This is the Untold Italy Travel podcast and you are listening to episode number 139.

Ciao at all and benvenuti to Untold Italy, the travel podcast where you go to the towns

and villages, mountains and lakes, hills and coastlines of Bella, Italia.

Each week your host, Katie Clark, takes you on a journey in search of magical landscapes, history, culture, wine, gelato, and of course, a whole lot of pasta.

If you're dreaming of Italy and planning future adventures there,

you've come to the right place.

One of those flash epiphanies of travel is the realization that worlds you'd love

vibrantly exist outside your ignorance of them.

The vitality of many lives you know nothing about.

The breeze lifting a blue curtain in a doorway billows just the same whether you are lucky

enough to observe it or not.

Travel gives us such jolts. I could live in this town,

so how is it that I've never been here before today? Those beautiful words were penned by Francis

May's best known for her celebrated memoir under the Tuscan Sun. It's no doubt that that book,

a movie of the same name, inspired many, many thousands of trips to Italy

by people searching for that same feeling of vitality and belonging that she described.

So today I thought we'd take a trip to Cortona, to the place that won France's heart,

and discover what makes it so special.

And there's no better person to join me in this conversation than local tour guide Deborah Bresciani,

who knows this town like the back of her hand.

Deborah tells us all about the magic of Cortona, but also shares some other local places

where you might find your very own sense of belonging in this very special part of Tuscany.

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