entry numero due
wherein i get a bit of the frances mayes disease. really - it's full blown later on. oh dear.
April 24, 8:05 p.m.
Day 2 in Cortona. Tommy and I slept until 1:30 p.m., and I still don’t feel totally human. Jet lag is a biatch. A few friends left around noon to head to Florence to pick up Linda from the airport; Jamie, Teresa and Becca went into Cortona a bit after, and Tommy and I headed in ourselves around 2:30, after I managed to take a flood-inducing shower, which ruined the bathroom, the hallway, and part of a bedroom. Genuis I am. None of the bathrooms in the shower (or most places in Italy for some reason) have doors or curtains, and I just don’t get it. A popular style of bathroom is the one where the showerhead is in the corner. And that’s it. Maybe a corner of raised tile to indicate where you should stand, and a drain, but fuck all else - what the hell? Italians are a notoriously fussy people so I don’t understand how they don’t mind making a ginormous flood everywhere and getting absolutely everything in the bathroom soaking wet.
Anyway, our villa is pretty - high ceilings, wood beams, stone floors and exterior, lots of rustic-looking furniture (not to mention about TWENTY didgeridoos - really, what the fuck?) but it’s FUCKING cold for some bizarre reason. Probably to do with the stone and ancient ghosts. It’s also down an extremely steep hill, which can make maneuvering in our stick shift cars fairly difficult. Haha, I mean, for the goddesses who can drive stick, Jamie, Sara and Julie, it makes it difficult for them. The rest of us just lounge in the backseat eating grapes, and occasionally getting out to push the car up a hill - I kid you not. We have yet to train the wild hearts of our tiny european cars, but I don’t doubt they’ll be pistol whipped by the end of the trip.
Today Tommy and I walked into town - we had meant to go in the morning for cappuccinos and brioche (italian term for croissants), but the whole sleeping in until 1:30 p.m. thing kind of put an end to that idea. (For those who care, it is fairly gauche to order a cappuccino after 10 a.m. or so, and I am nothing if not a slave to my desire to fit in with Italians.) Instead we made a plate of mozzarella, parmesan, and salami, along with some white tuscan beans with olive oil, and drank a few caffes. Past lunch we hiked the 40 minutes or so into town - it takes a while but it’s a lovely walk (you pass a small open chapel built into the stone wall, circa 16something, and several old-looking quaint villas). It has an incredible view of the Val di Chiana, with its steep, green terraced hills, which are criss-crossed with ancient stone walls. Cortona is officially in Tuscany - just barely - but it’s very close to the border of Umbria, and instead of the smooth, neat vineyards and polished wheat-colored hills you see in Tuscany, the land here is much greener and wilder - overgrown, really, and not nearly as welcoming, but much more intriguing.
In town, Tommy and I had ANOTHER caffe (I was practically buzzing at this point, but you must make jet lag your bitch!), and then, without a set agenda, we wandered into Café La Saletta, where we split a quarter liter of a “super tuscan wine” - a full-bodied and slightly sweet sangiovese. Afterwards we met up with Jamie, Teresa and Becca, and we all went to another small café, where we shared a bottle of house red and snacked on the most amazing bruschetta - thick, thick crusty bread with oil, garlic, mountains of diced tomatoes and mozzarella. We walked around a bit more, exploring the two main squares of Cortona. The squares in this town are odd - normally piazzas are regularly-shaped and harmonious squares bordered by impressive buildings and or a church (except of course in Siena, with its famous shell-shaped and slanting piazza, oh my god I just said “except of course in Siena” like some 80 year old British travel guide lady, god help me now). Cortona’s two squares are, well, weird - they’re kind of uneven, and joined by a tiny sloping path, and in general they’re very small and not too perfectly square, but they seem to make sense anyways.
We ran into a takeaway pizza place for dinner, then, of course, hit up Gelateria Snoopy - so close to my heart. I fucking loved this place. I have eaten gelato, a hell of a lot of gelato, in my time, and this place is pretty damn good for some random Tuscan town. Yogurt gelato, mmm. No one except me likes yogurt gelato, but is SO DELICIOUS. Yogurt gelato + berry gelato, or hazelnut gelato - multiple gelato orgasms you have, right there. Anyway, post pizza and gelato gorging, Tommy and I walked home, stuffed and tired, carrying a bag of groceries and two bottles of wine (everybody’s “homework” for the day, as assigned by Tommy, was to bring home a bottle of wine). And so the evening began.
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