Hi All!
I need some advice from you well-informed travlers. We are a family of 6 staying in Cortona as a home base - renting a car to see montalcino/pienza/vald'orcia but also chiusi/assisi/spello/perugia. Only have 4 days to visit, but those are the towns on our list that we will narrow down. Couple of questions:
1. Would you use Cortona as a home base for visiting the above places, considering I"m bringing a 4,6 and 11 year old along?
2. If not, where else should we stay that will be convenient enough to travel to those towns with the little kids?

Many thanks for all your help!

Cortona is perfect. We did all of those towns using Cortona s a base. It is much less crowded than other parts of Tuscany and large enough to offer whatever you need. You can go to Lake Trasimeno as well.

This is not advice--just an off-the-wall comment. We were in Cortona when a winter scene from "Under the Tuscan Sun" was being filmed. There was white snow-like stuff all over town. Magnesium??

Hi Cortona is lovely, we always stay at the Hotel St Michele, very nice. Rooms differ a lot one from the other.
It could be a good location to visit Toscana, however it is up, on top of some hilly place, as many other cities in Toscana, so you have to go up and down everyday with your car.

I don't know about hotels in Cortona, but this restaurant has incredible food:
www.osteria-del-teatro.it/eng/main.html

Thank you everyone for your comments! I just heard from and booked the San Michele Suite with the terrace overlooking the valley and lake. I'm so excited! As for the magnesium...I hope not! Is that what they make artificial snow out of? How do they clean it up?

Cortona is lovely but not the place I would pick for those day trips. Have you put pins in a map for those loctions. I would think that somewhere near Montepulciano would be the geographic center. Location is the key--check out your map consider the location.

While in Cortona we watched them set up the snow scenes. Most of the white you see were rolls of cotton batting and clothes washing flakes.

Thank goodness it's not Magnesium flakes! That one had me worried because we are going to Italy, extending my daughter's "Make a Wish" trip as she just finished up (in April) treatment for cancer - so Thank YOU!!! the person who sent the email about the cotton and soap flakes! I can live with that!