My husband and I piled into our friend’s snappy red Alfa-Romeo for the short drive to Cortona. The town is at the top of my list of places in Italy to spend a day, a weekend, or forever. No matter how many times I visit I always want to return to enjoy the lovely ambience. This time it was a sunny late October day. It was early when we left, wispy bits of ground fog hung on low-lying fields and the distant hills were blue-gray.

The first time we visited Malta we saw a man with a falcon on his wrist standing by the side of the road. He didn’t look anything like Humphrey Bogart let alone Peter Lorre, but the falcon was truly a Maltese falcon. The Grand Masterof the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, the ruler of the island between 1530 and 1798, had to “pay” a falcon as an annual tribute to the Emperor Charles V and his mother Queen Joanna of Castile as monarchs of Sicily.

“Do you have a cigarette?” Ninety-three-year-old Mrs. Simandiris said in Italian after we’d climbed a shaded lane to her home for a taste of local life. The ancient woman, sitting in an arm chair surrounded by nick-knacks and an overflowing ashtray, presided over our visit, smiling and laughing while she showed our small group photos of her family, great-great  grandchildren and all. In between cadging cigarettes, she asked people to take her photo for a euro.