Cortona has put on her party dress- the quintieri streets lined with each neighborhoods colorful banners, and on Via Nazionale, daisy wreaths adorn the arches of the vicoli. Easter has past as well as the 25th April Liberation Day/Saint Mark's feast day. The May 1st holiday is upon us and everyone in Cortona seems ready for La Bella Stagione to begin.Santa Margherita's feast day will be celebrated this weekend with the first of the re-enactment of the ceremony and fanfare associated with the Salimbeni-Casali wedding of the 1300's.
Le Rondine (swifts and swallows) have returned and the trees and fields are filled with blooms. The weather is temperamental as can be expected. Leading all to speculate on the fate of the oil crop this year, after a dismal disappointment in last year's harvest. There is also speculation about the return of visitors as well.
There is an atmosphere of anticipation, "How are your reservations?" "When are the tourists coming?" "Do you think it's going to be a good year this year?" These are common questions we hear from some of our friends and neighbors in town. Some are, of course, interested because their livelihood is entwined with the arrival of visitors. Others however look forward to the new life that arrives with people from the world outside the walls. Our pensioners fill the benches in the Piazza della Repubblica where they have front row seats to a stimulating, ever changing show. The romantic weddings on town hall steps, the guided tours which stop to take in the beauty and monuments of il Comune- and the Loggia above, the rambunctious groups of scholars visiting Cortona for a field trip are all parts of the theater of life in the piazza. A source of pride for the residents as they watch the reactions of visitors to the beauty of their hometown, as the tourists make happy memories of Cortona which plants seeds of the same pride and kinship in the hearts of visitors to the town.
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