Beautiful Cortona

Yesterday, after I woke up and became a slightly functional human being, I headed into town alone. Most of the other students were at a talk being given by some semi-famous independent jugglers, but I hadn’t been interested so I walked to the market. 

Market in Arezzo

Market in Arezzo

After pushing through most of the clothing section (which felt a lot more crowded now that it was warm out), I ended up getting a piece of chicken, some fries, and some free fried squares of something at a stand in the food row that I liked. I then walked to the train station, only stopping to get a chocolate croissant at a bar nearby. I then ended up sitting on a wall and eating my food while watching out for other Accademia students.

The previous night, a bunch of people had talked about going to Cortona after the talk, and, since my phone was being difficult again, I wasn’t sure the exact time people were leaving, only that they would be there soon. After I finished my chicken and had moved onto the fries, I saw Little Rock (one of the Emilys) and Jake, and I walked over to chat with them and share my fries. It turned out they weren’t going to Cortona but were meeting up with a friend of Jake’s at the station. However, Little Rock did use her phone to find out when people were planning to leave (around 1:50), and Emie and Emily showed up soon after to chat and share more of the fries. After Emily, Little Rock, and Jake left, Emie and I decided to take the 1:15 train to Cortona. At the station, while buying our tickets, we met up with Nick, Meredith, Awesta, and Catherine who were also planning to take that train.

We then all got on the train and went to Cortona (which was literally two stops away from Arezzo). At the station, we then attempted to call a cab (since the city is up on a hill from the station), failed at calling a cab, had one randomly show up, and rode it up the hill.

Once we reached Cortona, we all paid 2 euros and set off to explore. With Meredith leading the way (since she had been there before…in the rain), we went into the city, got some amazing gelato at the Snoopy gelateria (I got chocolate and cookie flavors and the cookie flavor was sooooo tasty), walked into and past quite a few churches, and climbed up and up and up the hill.

A piazza in Cortona

One of the churches in Cortona

My amazing gelato

The walk up

Another church in Cortona

A view from the top

Chilling at the top

When we made it to the top, we all took a long break to just sit and stare at the view, lay down in the grass, and to play on the big stones on the hill. After an hour, we all started getting cold and decided to leave, though Catherine had us make a wish on a rock and then chuck it as far as we possibly could first. Then the other group who were coming to Cortona walked up the hill. After chatting with them for a bit, Awesta, Emie, Nick, and I headed back down the hill to explore the town a bit more. We ended up just going back through parts we had seen before and window-shopping a bit, though we did learn from one shop owner that the scenes from Under the Tuscan Sun filmed in Cortona used a fake fountain so we had most likely already seen the piazza in the film already. We then decided to stop in a bar for a snack, but only Nick and I ended up getting food from an amazing pasticceria we found (I got a slice of chocolate cake that I saved for later). We then split up with Awesta following a random friend she knew in Cortona that we just happened to see and Emie, Nick, and I deciding to head back to Arezzo.

We quickly realized that all of our phones weren’t working and couldn’t call a cab to get back down, but luckily there was a shuttle bus at the piazza we originally arrived at, and it kindly waited for us while we bought tickets at the tabacchi nearby.

Once we reached Arezzo, Emie really wanted to have a sit down dinner at Mazzoni, (one of the better restaurants in town) which sounded good to all of us, so we went there directly. However, it ended up not being open yet, so we waited 30 minutes for it to open. Though we did see one of the mfa students during the wait and had a nice chat with him for a bit so the wait didn’t feel too bad. Eventually, the restaurant opened, and we went in and sat down. One of the owners took our food bags (Nick and Emie had bought some groceries during our wait, and I still had the cake), and stored them somewhere to give us more table room. We then had a very good and very long meal (I had some very good Gnocchi al ragú and some very weird potato thing). 

Gnocchi al ragú

We ended up seeing some other Accademia students come in, but by that time we were done, so we only chatted a bit with them before we left. We then retrieved our food bags and walked back up to the villa.

Ciao!