Double rooms cost €75 per night, a single room costs €65. Holiday suites cost between €85 and €95. All prices include breakfast. Il Sole del Sodo also has satellite TV.
Breakfast is served in the 'Pastaia' dining room, with a choice of four menus: breads, marmalade, yoghurt, cornflakes and fresh fruits; a selection of croissants, local cakes and apple tarts; eggs, prosciutto, cheeses, Italian sausages and local focaccia; or a mix of anything from the other three menus.
Cortona itself is a fascinating town. Set atop a hill in the reclaimed swampland of the Valdichiana, olive groves and terraces of vines climb to the powerful walls of the city itself - smoothed by centuries of wind sweeping across the plain below. From the vantage point of Cortona you can enjoy one of the best (and widest) vistas in all Italy. Across the Valdichiana lie the mountains of Siena on the horizon, nearer by you gaze down on Lake Trasimeno.
[ View on Google Map | map of region ]Like many Italian cities it has a rich and chequered past. An ancient fortified Umbrian city, it passed to the Etruscans some 700 years BC. A centre of the Roman Empire, it then passed to Naples - whose king sold Cortona to Florence in 1411. Thereafter it became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
While its Etruscan past is evinced by still-standing segments of the city walls, and by several Etruscan tombs in the valley, Cortona is predominantly mediaeval. The steep streets of the town cling to the precipitous hillside, and there is little level ground and less traffic.
Cortona's thousands of years of history are represented in some excellent museums. Check out the Museo Diocesano, with the famous Annunciazione by Beato Angelico. The Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca contains many other fine paintings and sits on the Piazza Signorelli, named after the town's most famous son, the painter Luca Signorelli (1441-1523). Pietro Berrettini (otherwise known as Pietro da Cortona) and Gino Severini were also born here, and there is a host of fine mediaeval churches.
The town is perfect for exploring the Italian countryside and its cities. In the province of Arezzo, and at a height of 650 metres above sea level, Cortona sits right in the middle of Central Italy. Siena is 45 minutes by car, Florence one hour, Perugia 30 minutes, Assisi an hour, and Montepulciano 40 minutes.
The town has a number of very good restaurants - the Taverna Pane e Vino is good for traditional Tuscan fare of bruschetta, salamis and cheeses, and has a wine list boasting an astonishing 550 vintages. And if you are visiting Cortona in the middle of August you can enjoy the Sagra della Bistecca. This fair is a celebration of the local delicious steaks, from cattle raised on the lush grazing of the Valdichiana below.
As a base for exploring Tuscany, Il Sole del Sodo is hard to beat, with a choice of rooms or apartments making this ideal for anyone wanting to stay in the lovely mediaeval Tuscan city of Cortona.
