he know that we had walked from the town below the village of Cortona.  Now that makes for some epic stupidity!
I will tell you that those beers (in our complimentary mini bar) were some of the best biere we have ever had.  (Hey Sebatian, did you here that?!  BTW the walk up to Cortona was twice as hard as the one in Monterrosso Cinque Terre)
 We both agreed that it would have been a nice hike if we hadn't been carrying our luggage.  Our hotelier informed us that there is a much shorter way to the hotel then all the way around the mountain but it is a bit steep with some stairs.  I am so glad we found this out AFTER we went the long way!
The view from our room was absolutely worth it though and everything is an adventure if you choose to call it that.

The view of the valley below our hotel.

Cortona itself is a gorgeous tiny little place and because it is November, it seems absolutely deserted.  I should mention a little bit about Italian culture.  Everything here runs on Italia time meaning, the shops open when the owner feels like it, they all close at 1 or 1:30 for the afternoon,  then they open back up sometime around 4:00 until whenever they feel like closing.  This can make you crazy if you are not willing to slow down and take it for what it is.  Oddly enough, this hasn't bothered me in the least but it just drove (Mister "I barely have a pulse" Miller) nuts.  Which I enjoyed thoroughly!

An average day for us since arriving in Italy looks like this...

9:00 Breakfast
10-2 exploring, shopping touring
2:30 lunch (which is at least 1 1/2 hours)

4:00 more sightseeing
6:00 back to the hotel to relax and get ready for dinner
7:00 have a pre-dinner wine

8:30 dinner
10:00 after dinner walk (called passeggiare in Italy and everyone does it after dinner)

11:00  head back to the hotel

We have been so incredibly lucky with the weather here (it has been around 20 degrees since we arrived in Cortona) so we are hoping that the sun will follow us down south.
It is a lovely lifestyle again if you allow yourself the time to slow down.  Kids go to school here 6 days a week but get out at 1:30 most days which could be one of the reasons the shops close down.  Working people go home to be with the kids? ( I am just speculating but kids are VERY important to Italians)

We are off to the Amalfi Coast for the next few days where we will visit Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento and surrounding area.  Joe made a good point when we were visiting the museum here in Cortona.  There were many exhibits from the 2nd Century.  We seem to be on our way back in time.
 Next we are visiting  Pompeii which was covered in ash from Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD and then we are off to Egypt which is even older than that!   If nothing else we are getting quite a history lesson and  an Italian style boot camp!