Cortona and Perugia!

We drove to Cortona Saturday afternoon... after our bags finally arrived. YAY!!! It took about an hour and a half. The drive was beautiful... rolling hills dotted with cypress trees, towns perched on top and the best part is that the sun seems to turn everything gold... it is absolutely stunning.

First we had to find our hotel... which I believe would have been a very frustrating procees if we had not had a GPS in our car. The only difficult part about finding our hotel... Casa di Betania... was getting down the steep narrow driveway. It is surprising that our tiny, yellow European car was able to navigate the hill! Once there we were delighted to find that the Rick Steve's guide was right again. Our room was 48 Euro and had just re-opened 2 weeks ago after rennovations. Everything was new and clean, the rooms definitely big by European standards and the view was amazing.... this morning after breakfast we went out on to the terrace to see the the valley below, hilltops and steeples peeking out through the fog. Before leaving we wandered over to the small art museum which has famous early Renaissance paintings by Fra Angelico.

We could have stayed longer but we were anxious to get on the road to Perugia... which is actually in the Umbria area... not Tuscany. The 2 cities a very different from one another. Cortona small and quaint. Perugia is much bigger, the streets narrower and steeper and the architecture much more grand. We only had a short time to meander throught the streets before we had to hurry back to Florence to return the car.

This definitely was a nice laid back start to our trip. Unfortunately... Jessica seems to be getting sick. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow. Tomorrow Mark and I will be on our own to explore Florence--or perhaps take a train to Seina. I suppose we'll see what we feel like doing tomorrow when we wake...