Cortona

I didn't think it was possible, but dare I say the view from Cortona is better than Assisi?

Ma dai! / Come on!

A lovely park nearby where there was a music and food truck festival happening the first few nights of our stay.

Like Assisi Cortona is a hill town, and in both we happened to be staying towards the bottom of the city, so everywhere we went was up. One day we walked all the way up through town and then kept going along the ridge and up another big hill/small mountain for a great hike up in the hills overlooking Cortona.

We passed this adorable little town, Torreone, on the way that had a single cafe/pizzeria.

We decided this view was sufficient for enjoying our lunch before heading back down. We made my favorite sandwich: roasted peppers with pesto, lettuce, and fresh (semi-stagionato) pecorino toscano cheese. After trying about a dozen different pecorinos I think aged 6 months is my favorite.

This was our little patio in a shared courtyard with the nearby buildings. I got to eavesdrop on lots of phone calls while I worked as people love to lean out their windows while on the phone. The Italians gossiped while the Americans filed formal complaints about various grievances.

The main piazza, always bustling during mealtimes.

Sadly, there were very few cats in Cortona and the ones we did find were a bit aloof.

There are no shortage of bag shops.

The fruit and cheese here is incredible. I have gotten in the habit of having a daily late afternoon snack accompanied by a small glass of wine.

We love Mexican food and make it regularly at home, but we've been missing it here in Italy. There's a decent number of sushi/poke shops in the bigger cities, but also no mexican. This was our first attempt at making Tuscan nachos. We have been dreaming up great Mexitaly dishes for our imaginary fusion restaurant ever since. 

Ma dai!

Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed in Cortona and villa pictured above is the one the book was written about. It was about a half hour walk from our place and was absolutely gorgeous. I see why they renovated another one nearby to make the movie (which apparently is very different from the book). They were clearly having lunch when we stopped by and it took all my strength not to ring the bell.

A sunset walk to dinner one evening.

Our destination, a beautifully agriturismo restaurant. 

They had a 5-course vegetarian tasting menu, which might be the best tasting menu we've ever had. This dish was raw red onion, with zucchini flowers and a cheese and pepper sauce that the chef spooned over it at the table. I (Tristan here) was very hesitant to eat raw onion, but it was incredible. 

Enjoying a lunchtime hike through an olive and cypress tree grove.

One of our many homemade pasta dinners with caprese salad. We can't get over how good and how cheap the food is here. The fanciest buffalo mozzarella we can buy costs less than half what it would in America.. that is if you can even find the good stuff back home. 

Even the seeded grapes have grown on me so much that I scoff at the thought of seedless.

We had a wonderful week in Cortona. We were fully recovered with both our taste and strength fully back which was perfect timing as there were many great restaurants and hikes to be had. While we were there we couldn't help but to compare Assisi to Cortona. The view from Cortona was somehow better, but Assisi itself was a more picturesque town. Despite being smaller Cortona had more fancy restaurants but also by far the most Americans we had encountered all trip so far. We went on some amazing hikes in Cortona but it's tough to say how Assisi's might have compared as we were still recovering our taste the first few days. While Assisi had beautiful churches, Cortona had lots of great free art including a Dali print and sculpture exhibit. Assisi had way more cats, that were almost all very friendly, but Cortona had cats napping in churches. I think it's a toss up that might be swayed one way or another by how you feel about cats or tourists :)