Cortona – Italy
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Cortona was our favorite place on this trip. It’s a small (and incredibly hilly) town on a large hill with great views in every direction (including Lake Trasimene – it was there in 217 BC that Hannibal and the Carthaginians defeated the Romans in the Battle of Lake Trasimene in which close to 20,000 men died).
The main street, Via Nazionale, is the only flat street in town and where most of the tourists walk up and down. The rest of the town is almost straight uphill and full of great views and churches. How can they have so many churches in one small town?? Each church required going higher and higher up the town until you basically get to a grassy knoll where there is a fort with fantastic views of the countryside. It was peaceful and there were no tourists which was a great relief because Italy is full of tourists (mostly middle–aged Americans – and I know some people will think that saying this is anti-American. It’s not, its just an observation.)
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Hotel Italia was the best hotel we’ve encountered on these travels – fabulous room and the friendliest people (actually, everyone we met in Cortona was very friendly).
We love Italian food and have had some great food and wine on this trip. Our only complaint however is that there are not many choices – either you go to a sit down restaurant (another 3 hour meal…) or you try to find some kind of takeout which, in Tuscany at least, seems to be limited to the same old pizza. After two weeks of going to a restaurant every night or eating pizza, we were getting fed up. There were just no other options. One night we found a little supermarket and brought cheese, ham and bread back to the hotel to have with our wine – but in most places there were no such markets in the center of town. Anyway, we loved Italian food, we just missed some of the variety that we have at home. I think Tuscany would be a great place to invest in a take-out sushi place or a Lebanese –style Kabab restaurant…
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