Italy Travel Tours

Posts Tagged ‘Cortona’

Many Northern Italian Tours are best experienced with the whole family.  Children over the age of 5 will remember more than you think after this grand adventure through one of the world’s best regions.

You can begin your trip in the village of Cortona, the setting for the best-selling novel Under the Tuscan Sun.  Take the scenic road numbered SS71 north to Arezzo.  Be sure to bring your camera because this road is classic and quintessential Tuscany.

Arezzo is chock full of ancient art and frescoes by Piero della Francesca.  Movie buffs will also recognize some of the street scenes from the Academy-Award winning film Life is Beautiful.   If you time your trip right, your children will delight in the medieval joust that occurs during the Street Fairs on the first Sunday of each month.

The next day consider the old tunnels in Orvieto, a small hilltop city that is lit with spotlights at night.  The food is very special there and there is a wine by the same name.  Visit the toy stores with colorful puppets, and get ready for the requests.  Your children will surely ask to take one home.   After lunch you can visit the Etruscan Tombs.  Don’t worry, there’s nothing scary, but it’s an impressive place from an urban engineering standpoint.

Make your way to the Parco Naturale della Maremma to see white cattle and wild horses.  Have your camera ready to spot a wild boar.  Your tour guide will arrange a guided horseback ride in the early evening.

One cannot travel to Italy without seeing the famous Leaning Tower in Pisa.  The entire family, including children over the age of 8, are welcomed to climb inside to the top.  As famous as this is, you needn’t budget more than a half day in Pisa.

There is much to explore with Northern Italian Tours, and the best way to do that is with your family.

Read here about Northern Italy Travel with Kids

Here is another post about Northern Italy Tours

Your Italy Travel Tours can follow the path of a best-selling novel by American writer Frances Mayes.  Mayes is best known for her book Under the Tuscan Sun, an adventure of renewal and rebirth experienced in Tuscany after the author’s divorce from her husband.  Many Americans seek to retrace the steps taken by Mayes on this important period of her life.

Ask your tour guide to pick you up at your hotel in Florence and to drive you to Cortona which is a little city in central Italy, high atop a hill overlooking Lake Trasimeno.  The walls of this ancient city are estimated to be 3,000 years old.

After a series of wars against Rome in 300 B.C., Cortona was destroyed and later rebuilt.  By the 14th century it became part of Tuscany and it gave birth to several Italian historical figures: Luca Signorelli the painter, Brother Elias- companion to St. Francis of Assisi, and Cardinal Egidio Boni.

Once you have absorbed the splendor and history of Cortona, it is time to explore Lake Trasimeno.  With a surface area of 79 miles, it is larger than Lake Como, though the latter is more famous.

Separated by hills from the Tiber River, the lake is ringed by bucolic little villages.  History buffs will delight in the ancient history of this body of water.  There was a Battle of Lake Trasimeno in 217 B.C.  that puzzles historians to this day.  They’re not certain exactly where it took place because the lake was larger at that time.

Legend has it that the golden chariot of Flaminio lies at the bottom of this very deep lake.  Don’t be disappointed if you can’t find the chariot on your trip.  The many olive groves and vineyards that dot the lake will enchant you and provide beautiful photo opportunities on your vacation with Italy Travel Tours.

Good Italy vacation tours will help you determine your priorities so you can make the most of your time there. Italy has 20 regions and unless you have six months of travel time you won’t see everything in your first trip, which isn’t a bad thing because we can all use an excuse to return to Italy.

Tuscany is the region everyone has heard about and everyone wants to visit. The Renaissance was born here, it is the home of Chianti wine and Michelangelo spent time here. Tuscany is not particularly large and it is not served well by public transportation. A car and tour guide are indispensable in any area of Italy outside of Rome.

You can drive from the north of Tuscany to the south in three hours on the highway but you would miss the beauty of the region. The back roads are the way to go to really enjoy the spirit of any region of Italy and Tuscany is no exception.

Many travelers begin their vacation in either Florence or Pisa after arriving by plane in Rome or Milan. Some American airlines now have direct flights from the east coast to Pisa or Florence, eliminating interim train travel from Rome and Milan.

If crowds and long lines and high prices are an issue for you, avoid the peak season of July and August if you can. Instead, consider spring or fall for your visit. The weather is still attractive, the prices are better and massive crowds have dispersed.

If you’re traveling with your entire family, watch for festival schedules. Italy offers unique opportunities for children they can’t find in the States. Bring your camera to take photos of the kids watching “knights” on horseback in Arezzo, or they might smash nuts in Cortona.

Big or small, spring or fall, Italy vacation tours can help you experience the best that country has to offer.

As we publish this article on Christmas Eve we wish all of our readers the very Merriest of Christmases and to all a prosperous and wonderful New Year.

This is the best time of the year to make your travel arrangements for your next vacation to Italy.

Contact: Tuscany with Me to plan now for the vacation of a lifetime!

New in Tuscany Italy travel this year is the range of options in accommodations and a reduced price structure.  The global recession hasn’t stopped restaurants and museums in Italy from increasing their prices a little.

However the hospitality industry has responded by dropping their rates.  There have never been more options for tourists hoping to discover this destination admired the world over.

Here are some of the highlights of Tuscany for today’s traveler.  First of all, the ancient town of Assisi is recovered from the earthquake that decimated it in 1989.  Tourists are hard-pressed to see signs of the disaster.  The cathedral and fortress had final repairs in 2006.  Assisi remains a top choice for religious Pilgrims hoping to see St. Francis’s birth place.

There are exciting things happening in Cortona, including the Museo dell’ Accademia Estrusca and the church of San Francesco.  The museum now has some of the relics which were removed from the facility years ago.

Livorno has a spectacular waterfront area which has just been overhauled to resemble Nice or Cannes.  Buses will take you to the waterfront on the southern shore as it is a bit of a haul for pedestrians, and it is known for its fine seafood restaurants.

One of the best kept secrets of Tuscany is Lucca, a favorite among the tour guides themselves.  The Puccini Festival offers an opera concert every night in San Giovanni.

Montepulciano capitalizes on the wine industry.  Many of the locals will put you up in their apartments. A professional tour guide will bring you right to the wineries.  You will find a delightful choice in tour guides by visiting the website of the sponsor of this Blog, “Tour Tuscany with Me”.

Of course there is Pisa and its famous leaning Tower.  The hotel industry here has suffered from the recession and has responded by luring Delta Airlines to provide a non-stop flight from New York.

Even if you’ve been to this region before, Tuscany Italy travel has many updates for new memories.