fish in the sea: Verona

UPDATE: I am not near the train derailment but in two days I will be travelling though the area.

Day 1

Going to Verona was a lovely train ride. I love train rides, car rides, as long as I am not going backwards and can see out the window. Anyway, it was a lovely train ride through the countryside from Venice to Verona. Lots of corn and wine. As we approached Verona we started to see the mountains as well. I'm very excited about the mountains.

Verona is not as shocking as Venice was. There are cars and sidewalks so now I must start looking where I walk in case I am run over. The city is not as big as Venice either but the architecture is very beautiful. Verona also has some Lions of Saint Marks but you can often see the remains of the lions after they were torn down when Venice lost control.

I am very impressed with the Amphitheatre here. Tomorrow I will purchase the Verona pass which gives access to many museums and monuments and then I will rush around to see everything. The Amphitheatre is apparently in the best condition of all and they hold operas there during the summer. If I come back I would try to plan my visit around an opera.

We walked down one of the expensive shopping streets. This was lovely as the air conditioning kept things lovely and cool as it flowed out of the shops.

What also greatly impressed me was the portion of the original Roman gate that remains in the plaza around the amphitheatre. It is huge and very tall and looks so rough and old.

Verona is well known for being the setting of Romeo and Juliet and indeed in the plaza's you can buy all the trinkets including my favourite, an incredibly tacky ashtray with R&J sitting beside the amphitheatre. Might as well try to get the main points in together.

Afterwards I went out for dinner with the group to this lovely restaurant where the owner specialized in deli-ish meats. My meal was fantastic and with only two glasses of wine I was pretty .... happy. Maybe alcohol *is* the solution to life's woes.

Day 2

I am writing this in the courtyard/piazza/plaza (no idea) in front of the San Zeno church. I am now on my own as the people I've been walking around with today had to go back to the hotel as their feet hurt and they were tired (quitters!) I have been walking around from 8:30 till 4:30 and now I'm rather tired (though not as much a venice when I walked much further distances).

Verona is lovely, not as shocking as Venice. I love that every once in a while when you are on something tall you can catch a glimpse of hills and mountains in the distance.

The Roman Arena was fantastic, huge, old and still able to host concerts. Apparently (so wikipedia informs me) it is the third largest and in the best condition.

Here I am giving the thumbs down from the balcony.

It was great to walk through the tunnels around the arena. Imagine how long people have been doing that!

Verona is famous for being the setting of Romeo and Juliet. They have declared two houses to be the homes of these two fictional lovers and while we walked past Romeo's house Juliet's house was closed to us due to movie filming (Letters to Juliet). Instead, we visited 'Juliet's tomb' which had someone else's tomb plus a bunch of art.

Then it was to the tower of Lamberti (I have been travelling with my rooom mate so far). The elevator was out so we hiked up and it was very lovely. The view from the top was fantastic.

There we met some others from the tour group and together we continued onwards.

Next were two churches, Santa Anastasia

and Duomo. Both were very impressive and it was fascinating to see the older church's partially excavated below.

We grabbed some lunch, crossed the river and viewed the Roman Theatre. While this theatre was still in use as a theatre today it was not as well preserved as the arena we saw this morning.

A view through one of the arches at the theatre.

After the theatre we crossed the river again and made our way to the Old Castle. Again, there was a great gallery ("oh look, more Jesus") and wandering around on the rooftop battlements was amazing. Again we had lovely views of the far off hills.

It was at the castle that I left my friends and continued on to San Zeno church. This was the older church and didn't have huge windows so it was somewhat cave like. It also had a crypt that was accessible, the choir and alter section of the church was half a story up, and the crypt was down a grand set of stairs half a story down. I might have once seen another church like that but I can't remember any details of it at all.