Bill's Blog

Verona

In case you forgot, Verona is the place where Romeo and Juliet met, fell in love, and died. Perhaps that is why it has become such an important tourist attraction. The large number of tourists, mostly Germans, totally surprised us.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and made our way to a nice one-bedroom apartment. It has ended up being our most expensive booking on AirBnB, but given the popularity of Verona it was the best we could do. The manager of the flat was the Truly Agency. They were not totally prepared for us. We make it clear that we MUST have broadband internet. Once again there were problems, which were temporarily resolved the next day. Then the problem re-emerged and their solution was to move us to a different apartment. I use the word "move" rather loosely, we packed our own things, had to move food we had gotten for the week, then walked almost one mile to the agency, then another quarter-mile to the new apartment. Since then the place has been fine with a great internet connection.

We started with a visit to the city's central square, Piazza Bra, which has a Roman arena in the square. The next day we returned to the Piazza Bra. From there we walked to Piazza Erbe and on to the first of many churches. This one was the Duomo Cathedral of Santa Maria Matriculate. Before our week ended we visited many more. The best was the Church of Santa Anastasia. You will want to see our many photos of the churches.

One day we went to the Castelvecchio. Historically, the castle was mainly a military compound. Today, it is museum full of old, fairly uninteresting religious art. But the castle itself is beautiful with many battlements with crenellation. From the castle emerges a bridge of similar architectural forms that crossed the River Adige.

Yesterday, we took a day trip to Sirmione. Sirmione is on Lake Garda. We had heard that it was a popular place. We wrongly assumed that this would be a quiet little village with a few tourists. There were more than two thousand in a fairly small place. The area is thick with hotels and restaurants. We explored the peninsula for a few hours then stopped for a delightful lunch. I had several perch fillets from Lake Garda and Betty had a beautiful plate of lasagna. By the way, in Italy all sit-down restaurants have a cover charge of $2 to $4 per person. That means one does not stop for a coffee or even a beer, unless you plan on eating and drinking a lot. We have seen this from time-to-time in other places, but we always find the practice disgusting.

Tomorrow we will travel to Ravenna. You can expect a posting from Ravenna in a week.

Along the River Adige

Posted by bill at October 22, 2016 04:58 AM