Cortona

February 9th, 2008

Dusk is settling in and I’ve got my window thrown wide open. It’s a little nippy outside, but still warm enough in my room with the heat going to keep the window open for just a little bit longer. I can smell the wood burning fires that most Cortoneans use to heat up their homes and I’m listening to a dozen different bells toll. I’ve heard that the day you don’t notice the bells ring is when you know that you’ve been in Cortona for a long time. This is Cortona – a tiny little town, much too small according to a guy named Mario whom I met today while wandering the streets. It sits on the very top of a mountain, surrounded by old city walls and overlooking a breathtaking view of valleys and very distant mountains. The first night we got here the wind was so strong that it felt like I’d be completely swept away and falling asleep I could easily imagine myself in a remote castle a couple hundred years ago. I’m not too far off – the dorm that we students stay in is a fourteenth century renovated monastery. It’s made up of lots of echoing hallways, stone steps, and tall ceilings. The first rules we were given when we arrived were to try not to slam doors (you slam a door in the art history lecture hall in the bottom of the building and you can hear the echo from the very top corner), don’t walk loudly with boots (same reason), don’t decorate our bedroom walls or put anything up on them (the plaster is so old that it will come off in sheets), don’t waste electricity or water (obviously things are more expensive here…and before you can say it, I can’t control the heat! Yes, my window is open with the heat running, but I just can’t resist! It’s so beautiful outside!), and not to adopt the cats. Yes, cats. Everywhere you walk around Cortona you see cats known as gatto stradas, or street cats. They’re all well-fed by everyone in town and look more like aristocrats versus beggars. The teachers made a point of informing us that they are not, however, allowed inside school buildings, as they tend to leave messes and walk through art projects.

The road up to the school is designed for losing weight: either you have to truck up and down the almost vertical and cobblestoned hill, or you skip dinner at night and fast instead. Students eat dinner every night except for Saturdays and Sundays at Toninos (Little Tony’s), a large local restaurant that the school has an ongoing arrangement with. This plan was designed so that students wouldn’t hole themselves up at the school, which can act as a fortress. The town itself, although small, has so many tiny cobblestoned streets and old buildings that are built one on top of the other that I’ve actually gotten lost a couple of times already. Lost meaning, I wasn’t sure where I was heading, but knowing I was still somewhere inside Cortona. The city walls have a nice way of allowing you to wander as much as you want without actually having gone very far at all. Keeping track of whether you’re going steeply uphill or downhill also lets you know whether you’re near the school (which is located at the very top of the town) or near the main piazza (near the bottom of the town). Every other building is a chiesa (church) and the last count was something like seventeen churches and only two bars, mind you! Cortona actually houses the seat of the diocese at the duomo (cathedral), which is right off the main piazza.

Every Saturday there’s an open market in Piazza Signorelli, one of the two main piazzas that are right next to each other in the center of town. There are all kinds of vendors selling clothes, jewelry, and of course, food. We students loaded up on the fresh fruit and vegetables in order to make our own meals back at the school. The way that the school is run is somewhere between hotel and hostel. There is a group of women that the teachers call “the ladies” or “the angels” who clean the school, mop floors, make our beds (!), arrange breakfast (consisting mostly of buffet style cereal, bread, and yogurt), and wash the breakfast dishes. Lunch and meals on weekends, however, is our job and there is a separate kitchen just for us where we can store our food and prepare meals. We also have the pricier option of going out to eat. All the classrooms except for the art history lecture hall are located in the school next door. That building is only fifty or so years old and like the dorm, kept locked at all times, accessible only with a combination or a key (a necessary, post-9/11 U.S. mandated law). Like the dorm, though, its rooms seem to have this habit of spilling one into another, connected by lots of small staircases and doors. Surrounding both the school and the dorm are various gardens and paths. Above it are four separate terraces (meaning plots of land that are cut into the hillside), which supposedly have hidden caves (which have unearthed different Etruscan archeological finds and so are for the most part closed off to students) and a cistern or two. The road that leads up to the school continues on around it and winds through some woods and up to a large chiesa. There are Stations of the Cross along this road with exquisite mosaics inside the small structures.

In the evening, Italians have this custom of strolling the streets together. Rick, the director of the program, told us that this is because most Italian homes don’t have a living room, so the only way they can all see and visit with each other is by taking long walks before dinner. You’ll see couples and families out walking and talking, and sitting up in my room I can hear snatches of Italian as they pass by my window. Another Italian habit is to stop walking when a conversation begins, so it is considered very rude to continue walking. After dinner, at about ten o’clock, is when the younger crowd comes out. Last night I went to a jazz concert at a bar in town and everyone and his uncle was out. You don’t know how strange it is to be in a bar and see your professor there, too! Certain shops were still open at midnight with their shop owners socializing out front, and everyone is wide awake and having a good time. The hardest part of the night is climbing back up the hill, with the cold wind blowing and the dark cobblestone ready to trip you. While you might start out the climb feeling tired and cold, by the time you reach the school your heart’s pumping fast and you’re ready to strip your jacket off. I’ve heard that it rains here a lot, but so far the weather has been beautiful, if not usually cold. During the night you bundle up in jacket, hat, scarf, and gloves, but during the day a light jacket and scarf is fine.

Rooming is really spacious, much more so than in the summer when the program doubles in number. I’m sharing a large room with two other girls (Sara and Jamie), and we have two extra beds in here. The room adjacent to ours is connected through a short passageway, and a large bathroom is located in between the two rooms. Actually, the bathroom is being renovated, so until next week we get to truck over to another hall, where there are several bathrooms we can use. We have a common room with computers and sofas and lots of bookshelves, and that’s where most people hang out at night if they’re not out in town. Classes start tomorrow at eight o’clock in the morning and most of us are just relaxing tonight. I’m enjoying not having many responsibilities, but I also can’t wait to start classes!