Friday morning I awoke refreshed, not so for my three roomates. All of whom had about 4 hours sleep and claimed they weren’t hungover, because they were still drunk! Anyways, we had a full schedule so there was no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We bought a 4 person ticket to cortona at the tabbachirri (sp?) and went to piazza giribaldi where the bus comes. On the first and third Friday of every month, the town has an open air market on Fridays from 10 to 12:30, so we walked around looking at cheeses, fresh fish, candy, flowers, fruits, shoes, scarves, clothes, rugs, jugs, and donald duck rain boots, that were all for sale. Since no one in italy works, the town market was packed! My favorite was the out of place old black guy who with an italian accent said “whats up my negro!” he must watch to much MTV. I also liked to cute little old lady with the ciggerete hanging out of her mouth, pushing what must have been her grandchild in a baby stroller. When the bus pulled up 8 of us climbed on (I think everyone else was mostly still asleep except for a group who went to florence). The bus ride to cortona was absolutly beautiful, if you’ll remember, the lady who wrote under the tuscan sun lived near cortona and that’s where the movie was shot! The city sits atop a very, very, very, tall hill, in kansas it would most definitly be a mountain. Because the hill was so tall, the road wound back and forth, serpintine like, all the way up to the piazza garibaldi (yea, they have one too, every town in italy has a piazza garibaldi, which usually acts as the bus stop) This winding motion of course reaked havoc on my three drunken roomates who up till now joked about hurling, but now they claimed the fun and games were over and they asked to borrow michelles purse! She smartly declined!
About 500 feet up the hill we drove passed a giant, but beautiful example of a centralized 4 nave plan christian church! I think it was something like santa maria di castilini or something. I don’t think its any longer in use, mostly because there were like 25 churches near the top and no one wants to walk down to it. When we arrived at the piazza we took on quick look out over the smoky valley, then went to go find a trattoria for some pizza (we were starved) We found one of the main street (via roma?) and I tried the one with ham, olives, artichokes, salami, and hot dogs! It was amazing of course, like everything here! While eating two old people approached us, apparently they were professors from the university of georgia (remember the bret guy I met on the plane, he said he was headed to live in cortona) and they said hi! After lunch, I decided I wasn’t about to waste my time with ditzy girls and hungover guys, so I went to the Museo de Diocesione, a small but awesome museum that boasts amoungst other things, the Annunciazone by Frau Angelico. Even though I had seen pictures of this painting a thousand times, you have to see it in real life. The light shining of the real gold leaf used on the angels wings was gorgeous. Above me was a wonderful coffered hand carved wood ceiling that was ripe with detail! The museum also had a bunch of works by the native cortanan, Luca Signorelli. My favorite works of his were compianto sul cristo morto, and comunione degli apostoli. Other great works were assunta con san giovanni battista e santa caterina di alessandria (unknown artist) and miracolo di san francesco da paola by francesco cappella detto il daggiu. After leaving I headed to the Museo dell’accademia etrusca (e della citta di cortona) or the Etruscan Museum. This museum is a world class museum built on old etruscan ruins filled with artifacts from the last 3 thousand years or more. It started off with great etruscan pottery, funerary urns, and gold ornaments. My favorite was the etruscan (etruscan is roman for land of the etrurians) floor mosaics, bronze chandelier, and the etruscan metal pieces of gazels head that adorned a large tripodal pot used for cooking meat at sacred functions. Going up to the second floor, I came across the collections of early roman, imperial roman, and early and middle christian objects. The main hall was full of roman statues, metal objects like spears, figurines, jelewery, clothes pins, as well as glass perfume jars and lots of pottery. Around the roman collection on the walls were christian paintings, including a few more by luca signorelli. The room off of that had 2 giant globes, one of the known world in 1703 (where california was shown as an island that was about 500 miles away from florida! And the other was a globe of the constellations, showing the crab fight the bear and the bull fighting the human and all sorts of really cool illustrations.) sorrounding the globes on the walls were marble busts. Other rooms on this floor contained a giant ancient coin collection (supercool) a large ceramic center piece by the medici’s in florence who gave it to the town of cortona as a gift, a collection of roman medallions, and rings and seals (for offical roman business). My favorites on this floor also include a wonderful painting on slate called la musa polimnia (unkown but amazing!) a chinese ivory chess set that was very intricate and reminded me of the characters from lord of the rings, old medivel weapons and swords, and a medival strong box that was ingeniously engineered with 15 locks! The third floor of the musuem had a nice little egyptian collection with a few mummies, sarcophogi, pottery, idols called usapti (they help you in the afterlife) little model boats and funerary cones and some bead work. The pypurus pages from the book of the dead were really cool as well. And at the top of the building was a giant 3 color marble bust that guards the way to the originale library for the accademia Etrusca from the mid 1800’s. (check out the museum at www.cortonamaec.org) I should also mention, the entire day I spent in both museums I saw no one! I had both museums completely to my self, it like walking around the louvre unfettered! Wow! And I should also mention this might have something to do with the fact I could see my breath in both museums, talk about cold!)
After the self guided museum tours. I walked around and found a great leather store I might go back to if I decide to by gifts, and a neat art store that had an old etruscan well inside full of gold fish (pretty cool actually). afert wandering around I met the guys at the piazza for our 17:50 bus back home!
Ciao for Now!
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