Arezzo e Cortona

Alright...it has been a while so let's get caught up.
Two weekends ago I had yet another romantic Tuscan excursion with the girls. On Saturday we hit up Arezzo and Cortona. First, I had stumbled upon these awesome plane tickets to Paris for like 50 euro the night before, so once we got to Arezzo we were on the prowl for the internet. We found this old library, hiked up a few flights of stairs, and BAM the internet. I had to fill out some sketchy paper work, and of course it was me, I'm the only one who gets things done around here. Then we had to wait for an open computer forever, but we bought our tickets to Paris!!!I am so unbelievably excited. Here are from left to right...Anna, Shannon, and Autumn buying their tickets!After purchasing tickets we ran to some park overlooking Tuscany and celebrated the joys of life.

Arezzo was pretty sweet. This is where they filmed It's a Beautiful Life. My favorite part was the Medici fortress on the top of the mountain and this beautiful park that surrounds it. We wandered through the fortress and ended up on top of it. There was some sort of field on top and Anna and I decided it would be an appropriate place to play cricket in a Jane Austen book. She is currently reading my falling apart copy of Pride and Prejudice and I'm on Mansfield Park. I thought walking through the fortress was scary until I saw what was down below...this creepy graveyard/mausoleum. There are like millions of people buried on top of each other.

Next stop was Cortona. We all decided we should drop out of life and live here. From the train you have to take a bus to the city on top of the mountain. Views of Tuscany here are absolutely amazing. We took some sort of hike on accident through people's yards and then happened upon the main cathedral on the tippy top of the mountain. The inside of this cathedral looked like a circus tent to me. This is just one of many houses that I loved.
If only there wasn't a crane in like every picture I took.
So basically Saturday was an adventure, wandering through forests, parks, and old buildings.

Fiasco of the Day: So basically on all these trips I am somehow in charge and figuring out what to do is close to impossible. While the public transportation system here is awesome and can get you anywhere, actually figuring out times and places is close to impossible, especially with my Italian. However, this results in a carefree, roll with the punches kind of lifestyle that I enjoy.
We've started compiling a list of people who have saved our lives here. Saturday was a big day for this list. I'd like to thank: The Americans at the Cortona bus station, we had no idea how to get on top of the mountain. The bus driver who let us ride his bus for free AND the amazing lady at the Tourist Info desk who helped us get home that night. I would probably still be at the Cortona bus station if it weren't for all of them.