Episode 04: Cortona, Tuscany...... ‘Terrible Ideas, hmmm don't you just love those’ ..... (Under The Tuscan Sun - Film)
Welcome to Episode #4: Cortona, Tuscany and Chapter 3 of my book share............... In the Shadow of a Cypress: An Italian Adventure.
Cortona is a little gem of a hilltop town an hour away from Florence over towards the Eastern side of Tuscany. Once upon a time it went relatively unnoticed by the swarms of tourists that headed straight to Rome, Florence, Venice and Assisi, but not so much any more. For the dreamers (like I) and the romantics out there it is now somewhat a pilgrimage place now since the film film Under The Tuscan Sun came to life.
When I made the decision to go and visit it wasn't until I was there I realised that after twenty or so years of reading and listening to the books lovingly written by Frances Mayes and her husband Edward Mayes that I realised it sort of meant a lot to me to visit and explore this little medieval jewel in Tuscany.
And so the chapter on Cortona is very much one of my favourites in the book share because it was not only wonderful to be there, really there…I had some serious adventures in the process. A lot of happy synchronicity you could say. Sometimes I am a little bit of a clumsy traveler just turning up, just seeing what happens. Well it turns out a lot can happen in one day.
The simplicity of the architecture is all here in Cortona / Michelle Johnston
When I was about 22 I purchased the book Under The Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes in a quaint little bookshop near Bondi Beach. I was young and not quite renovating houses at the time, but later the book would ignite something within me. By that time I had become a mother and a wife and we had a daughter aged three. We moved to Canberra from Sydney in the Australian capital away from family and close friends, we started everything again. The house became the pillar of what was possible. We never had any real money so it was just surface stuff, plants and painting walls, giving old furniture a touch up with a coat of varnish or a hit of chalk white paint. I would sit in the wicker chair, foraged off the side of the road of course on a summer days with an afternoon coffee. The book captured something in me. It gave me a piece of Italy, not only the location of Tuscany but the way of life. Something about the seasons and the foundation of la familglia resonated and provided the space for an expanded way of doing things.
I am mad for the cypress and the scenery here was life affirming / Michelle Johnston
The funny thing is on a more recent note, Mum and I went to Paris and London a few months ago. And all I really wanted to do was go back to Cortona, Tuscany, or anywhere in Italy for that matter. This seemed ridiculous because I had never been to Scotland nor London for that matter but Italy was beckoning once again. I didn't get there then, but the siren call is deafening, so next fingers crossed for next time. Definitely a case of meet you in the piazza!!!!
Show Notes:
Under The Tuscan Sun - Film 2003
Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy by Frances Mayes
In Tuscany by Frances Mayes, with Edward Mayes
Woman on the Verge - The Subject Is Herself by Michelle Johnston (yes this is still available to buy)........ and is a colourful coffee table book of creativity and magic
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Under the Tuscan Sun Cookbook - Recipes from our Italian Kitchen by Frances Mayes and Edward Mayes
The colours of Italy continue to delight and inspire / Michelle Johnston
How dog eared is this copy? I still love it now more than twenty years later. I wonder what captured me on that day in the bookstore at Bondi? I read Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy a week later on train trip into the countryside, I was living near the beach then…. It was a few years later that something true began to materialise in my way of life and has continued up until this day. And still on the cover is a scene I believe from Siena, Toscana. I guess it worked its magic, it is a beautiful scene of Italy after all….