Cortona e Pienza

Cortona is a beautiful city. We arrived around 10:30 in the morning and there was almost no one in the street. Then we walked through the main Piazza and there was an adorable market going on. People were selling all kinds of old things, I wouldn't call them all antiques though...One guy just had a bunch of old rusted keys, which I actually found really interesting. There were a lot of old Italian books, and old jewelry, and one bizarre stand with what looked like Tibetan and Buddhist things. Didn't think I would see a lot of that in Italy.

Cortona, like many other Tuscan cities is built on a hill. At the top of this particular hill is the Church of Santa Margherita, the patron saint of Cortona. So we climbed through the town just to go see he tiny church The view was spectacular, the whole Tuscan countryside, including Lake Trasemineo, was layed out before me. Into the church we went...and we found Santa Margherita's mummified body. There she was, teeny-tiny, wrapped in very old clothing, rotting away for all to see. I just don't understand. I don't know if it is an Italian thing, or a Catholic thing, but they really like having people's rotting corpses around and on display. We climbed back down into the city and were on to Pienza.

Now, the Italians call Pienza a city. But, the Italian definition of city is any place with its own town hall. By my standards Pienza is not a city. It is barely a town. There is one piazza and one main street, with very tiny little alleys branching off. When I say tiny, I mean tiny...like the size of my driveway, but narrower. Pienza is famous for perorino cheese and as soon as we got out of the car we could smell it. But it was a charming little town, a fine place to spend an hour walking or relaxing.