We drove about 45 minutes on crazy narrow winding roads high in the Tuscan hills to the major city in these parts, Arezzo, which has a large medieval center with huge museums, monuments, bell towers and of course, churches with major works of art, most notably frescoes by Piero della Francesca, the 15th century fresco painter who was born and lived in this area. Fun fact, Arezzo is also where the Oscar winning movie life is Beautiful was filmed.
The area was very well laid out for tourists. This time we parked outside the high city walls and took two escalators up the hill and through an opening in the wall to the tourist office, which sent us on our way with a good map and brochure in English.
First stop, the Basilica of San Francisco where the major della Francesca murals are floor to ceiling in the church nave behind the altar. The scenes of Romans converting to Christianity are very vivid and colorful. They feel almost contemporary. The panel depicting the “torture of the Jew” (Judas) was a little spooky. we walked awhile down below the famous buildings in the city shopping area, which is closed off to cars, with wide open passageways with trendy shops. A well-helped city.
Our lunch issue was solved by the discovery of a small Tuscan speciality food shop on Corso Italia where we picked up some prosciutto, salami, cheese and flat homemade rosemary crackers. Perfect for a picnic on a bench in the park surrounding the fortezza Medicea (fortress),., after walking through the beautiful 13th century main square Piazza grande, with its famous Logge Vasari, a long building built in 1573 with an arched passageway. then onto see the duomo., which has a Della Francesca fresco ( less Impressive than the San Francisco church.
This afternoon, we had our agritourismo to ourselves and lounged around the pool, surrounded on all sides by high wooded hills. It felt like we’d been air dropped into this little secluded clearing in the woods.
TakeBetsywithyou 