France/Italy roadtrip – Cortona | alison richards

I'd stayed the night at Lake Trasimeno for one reason – to be able to get up and go to Cortona early in the morning! If you like travel books and films like me, you might recognise the name Cortona from a book/film called 'Under the Tuscan Sun'. Cortona was where Frances found a house and decided to move there. So I went to Cortona to discover what had charmed this American writer so much to make her move across to Europe and write a book about it!

I arrived early, driving up the steep narrow roads to the parking area. I think I was the first tourist there, as all I saw were the locals wandering around. Oh, I forget, I also saw a lady in her wedding dress getting photos taken in the lanes. As you do.

I wandered up the main passageway to the square and the church, then started veering out in all directions. It was such a maze, there were so many little lanes leading everywhere, then all of a sudden you'd come out near a huge church, or a steep road with cars on it, or a garden area.

The church in the main square of Cortona

This building was gorgeous, but very hard to get a photograph of.

The view from the courtyard in front of the duomo

My next plan was to go for a walk to try to find Bramasole, the house that features in the book. The house that featured in the movie was, in fact, also in Cortona but it was a guest house these days. As much as I loved the house in the movie, I thought the real house that the author wrote about would be more authentic.

There was a bit of bush bashing going on to get there, as I had to follow a dusty path out of the village and I kept walking through cobwebs! Then I walked along a road with cypress trees lining it. And all of a sudden I looked up and recognised the house from the description in the book. Wow, it was absolutely gorgeous - no wonder Frances Mayes moved all the way over to rural Italy to live there. I would too!

I snapped a few photos, but didn't get too close or stay too long as I didn't want to intrude. I wish I'd had a piece of paper to write a note and pop it in the letterbox, but I had nothing. So I took one last look and walked back the way I'd come.

I looked up and immediately recognised the house

I walked back along this road to Cortona

Arriving back in Cortona, it was quite a bit busier than when I'd left it about an hour ago. I kept exploring the town, ducking down little lanes, finding Piaggio Ape's, funny little chuapels, and some beautiful doorways. It really was a treasure of a place.

Chiesa di San Benedetto. You couldn’t go into this church but you could look through the door – it was pretty inside!

If you look closely, the sign says “don’t touch please”. In Italy, you ask the shopkeeper for the fruit and veg and they pick and bag it for you. You do not touch the food at all. It was an interesting system. I didn’t buy any fruit but I did pop into this shop to get some pesto.

The view of Lake Trasimeno from Cortona.

I left Cortona around 11. I stopped on the way down from the mountain-top village to take a quick snap of the church on the way down, then kept going. My next destination was about an hour away, at Anghiari, which I'll cover in the next post.