Under the Tuscan Sun

This morning we walked through the busy Saturday morning market at Rialto Mercato and cruised through the mist on the Grand Canal to board our train for Florence.  We were both sad to leave, as always, and there are still so many places that we had wanted to visit.

We had tickets on the new privately run, high-speed "Italo" train which has been operating for just over 12 months and it was fantastic.  They have their own lounge at Venice station and the train was very new, very comfortable, with free wifi, lots of well-dressed professional cabin staff serving fantastic coffee etc and very fast - we cruised through the countryside at 300km/hr.

We arrived in Florence after only 2 hours and had to walk what was said to be a short distance to the Europcar rental office!  After a bit of a false start, armed with my downloaded Michelin walking guide and map, and a visit to a nearby hotel to seek additional help (I told the concierge that we would stay there next time we're in Florence), we finally made it to Europcar at about 12:40.  And guess what, as of 5 days ago, they now close at 12:30 on Saturdays instead of 4:00, and don't open again until Monday mornings!  After several phone conversations and text messages with Frank, our ever-helpful travel agent, and lunch on the footpath at a swish, modern cafe nearby, we finally jumped into a taxi and collected our car from Florence airport.

Then a 2 hour drive to Cortona to meet our landlord and move into our beautiful cottage.  The cottage is right in the middle of the action in this exquisite hillside village, we have a large cottage garden, 5 large rooms, all tastefully decorated with very solid antique furniture (no Ikea or Carrefour items here), lovely paintings, fantastic books, a romantic 4 poster-bed, beautiful linen etc etc.  It could not be better.

I brought our copy of "Under the Tuscan Sun" with me, because it was written in Cortona, and Brian has been re-reading it over the last couple of days.  Our landlord told us that the author, Frances Mayes, divides her time between here and San Francisco. We had parked our car outside our cottage to offload our luggage in a "no parking" bay with the hazard lights flashing.  Our landlord left telling us that we'd better move our car fairly soon because the local constables could fine us, and while I was grabbing my handbag and changing my glasses, Brian stood by the car waiting for me.  A well dressed American woman of about his age walked by and gave him the same advice about the need to move the car fairly promptly.

After we'd parked the car in a small carpark just down the hill, we walked about 100 metres from our cottage to the main street leading to the piazza to do a bit of food shopping and to book a restaurant for dinner - and sat at an outside cafe in the little piazza for some cold Italian beer.  It is the most exquisite, elegant little town, with fantastic shops, galleries, bars and cafes everywhere and we cannot wait to explore the whole town tomorrow.  We brought our shopping back to the cottage and did a bit of unpacking and I checked the internet for images of Frances Mayes - and Brian is certain that she is the woman who warned him about not parking for too long in the no-parking bay.

Our dinner was fabulous - home-made tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, scallopini limone (reminded me of Sunday nights at the Capri in Freo), coffee and a jug of local red wine - served by a gorgeous middle-aged Italian waiter.  And the only negative about Cortona?  Everyone speaks English!!  I order things in Italian - they seem to understand me perfectly but then answer me in English.  I'm tempted to say that I don't understand English but I'm not yet at the stage to be able to pull that one off - maybe in another 3 years or so?

So back home where we sat in our living room, cuddled up on one of the sofas with a glass of wine each and watched the "Under the Tuscan Sun" dvd that was on the bookshelf.  Beautiful images of Cortona, and some of Siena and Positano as well - but the movie?  Absolute rubbish - unless you're interested in the scenery!