Cortona, Italy

After my parents left, I gave Michael the tour of Florence. A trip to Tuscany wouldn’t complete without a trip to a Tuscan village of course, so the next day we made our way to Cortona. Cortona is actually the village that inspired the chick flick Under the Tuscan Sun. Now to be honest, I have no idea what happens in the movie. I assume it involves a woman finding herself after a bad divorce and/or death in the family and there’s probably some steamy chemistry between her and some Italian who speaks unusually good English (clearly this would be fiction).

But what I do know is that Cortona is a relaxing day trip away from the bustle of city life. Great restaurants, incredible views, and seemingly less packed than other Tuscan villages like Assisi. There was no better way to end my last day in Italy. The only… hm, glitch was that the bus service running from the train station to the town was out of service on Sundays. Which meant hiking from the bottom of the hill (BIG EFFING HILL) up to the town. And just because we felt like it, we hiked our way up to the highest point in the village. In retrospect, a bit of a suicide mission, but nothing gets in the way of me and a great viewing point. Well worth the painful blisters that would manifest later in the week.

From this point on, my blog posts will covering the high (and low) lights of my respective European adventures. Backpacking was a great way of seeing a lot of Europe in a relatively condensed time period. The only issue when blogging my travels is of course how long it takes to fully encapsulate a journey. And because I don’t have the time/will power at this point my life to write an entire novel, I believe these more short form recaps should get the job done! Hope you enjoy!