Day 18 Italy 2008

Cortona was our next point of interest. That is the area where “Under the Tuscan Sun” was filmed. When we entered the village, we came upon a great little store where an artist Paolo Scala and his girlfriend made beautiful glass jewelry. I bought a ring and Cheryl bought a bracelet. Our next stop was lunch (I guess you’ve noticed that we’re eating our way through Italy). We finally tried the Tuscan T-bone steak that everyone has insisted we try. Well….we should have just ordered one. It was HUGE!!!

We moved on to another beautiful church - Il Duomo (Cattedrale Santa Maria della Assunzione) a portion of the facade dates back to the 10th or 11th centuries. It is believed to rest on the site of an Etruscan temple.

Here are some pics we took along the way:




Then we climbed another steep hill to the grand Cathedral of Santa Margherita which is a 19th Century Church.

On our way home we found a Sam’s-like grocery store, so we stopped and purchased some things. We found when we checked out they wouldn’t take our credit cards, so we had to pay cash (the cards they took were like membership cards…I guess we were lucky they let us buy things). We had enough that we made a light snack for dinner, since we had the steak for lunch!

Ah, another day under the Tuscan sun!!!

Day 17 Italy 2008

Today we went to Arezzo. We first walked around the medieval city where we found a lovely little art store. We found a few things to buy…surprise! We each bought some interesting palette knives for our encaustic paintings:


I also bought a watercolor pad and a wonderful sculpting tool:

We then had lunch in the Piazza Grande.

We visited the Basilica of San Francesco which houses the fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross, the masterpiece which Piero della Francesca painted for the Franciscan church between 1452 and 1466. The subject of the cycle is taken from the “Legenda Aurea” written by Jacopo da Varazze in the 13th century. It was an amazing series of frescos where we could not take pictures.

We stopped at an outlet mall on our way home, but were disappointed that almost everything there was from the US, and very overpriced for an outlet.

We had dinner at our favorite pizza restaurant in Monteleone before heading home.

Day 16 Italy 2008

Today we caught up on laundry and our correspondence. I walked around and got a few movies of our area, then later we joined some of the other residents for “fish night”.

As usual, it was a multi-course meal including and eel and octopus salad, mussels, fried calamari, anchovies in olive oil and spices, squid, crawfish, cuttlefish and stuffed Italian tuna. We had a lovely chocolate tort with ice cream for dessert.

Some of these things were new to my palate and were interesting. I kept thinking of my daughter Angela being presented with a dish of “face of calf” when she lived in France!

Day 15 Italy 2008

We had breakfast served in our room and got ready for the day. We first went to the Uffizi and waited in a very long line. It did not seem to be moving. Since we both had seen it before, we decided to go to a couple of places we had not seen. My first choice was San Miniato al Monte. It was on the other side of the Arno River and up a very steep hill. The steps seemed to go on forever. I kept telling Cheryl it was worth the hike, and she kept looking at me and saying “it better be”!! Here are the pictures.




We went back to the hotel to check out and continued on to lunch. After lunch we passed a leather store that had the coin purses I wanted. We bought a few things and continued on to the Academia that housed Michelangelo’s “David”. We waited in a long line, but as always, it was well worth it! We then went on to the Florence Cathedral. There we met a lovely couple from the UK. We visited in the cool church for about 45 minutes, and when I told them my name was Hearne, which I understood was a common name in England, they said yes and mentioned their friend Nick Hearne….I said..”oh my gosh that’s my husband’s name!”

We walked around another hour, took these pictures


then went back to the hotel to get our luggage. We walked back to the train station and caught the train to Fabro Scalo.

Day 14 Italy 2008

We were off to Florence. I woke up at 5:20 a.m. in anticipation. Franco told us to park at the train station where we saw the white lines (the free spaces), which was somewhat of a trek to the main station. We bought round-trip tickets & were told to cross over to the other side and stamp our tickets before getting on the train. We had our rolling bags so we took the very long ramp. The machine that validates your tickets was not working, so I had to “run” back over to the other side and validate them…the “run” back with 4 minutes to go…and European trains leave on time!!!

When we arrived in Florence we rolled our bags to the hotel, which was right by the Duomo. Here is a picture from our room.


After “settling in”, we went to the American Express office to cash some travelers’ checks, and waited in line an hour. We got €303.09 for $500….yikes!!! With money in hand, we went to lunch and got a chicken and French fry plate, water & wine to the tune of €18 each. One almost gets use to thinking of Euros in dollars, but you have to remember that €18 is $28.15. So, when shopping, you need to multiply the euro by 1.56.

After lunch we went to a leather shop where I looked for my favorite change purse that I had bought almost 10 years ago. They did not have the exact one, but I bought a few things.

The weather was in the 90’s, to which we were unaccustomed, so it slowed us down a bit. We went on the Church of Santa Croce, where Michelangelo’s tomb is located. It also has the cloisters and Pazzi Chapel designed by Brunelleschi, as well as a magnificent museum of Renaissance art.

Tomb of Michelangelo

Pazzi Chapel

We then went back to the hotel, refreshed and went to dinner at “IL Latini”. It was a place where you sat at a table with six people. Cheryl and I had both been there before. They started bringing out the food course by course and we had not seen a menu, so we had no idea of how much it was going to cost us. While it was all very delicious, it was pretty costly…€35 apiece…around $55 each. Oh well, it was a great dinner!!!

Day 13 Italy 2008

Today we finally got on the internet for a long time. We caught up on our blogs, and made plans to go to Florence tomorrow.

I visited with Bozena in the garden and took some videos. Here are some shots of today’s take: cherries, artichokes, peas, and onion….and of course the wine. They are all products from Casa Rondini.

Day 12 Italy 2008

Today is Sunday and we awoke to new neighbors with kids. Lots of noise. They have already been in the pool. It doesn’t seem quite warm enough for us. We have been trying to update our blogs, but the internet keeps coming in and out.

Franco told us about two festivals going on celebrating the "Corpo di Christ" (Body of Christ), so we jumped in the car and first went to Montegabbione where they had a religious festival and created beautiful images with flowers all along the streets.



This one was made from roses from the rose garden of Casa Rondini!


Next, we went to Citta della Pieve to see the festivities there. This was our third visit to this charming town.

We then went to Monteleone and had a great pizza at La Tana del Gufo, before heading home.