Popes and Pizza

Cortona - No, I did not stalk Frances Mayes...

So, having read the whole Under the Tuscan Sun series, Cortona was on my must-see-in-Tuscany list. And fair enough, Frances, it's darling! What a cute town. We sat on the church steps in the main piazza, wandered the morning market, and got ourselves the best roast pig sandwiches (ever!) for lunch. (Check out the butcher - as if he was cast for the part!) And then the rain started. Not little rain. Big cracks of thunder kind of rain. We found some cover and ate our sandwiches then put up our hoods (we live in Oregon - of course we have hoods) and wandered a bit more. I did not see Ms. Mayes, or Bramasole, but even in the rain, I did love Cortona.

Our Castle

Ok, sorry, there are a lot of photos. But this was our castle! Todd asked if I wanted us to stay somewhere central or in a castle. I picked castle. It was definitely out of the way and ugh, I hated the twisty narrow roads, but it was worth it. And we were the only guests!! Todd was King of the Castle.
The caretaker gave us a bit of a tour (and then she left us) of the salon rooms, courtyard, gardens and old olive and wine presses. So very cool. She only spoke Italian, so we couldn't understand many of the details (dates, etc) but we got the gist of things.
Yep. We had our very own castle.