{"id":2635,"date":"2015-05-20T04:03:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T02:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cortonamia.com\/en\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:53:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:53:00","slug":"cortona-best-tuscan-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cortonamia.com\/en\/cortona-best-tuscan-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortona &#8211; Best for Tuscan life"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"et_pb_section_0 et_pb_section et_section_regular et_block_section\"><div class=\"et_pb_row_0 et_pb_row et_block_row\"><div class=\"et_pb_column_0 et_pb_column et_pb_column_4_4 et-last-child et_block_column et_pb_css_mix_blend_mode_passthrough\"><div class=\"et_pb_text_0 et_pb_text et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_module et_block_module et_pb_text_align_left preset--module--divi-text--default\"><div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\"><h3>European travel: A grand tour of Italy<\/h3>\n<h3>From \u201cHerald Sun\u201d Magazine<\/h3>\n<p>Beyond olive groves and vineyards, tall pines stretch graciously across the plains. Swallows swirl over red-tiled rooftops, church towers vie with cypresses as focal points, and broad fields merge into a misty blue horizon of hills.<\/p>\n<p>A Grand Tourist would have been enchanted by the sweeping panoramas on offer from almost every corner of Cortona. They might have come here as a relaxing break from the cosmopolitan culture of Florence, if they'd done their homework - in 1502, Leonardo da Vinci sketched this little Tuscan town as a sepia cluster of hilltop houses, combining urban and rural charm in a way that survives to this day.<\/p>\n<p>\"The town has such dignity in its architecture that it makes you want to stand up straight when you walk through it,'' says Frances Mayes, the American author who helped put Cortona on the map with her best-selling memoir Under the Tuscan Sun. The book - translated into 46 languages and made into a major film in 2003 - describes the restoration of her pink-and-apricot 18th-century villa, called Bramasole (\"Yearning for the sun'').<\/p>\n<p>She discovered the house more than 20 years ago, \"abandoned since World War II, full of spiders and old newspapers''. And she set out to rescue it. \"This house is only a baby in Italian terms - only 270 years old,'' she says.<\/p>\n<p>\"Our neighbour's house is 1000 years old.''<\/p>\n<p>Back in the town's central piazza, the cafe tables and chairs that spill on to the sun-warmed flagstones are filling.<\/p>\n<p>\"Life revolves around the piazza,'' says Frances, a local celebrity. A Cortona jeweller confides: \"If she crosses the square, people attack her.'' His wife comes to his linguistic assistance. \"No, no, darling. Not attack. They applaud!''<\/p>\n<p>A latecomer opens the door of the town's cathedral and music floods into the square. Inside, flanked by confession boxes, an organist is thundering out the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni: a libertine with more to confess than most.<\/p>\n<p>Later, a busking jazz band will strike up and push on towards midnight. No one seems overly worried about rushing home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"et_pb_module et_pb_button_module_wrapper et_pb_button_0_wrapper\"><a class=\"et_pb_button_0 et_pb_button et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_module et_block_module\" href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com.au\/travel\/european-travel-a-grand-tour-of-italy\/story-fnjjuxvu-1226751394371\" target=\"_blank\">Source <\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[70,16,71],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-in-english","tag-best-for-living","tag-cortona","tag-italy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cortona - Best for Tuscan life - Cortona Mia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cortonamia.com\/en\/cortona-best-tuscan-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cortona - Best for Tuscan life - Cortona Mia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.cortonamia.com\/en\/cortona-best-tuscan-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cortona Mia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-20T02:03:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-12T17:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.cortonamia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/panorama-da-cortona-4.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1049\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cortona Mia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cortona Mia\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cortonamia.com\\\/en\\\/cortona-best-tuscan-life\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cortonamia.com\\\/en\\\/cortona-best-tuscan-life\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cortona Mia\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.cortonamia.com\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e22f58c77c4c115bfd5f0c814f1de54d\"},\"headline\":\"Cortona &#8211; 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