Arezzo & Cortona “”under the Tuscan sun”

Arezzo & Cortona “”under the Tuscan sun”

A professional authorized English speaking driver with a luxury vehicle will pick you up from your Hotel, apartment, Villa, and driven away along winding, vineyard-filled, olive groves fields roads from Florence to Arezzo , a hilltop medieval city perched above four sun-drenched valleys.

Amazing landscape, ancient walls, and quaint streets are so typically Tuscan, that Arezzo served as the setting for Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-award winning film “Life is Beautiful“.

Arezzo is the birthplace of Renaissance artist and architect Giorgio Vasari, patron of the Medici family who created many recognizable architectural and artistic Renaissance masterpieces.

Is possible to see roman churches as Vasari House Museum

Suggested is a visit to the Basilica of San Francesco (dedicated to patron saint St. Francis of Assisi) which houses the restored Piero della Francesca Legend of the True Cross fresco cicle.

Arezzo is considered the second most important area of production of gold art and Italian jewelry. Along the streets of the center you will meet several artisans jewelers.

After Arezzo, yuo will admire the Etruscan town of Cortona, another jewel on top of the hill highlighted in the bestseller by Frances Mayes and in the book inspired film Under the Tuscan Sun in which Diane Lane lives her adventure at Casa Bramasole. From above you’ll explore the steep, narrow streets bustling with small shops and locals, where you can test typical Tuscan food and the famous wine Syrah Cortona produced in the area.

It is possible to visit a tiny but important Etruscan museum The MAEC, where is possible to admire “Tabula Cortonensis“, a bronze sheet with one of the longest inscriptions ever found in the Etruscan language and ancient artifacts of three millennia, so you will enjoy a dip in the origins of European culture.

In the Diocesan Museum in front of the Cathedral of Cortona some works by Luca Signorelli are preserved. Signorelli was one of the most important artists of the Renaissance, contemporary of Michelangelo, and was born and lived in Cortona.

The beautiful landscape overlooking the famed Val di Chiana and Trasimeno Lake, where Hannibal ambushed the Romans in the Punic Wars, are simply unparalleled.