Cortona - a beautiful walled city clinging to the side of a hill that looms over my farmhouse. The culture vulture in me obviously had to visit it.
After some faintly alarming hairpin turns and negotiating drivers clearly as confused as I was about the correct side of the road despite they being resident and me being a lowly tourist I made it to the gates. The Lancia was abandoned and I proceeded by foot, cheap flip-flops failing to make much of an impact in the "stop the cobbled streets hurting my feet" stakes.
Yes, it is a beautiful place. Yes, the guide book lied when it claimed the church at the top of the town is accessable via a short walk up a hill. It should say "There'll be a fuck of a steep mountainside to climb, and half way up you'll wish you were dead. Nice bar at the top though."
A bit like Mont Blanc, which also features a bar at the peak.
The landlady at the bar was in that meditteranean transition phase where lithe young women transform into wizened old ladies seemingly overnight. Usually as soon as the wedding ring goes on the finger - some sort of rip-cord gets pulled on the wedding night and the groom is in for a shock in the morning.
Nice beer though.
One thing did strike me as odd (well, aside from the giant watermelon slice in the photo above) was the content of the plethora of souvenir shops that festooned the town. Rather than the usual "Someone went to Cortona and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" type of thing there were Popeye t-shirts. Why would you go to Italy and come back with a Popeye t-shirt?
