Saturday in Cortona

Saturday is market day in Cortona, so we just spent the day here shopping and exploring. The selection of fresh fish, cheese, meat, fruit and vegetables is wonderful, so we bought enough food to cook a few meals at home. We ordered our roasted chicken this morning at about 9, and will pick it up in time for lunch. And yes, he is cutting the parmigiano just for us…nothing prepackaged here!

After shopping, we decided to find the fairly new community pool. We were told to walk through the gardens, then head up the hill on the left when we got to the tennis courts. There is a beautiful war memorial statue of an angel holding a fallen soldier at the garden entrance. If you click on the picture, it should enlarge so you can see it better. I also like the cherub statue and thought of how long she has been there for people to admire.

The lovely gardens, we discovered, are quite long and mostly empty, and provide an excellent view of the valley and lake below. We really felt like we were on the road less travelled and we were right in Cortona! Along the way, we did encounter a few kids playing soccer, and as always, happy to pose for a photo. There was also another group of kids wanting to jump in and help the fountain cleaner. A lot of city cleaning happens on Saturday…must be time and a half!

After walking for about 30 minutes, we finally discovered the tennis club. A pro was giving a group lesson…go, go, vai, vai, he kept shouting at the teens. Signs for the pool pointed to a pebbled road up above, so we continued our climb. There was some local controversy about building this pool – those who favored and those opposed, but in the end, it was built. Based on what we saw, those opposed need not have worried too much…it was entirely empty! Granted, today it is only about 73, the coolest since we have been here, but one does wonder about the choice of location. At any rate, it’s a large and beautiful pool, with amazing vistas all around, and we were glad to have found it.

We had fun reading the pool rules. #5 reads: “The stuff can send away the people who don’t follow the rules.”…funny what a vowel can do! Finally, I had to include a picture of this tree. It reminds me of the one in the Wizard of Oz that threw apples at Dorothy. We didn’t dare climb the inviting limbs!

Ciao,

Judy