Italy, Day 5

We took the bus to the little town of Cortona.  

It was a much more relaxing day than Florence.  We had the day to ourselves to explore and shop.

Our first stop was for a cup of coffee.  We sat outside and enjoyed people watching!  Most restaurants have outside seating and the weather was gorgeous.

There were some delicious looking pastries inside but we had just had breakfast and weren't hungry.

We used the bathroom inside.  It was nice to be able to use a bathroom without having to pay!  Interesting sign above the toilet.  Men and women share a bathroom.  Weird!

Cortona is WAY up on a hill!  Because of our friend Linda's inability to walk the hill going up to the city, our tour director arranged a cab for our group of 5.  That was really nice!  Once we got to the top of the hill, which is the main part of the city, it was pretty flat with little alleyways going uphill and downhill to more shops and restaurants as you can see in these pictures.

This is the main flat area in Cortona.

This is a city building in the main area.  We saw a couple of wedding parties on the steps.

Some of the side streets or alleyways.

Little markets along the way too.

Here's where the hills and stairs come in.

This is why we didn't see any overweight Italians!

Another beautiful door.  I found many in Italy.

I was too busy exploring to eat lunch so I grabbed some more gelato and kept walking.  You use the wafer cookies to scoop up the melting gelato.

I walked to this beautiful church.  It doesn't look like much outside but the inside is beautiful.

I sat on a bench across from the church and ate my gelato before going inside the church.  The views were spectacular.

I bought Emma Taylor a silver bracelet at this little shop.  It was tiny, as are most shops in Italy.  Most are very specialized.

This curved brick wall was interesting!  The woman in all black is the lady who helped me.  She and her husband owned the shop.  She was American and it was a bonus that she spoke English!  She was married to an Italian and had lived in Italy 15 years.  She was very sweet.

The cab took us back down the hill while we waited for the rest of the group.

Our bus driver Claudio, Italian tour director Sandra and Holiday Vacations tour director James.

We boarded the bus and headed back to our hotel.  Some beautiful views along the way.

Actually everywhere in Italy was a beautiful view!

We freshened up and met in the bar area for a glass of wine before dinner.

We walked to the restaurant at the inn.

We had a vegetable quiche appetizer.  It was very tasty.

Spinach lasagna and noodles/spaghetti.

Several kinds of meat.

Then salad.  The order of food is so different!

Raspberry tiramisu for dessert.

A beautiful sunset from the restaurant.

This was one of my favorite days in Italy!