A day discovering Verona

We were up relatively early today, and got ourselves ready to have a day in Verona.

We drove into town, planning to park in the Arena car park, but we had difficulty finding it, so parked in the Citadella car park, which was right beside the Arena anyway. We drove down to the bottom floor of the underground car park, which was fairly narrow on the way down, but not impossible. It was cool down there, and there were hardly any cars.

We took the stairs up to ground level, when Christian realised he'd forgotten his sunglasses. He went back down to get them, and we set off to explore. We headed towards the Arena, having a look at the fountain and gardens on the way. The Arena was absolutely huge, and there were huge pieces of set piles around the outside. The operas running were alternating, so they have to change over between every show.

The queue to get in was horrendous, so we decided to do other things and come back. We wandered down an interesting looking street, and found some tasty gelato. I had pistacchio and an amazing chocolate. I poked my nose in a few shoe shops but found nothing inspiring. We had a message from Bridget to say she wanted to meet up for lunch, and so we decided to try and see Juliet's balcony on the way. The googles let us down, and we ended up with a nice view of a B&B that happened to be called Juliet's balcony.

We moved on through the city to find the restaurant we were meeting Bridget at. On the way we saw lovely old buildings and some interesting markets. Arriving a little late, we found her at Osteria Ristorante Ponte Pietra. It was a beautiful, stylish, and small restaurant right next to one of the bridges over the river. She'd got us a balcony table. The restaurant had been recommended to her by her tourism contacts.

We got to chatting, and ordered food, and Bridget ordered wine. I had a really delicious cannellone parmigiana wrapped in aubergine instead of pasta, and Bridget and I had salads as well. As we talked and ate, I could hear the sounds of a jazz band wafting on the breeze.

Bridget told us about her work in Kosovo (and Chris's too for that matter), and I learned an awful lot about Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and the surrounding area. I found it fascinating.

Once we'd finished eating, we decided to have a look at the markets. They were quite good, with trinkets and fruit/vegetables. Christian bought a panama hat (but not the expensive designer version), and we got some gifts for his folks. He also found some whitecurrants, and bought them. They were too bitter for me and Bridget.

We then moved on to find Juliet's balcony, and this time had success. The small cul-de-sac was full of people. As we walked/shuffled/pushed in, there was graffiti like I'd never seen on the walls. Apparently it's the place to profess your love. Inside, there were two balconies above, where you could pay to go into, a statue, and details of the place. We didn't want to go inside, but we got the measure of the place, and moved back into the passageway, where I finally got a photo of the graffiti wall with no other people in it (win!).

From there, we slowly made our way back towards the Arena, stopping for more compulsory gelato on the way. It was a hot day. I had stracciatella and framboise. Mmmm. At the Arena, we discovered that the queue had completely disappeared, and so we walked almost straight in to pay our €10 and go inside.

There was quite a lot of detail to read about on boards in the cool darkness inside, and we got our fill of information. It was built before the Colloseum in Rome in the first century. We ventured up into the open area, and its scale immediately struck me. The floor section was covered in red chairs, and the first section of tiered seating in similar chairs. But behind that were rings of stone benches - the main reason we chose not to see Aida there on the evening that we arrived. The orchestra pit was fascinating too - there was so much space, and the mic stands and cradles, and even XLRs were sitting ready for set-up. The set was on a massive scale, and you could see where entrances would be made behind the stage as cover had been set up for the doorways.

I went and sat in each section to see what the view would be like, and decided that the first rank of actual seats would be the best place to sit, though they are €75 seats. Oh well, next time for sure.

We made our way to the box seats at the back, and the control desk (Christian craned under the tarp to see all the tech, but couldn't get a look), and we headed back into the bowels of the structure, and back out into daylight. We had arranged to pick up Greg and Caroline from the station, and so we made a plan.

First we went back to the car, and Christian went down and dropped off our camera gear, and shopping, and anything else we didn't want. Bridget and I sat on a step in the shade and talked about weddings.

When Christian joined us again, we wandered to a cafe for a drink (Ristorante Ippopotamo). The menu was about four inches thick. I'd never seen anything like it. Bridget had an Aperol spritz, and I had an iced chocolate. I think Christian had a coffee. My iced chocolate was unfortunately a mile high with syrup and cream and all of the trimmings. I stirred it through and it didn't taste too bad. It was just the guilt of the thing.

Time marched on, and it was time to go to the station. We paid for parking (€18) went down into the car park, had trouble finding the car (oops), squeezed our way out through the ramps, and made our way through the centre of the city to the station. There were cars everywhere at the station, as they didn't have proper drop-off arrangements. We pulled over and tried to spot Greg and Caroline. Luckily they spotted us as they knew to look for the Tesla. As Greg was getting in, an idiot man nearly took the door off by driving too close. Yay Italy.

We drove back to the villa, enjoying the reactions of Caroline as she saw it for the first time. Some folks were going out to the local trattoria for dinner, but we decided to stick around and order pizza. Christian took Chris for a ride in the Tesla, and I explored the grounds a little - having a look at the overgrown tennis court, the driving range, the vines next to it, and the folly on the other side. The path up to the folly was steep and uneven - probably shouldn't have attempted it in my thongs. The view from the folly was beautiful, but my phone camera couldn't capture it at all.

Back in the villa, Jenni decided to organise a photo of everyone on the front steps, so Christian got his camera gear out, and using the car as a tripod, set up a remote shot of those of us who were there, leaving a gap to photoshop in those who weren't. As we were setting up, Matt and Jo arrived to loud cheers, having travelled from the hospital in Berne. Luckily, his face wasn't in too bad a shape. Some folks had set up a table for dinner in the middle of the square in front of the villa, so they joined us for the photo. Once taken, the crowd chanted for the car to move itself, and Christian indulged them. The next few hours were spent drinking and relaxing.

The people going out for dinner congregated, and we thought about our own dinner. There was still leftover pizza and pasta from the two previous evenings, and so we decided to just warm these up. It was a challenge without a microwave. Getting the oven lit was a real chore, but Christian managed it after having read the instructions. Che supervised warming the pasta up in a saucepan. I got some mozzarella out and in the end, we had a pretty good feast, with Che's amarone.

Christian stayed up to chat to folks, but I was exhausted and so went to bed after dinner.