Another room with a view in Cortona

 Let's face it. I came to Cortona intrigued by the book and movie Under the Tuscan Sun. I had passed by it in 2004 and 2008 on my way to Assisi and was also intrigued by Rick Steves' commentaries on Cortona. I'm staying in another Casa per Ferie, or pilgrims' hostel: Casa Betania, once a convent, now the aging nuns are next door in a smaller house. This place is set up for classes and conferences and in fact there is a painting class going on right now. Most seem to be German.

The first picture is the town hall where I encountered a wedding party - seems to be a theme on Saturday evenings - as happened to me in Albi. Here they stayed to celebrate around the Cortona town square, as I checked out the town. First I found a long line at the Dolce Vita gelateria so I decided it must be good. It was. I was surprised to hear so much English, but I guess I shouldn't have been with popularity of the book, etc. 

The second picture was from my room at Casa Betania. I had quite an adventure getting there on a Sat. afternoon. I could not make sense of the bus schedule so I called the Casa. They ordered a taxi (after 2 other tries as I listened on a line costing me $1.29/min). The bus came but I didn't want to leave if the taxi had been ordered. Then the taxi never came. A really old man arrived in a large car and looked around so I asked him in broken Italian if he was the taxi we had called. He said he wasn't but (I thought he said) he often came to check if people needed rides. I called the Casa back to say the taxi hadn't come & had the woman speak to the man. So he agreed to take me. I still don't know if he worked as a taxi driver, but I arrived!