Italy - Day 5 - Verona

Buoyed a little by a strong finish to the day before we were quickly out on the street again the next morning.  We did this in part to make sure we could get in a full day of sight-seeing, but also to avoid the masses of tourists that we saw in Piazza Bra the day before.  Although we're not into the full swing of high season yet, it sure seems like the numbers are up over what we'e experienced in the past.  We're also seeing a lot more Australians.  It's weird, they seem to be everywhere.

Our first stop showed the wisdom of our early start.  We had the piazza in front of the Basilica San Zeno all to ourselves, which allowed Fiona to bring out her inner Scammell and get in a few photos without any actual people in them.  Her father would be proud!  The Basilica was beautiful and interesting.  You can clearly see the workmanship that went into buildings, but it was the quirkiness that really appealed to me.  The porch around the front door had some great carving, with panels showing biblical scenes along with knights jousting and an old fashioned hunt.  How those apply to a Basilica, I'm not quite sure.

The inside had a few school groups inside, but was otherwise relatively empty.  The roof was very high and there were fabulous frescos on almost every wall - although some of them had 14th century graffiti etched into them.  Apparently the desire to write your name on something important has always existed.  We wandered through the beautifully decorated church for some time, spending perhaps a half hour marvelling at the amazing bronze doors, made up of dozens of panels showing scenes from the Old and New Testaments.  The artistry was unbelievable.

San Zeno was an interesting character.  He showed up in Verona in the 5th century from North Africa and converted the entire town to Christianity.  His sermons were first held in the old Roman amphitheatre and he constantly had to rebuild his churches to accommodate his ever increasing flock.

After the Basilica we walked along the river and through the Piazza Erbe to the old Roman amphitheatre.  Although a lot of it was built over, it was still largely recognisable as an amphitheatre and also had a great archaeological museum attached.  We walked through and greatly enjoyed the old mosaics and the collection of figurines, pottery and glass found on the site.  The highlight, though, was probably the view over the city, which Fiona captured quite well in a series of shots.  After the amphitheatre we were ready for lunch and we settled for a standard pizza in one of the piazzas.

At this point the heat of the day was starting to take its toll and we were fading quickly.  We contemplated calling it a day and heading back to the hotel, but stuck it out for a couple more churches.  The first was the Duomo, which was an fabulous mix of marble and frescos, probably the most frescoed church we had seen.  It was also pleasantly cool, which meant we extended ours stay and explored every corner.  Our last stop, before gelato of course, was another church, this the one dedicated to St. Anastasia.  Looking from the outside we almost walked away, as it was quite plain and a little boring, but it absolutely exploded with colour and life when you walked in the door.  The roof was alive with colour and all the alcoves  contained significant historical characters.  It was a wonderful finale.

Lest we be accused of excluding Verona's most talked about landmark - Juliet's balcony - we stopped by and were delighted to find it contained a tenth of the crowd we saw there in the morning.  While the balcony has no historical significance - there were no actual Capulets, and the balcony itself was built a couple of hundred years after the play was written - every goes there and we are loath to be left out.  I did not stoop, however, to rubbing the right breast of the statue of Juliet for luck.  A few people in the crowd seemed to get a little too much enjoyment out of that.

A quick nap at the hotel had us back on the street at 7:30, ready for a nice dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel.  We had an absolutely great time, tucked away in one of Verona's back alleys at a place called Greppia, enjoying authentic Italian cuisine and !shock! two bottles of a ridiculously good Valpolicella.  It was a long dinner, so don't judge us too harshly.  We had a cute table next to us with two older, local couples.  It's weird how much these little old Italian ladies can eat.  But we had no complaints and could easily see why every plate delivered to the terrace was returned completely empty.

So after an amazingly weak start, we had a fabulously strong finish to our stay in Verona.  On the whole we would definitely recommend it to anyone going through Italy.

Italy - Day 4 - Verona

After a fabulous, relaxing stay on Lake Como it was time again to brave the Italian traffic and drive to our next location - Verona.  Besides the first 20km, which was back along the one track road beside the lake, it was supposed to be an easy trip on the autostrada.  We ended up making it a bit of an adventure by both believing our GPS when we shouldn't have and listening to it when it was clearly unaware of its surroundings.  As a result we had a nice drive around Bergamo before finally joining the perfect slab of asphalt lain down between Milan and Venice known as the autostrada.  We had a pretty straight shot from the highway to our hotel in Verona, although there were a few dicey moments when we came to oddly shaped roundabouts.  Generally, I'm getting the hang of driving in Italy, but I still get butterflies in my stomach when it gets busy.

Our drive into Verona involved a small journey through an industrial part of the city, never a good idea when you consider the idiom about first impressions has a glimmer of truth about it.  Our Best Western hotel was not quite in the Centro Storico, but close enough that we were guaranteed some peace and quiet without a long walk to the attractions.  Best Westerns being what they are, we were quickly settled in and on our way into the city.

Our first stop after we passed through the big gates was the old Roman arena.  The Veronese are quite proud of this and it is the biggest attraction in town.  Unfortunately for them, we had been to both Nimes and Orange, which had better preserved and better presented versions of the same thing.  They were setting up for a performance so there was a lot of activity, but even when we looked through that it had lost all its historical and artistic significance.  We left unimpressed and quite down on the city.

Luckily it staged a strong comeback, starting with a perfect afternoon weather-wise.  It was more of what we got in Lake Como and we were not complaining.  With it being perfect gelato weather we treated ourselves to a couple of medio cono, trying to perfect our combinations.  We think we've stumbled upon it, with either cioccolato or bacio paired with pistacchio.  Delicious.

We walked to another one of the cities attractions, which managed to pick us up out of our anti-Verona mood.  The Castelvecchio is a massive old castle situated on the river bank with a museum inside.  We were joined inside by a class of artists, sketchpads in hand, who must have had an assignment on geometric design, as they were sketching all sorts of different curves and angles found within the castle.   The displays in the museum were a combination of 10th and 11th century frescos and mosaics and later Renaissance art.  It was all very well presented throughout the old building.  Interspersed were great views of the castle itself and some statues of one of its owners - Cangrande della Scala, which translates to Top Dog.  He had a dog's head on the top of his helmet, which is maybe where he got his name.

The top floors of the castle had great views of the river and some of the other Veronese attractions.  We spent more time on the upper levels than anywhere else.  Eventually we did make our way back down and out of the castle.  We had a quick cold drink on one of the local terraces and headed back to our hotel.  Dinner was again quick and simple, after which we spent some time walking down the main shopping street, which is paved in marble and carries a lot of high-end fashion boutiques.  At one end is Piazza Bra, with the arena, a small park, restaurants and the municipal building, and on the other side was Piazza Erbe with still more shops, an impressive clock tower and a day-time open market.  Being very close to the major attraction of Juliet's balcony it was quite busy, even after 8pm.  Fiona got some great shots of the piazza before we turned around and went back to the hotel.

Verona had managed to dig itself out of an early hole.  While still lagging by Florence as one of our favourite Italian cities it was now pulling ahead of Genoa and we were quite positive about a great day of sight-seeing after a nice rest.  Even if it still wasn't the best Italian city we had been to, it was certainly the best-smelling.  The whole town smelled of flowers, either roses or some other bloom in the trees.  I'm sorry that we don't yet have the technology to record that and translate it as we do with  beautiful sights.