Cortona - under the Tuscan sun fame

The trip to Cortona took much longer than we expected. If we had a car it would have taken about 40 minutes but with a bus and train and another bus which only ran every 2hours it took us 3 hrs to get to the town. When we got there we fell in love with the beauty of the place. It's got a relaxed but vibrant feel and we enjoyed just walking around looking in shops and beings tourist without too much of the gallery and church visits. We walked through the market set up in one of the Piazzas and just wandered down the streets looking around.

We found a park with families enjoying the outdoors. The trees were just beautiful and everything looked so lush.

I brought a really nice skirt in one of the shops and we had a great lunch of salad and lasagna which was almost as good as the one my daughter makes. The town is set on a hill like most of the others in Tuscany but the top is higher than any others we have visited. We did walk up it however and reached the church at the top. While we were inside it started to rain and as we had not planned for rain and colder weather we hurried down and warmed ourselves with a coffee and cake.
I found a fountain and a tap but probably not the ones in the book and movie.

It was a long trip back again and we ended up catching a train which has booked seats. We only had to get off at the first stop which was 18 minutes and would you believe it the guard came through asking for tickets. Well we had a ticket but it was for a local train and we could see he was thinking about what he might do. We were in luck as he clipped our ticket and moved to the next carriage. We gave a sigh of relief as he could have fined us.

We caught a taxi back to Cetona and decided to walk up to the pizzeria place for dinner before going back to our apartment. We fell into bed exhausted from the trip but we both acknowledged we really had a good time in spite of the travel time.

Villa and garden visit

On the public holiday they opened a garden once owned by a head of Fiat so you can imagine how much it is worth. We were lucky to be given a lift by Linda and Cesar and joined a few of their friends and relatives for the walk through of the garden.

The villa itself was beautiful as you can see in the picture with wisteria growing around it and beautiful lawn to offset the colour of the house. The view to Cetona was an added bonus.

It was another delightful afternoon which just happened without any planning on our part.

Mondo X and St. Francesco Monastery

We discovered a lovely retreat run by a group called Mondo X within a short walk from our apartment. Apparently the church was built for the followers of Saint Francis so they could listen to his words in a sacred place. The church and grounds are now used to help people with addictions e.g. Drug and alcohol.

We had tried 3 times to arrange a visit but it was always closed even though we knew they did let people come in and look around. In Cetona they also have a public holiday on 25 April and they put on a garden market in the piazza on the Wednesday and Thursday and on both days arrange for gardens to be opened. We then heard that the Mondo X venue was to be opened for visits on Wednesday so we marched up the hill to find that yes they would take us through with a guy who could speak English. We meet up with a few Americans also staying in Cetona who had arrived at the Monastery same time.

The place has such a wonderful feel about it that I told Cliff that I was sure I could come up with an addiction that would allow me to stay at the place. It's not a free ride however as you have to work in the fields around the Monastery and I am sure they have to cook their own meals. Oh well it was worth a try.

Siena

We travelled by bus and train to get to Siena and it was worth the effort. We discovered that it was cheaper to get a pass that covered a number of entries into churches and galleries but as we were hungry and it was close to 12 we decided to lunch at one of the pizzerias in the large Piazza del Campo in the middle of the city. As you can see we had pizza which were huge but very thin. We then headed to Piazza del Duomo to visit the Cathedral of Santa Maria. The pictures below give you an idea of the size of the cathedral and the are works of art by Donatello, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano and Michelangelo. None of which are ninja turtles by the way.

We then entered the crypt which houses many frescoes on the walls. This room was only discovered in the late 1990 which makes you wonder how many other treasurers are yet to be uncovered. The pass gave us entry to the baptistery which houses a beautiful baptismal font said to the the oldest form of early Italian renaissance sculpture.

The pass also gave us entry to the museum where we were able to climb to the top and view the country side for miles. We then walked over to a museum for Saint Bernardino and another church called after Saint Francesco. I must say I am starting to wonder how many saints there are as we seem to come across a new one at each town we visit.

The day was over too quickly as we had only just scratched the surface but we had to climb down the hill and down about 20 escalators to reach the train station below.

Assisi

We finally made our first trip via train to another part of Tuscany. We were fortunate enough to get a lift to the Chiusi railway station by Linda which was fantastic as she did it so we didn't have to catch the bus. This was the first time we have caught a train without our big suitcases which was great. It took us a couple of hours to get there but it was worth the time.

Assisi is a very special town as it is the birthplace of St. Francis who founded the Franciscans order in 1208 and St Clare who founded an order of nuns. We caught the bus from the station which takes you into the town and decided to start at the top end and work our way down to the Basilica of Saint Francesco. We first visited the Saint Rufino Cathedral which houses the body of Bishop Rufino who was martyred some time after 238 AD. We then made out way down looking in at the numerous churches along the way until reaching the Saint Francis Basilica. It's is an amazing place as it houses a church within a church. We were able to travel below the lower church to the burial place of Saint Francis which has a very reverent atmosphere.

I had noticed earlier a group of men and women putting on choir outfits and asked one of them were they going to sing and was told they were a pilgrim choir from America and that we could stay and listen to them sing prayers. Their voices were incredible and very moving with harmonies and soloist reverberating in acoustics of the church.

We them walked up the stairs to the second church above, which was filled with frescoes depicting the life of St. Francis. We both were very moved by the whole day and would have liked to stay longer but we needed to get back in the bus to travel the 4 k to the train station.