Classic Tuscan Homes

Cortona street market

Lucia — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:19:40 +0000

Each Saturday morning throughout the year you will find a street market with many stalls in Piazza Signorelli, Cortona, with lively colours, lively people and very reasonably priced clothing and shoes to choose from.

Springtime in Cortona

dpalmer — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:33:13 +0000

When you see the almond trees in bloom in the hills of Cortona, you know for sure that Spring is on the way ! The hills are now ablaze with little puffs of pink smoke…the sweet almond trees. It is also the time for pruning olive trees and clearing the terraces, in time for the Spring Equinox of March 21st.

Heavy snow hit Cortona in February

dpalmer — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:42:23 +0000

On February 21st this is how the kilometer-long Parterre avenue looked after trucks dumped tons of snow cleared out of the center of Cortona

And this is what a nearby Cortonese farmhouse looked like after the first snow blizzard hit !

Frances Mayes’ new book!

Lucia — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Spring is finally on its way..

After being covered by inches and inches of snow, Cortona is now finally flooded by nothing but warm sunlight.

So, while getting ready for springtime, and maybe thinking of a holiday in Cortona, why not practice some Tuscan sun recipes?!

Frances and Edward Mayes are releasing a new cookbook which will be published on March 13th.
“The Tuscan sun cookbook” is a collection of Frances and Ed’s favorite recipes from twenty-one years of feasting in Italy!

Check out Frances’ blog for more information.

2012 wishes.

Lucia — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:21:04 +0000

Classic Tuscan Homes’ wishes,
for your happy new year:

Jolly moments with your friends
Tender moments with your lovers
Happy dinners with your families

Great opportunities
Wonderful discoveries
Breathtaking emotions
Enriching changes
Precious lessons
Beautiful surprises
New lives
Fulfilled dreams
Unexpected adventures
Relaxing times

and

Amazing holidays!!!

“Vino bruciato”

Lucia — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:39:22 +0000

Still a lot of sunshine in Cortona, but it’s finally getting colder..
So let’s warm up with some delicious mulled wine,
here’s a simple recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 untreated Orange
1 untreated Lemon
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cloves
½ nutmeg
1 litre of full-bodied red wine (some good Chianti if you can!)
200 gr caster sugar

Grate the nutmeg and thinly cut wide sections of the orange and the lemon’s peel, being careful not to get the white part as well.
Put the sugar, the peel and all the spices in a large steel saucepan and pour the red wine.
Set the pan over a medium heat and slowly bring to the boil.

Let it boil for about 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved ;
now (carefully!) set fire to the top of the syrup so that the alcohol contained in the wine burns out, let it burn until it extinguishes on its own.

Filter the wine with a very fine knit colander and serve warm.

Tasty vin brulè to everyone!

Chestnuts, wine and olive oil.

Lucia — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:12:49 +0000

It’s Saint Martin’s day today,
and one of the most great Italian poets from the 19th century, Giosuè Carducci,
wrote a poem dedicated to this day, called “San Martino” which begins:

La nebbia agli irti colli piovigginando sale…

“Drizzling, the fog the steep hills climbs…”

Fog?????
Not this year, for sure, in Cortona!
We are enjoying a very unusual weather for this time of year: warm and sunny.
It’s like September but with yellow leafs on trees!

I know it’s not good, but I’m secretly glad the bad weather’s been put off for a while..

Castagne alla brace.

Also, without fog, you can fully enjoy the beautiful autumn colours of our hills, and nobody says you can’t bake those amazing chestnuts you find in the woods and eat them along with some delicious mulled wine…

Plus, with the good weather our people have already been able to pick their olives and make the long-awaited,
new,
incredibly green,
prickly
olive oil.

Bruschetta all'olio nuovo.

I’M HUNGRY.

For cat lovers.

Lucia — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:30:40 +0000

Cortona is crowded with cats!

I’ve seen
cats on rooftops,
cats on top of cars ,
cats underneath cars (sleeping),
cats in shops,
cats in churches,
cats in my garden,
cats in the park,
cats on window ledges,
cats at the kindergarten,
cats in restaurants,
cats in bathrooms,
cats on kitchen tops,
cats on office desks
and
I think I saw a cat wandering around in the local museum,
I’m also pretty sure I saw the ghost of Emily, my ex cat.
I once caught a cat giving me the evil eye,

but the best ever
was the faithful one:

Jesus, Mary and the cat..

Tourists and Locals.

Lucia — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:25:30 +0000

Lately I keep noticing the difference between tourists and locals:
the first walk with their heads up, the second heads down.

But we should always look up!
There’s always something new to discover, even if we’ve been in that place a thousand times.

Curiosity is life.

Cortona...up above.

The art of shaping.

Lucia — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:23:06 +0000

Antonio Massarutto is an artist from Northern Italy.
An all-round sculptor, he moves easily from one material to another. Lines and forms play a crucial role in his universe.
But his true inclination is to investigate materials, whether stone, marble, wood, clay or metal, in order to reveal their hidden soul.
This quest has brought him to Tuscany, the cradle of man’s cultural heritage and an area with a centuries-old artistic tradition,
and so an ideal place to pursue his art.

In the vicinity of Cortona Antonio discovered ideal locations for finding materials to sculpt: the numerous local pietra serena (sandstone) quarries, travertine marble near the spa town of Rapolano Terme, clay in the nearby Siena hills or Crete as they are known, and noble marble from Carrara. His knowledge of three-dimensional arts has inspired him in creating stunning jewellery.

In Arezzo, one of Italy’s major areas for gold working, he began collaborating as a designer with major companies, at the same time learning the latest goldsmith’s techniques. In a short time Antonio had gathered the secrets of the great Arezzo gold working tradition of ancient Etruscan origin. From lost-wax casting of metals such as gold, silver and bronze (a technique very similar to that used by the Etruscans in ancient times), the designer creates forms and concepts that are closer to artworks, particularly to contemporary sculpture.

For your special gifts, the artist’s showrooms are located in
via Nazionale and in via Guelfa, Cortona.