italy:verona

the next morning, i took a train from milano to verona...it was a single train ride, and only supposed to be 90 minutes...somehow it was 30 minutes late, argh...bo met me at the train station in verona, he'd driven down from his home up north...

we dropped my bags in his car, since it was still too early to check into our guesthouse...we turned around and started walking...both of us had been to verona before, we used it mostly as a convenient place to meet up...

we started with a morning snack: italians would call it breakfast, but both of us had already eaten breakfast...croissants and a drink...there are little cafes all over every italian city so everyone gets an easy breakfast...

we walked along the river, then across one of the many bridges...soooo many tourists, eeek...even though i'd seen them all in milan the day before, i was still overwhelmed...since i live in ukraine and travel to small towns most of the time, i'm really not used to crowds...i'd totally forgotten how popular italy is as a travel destination, and verona is full of sights...we wandered a bit, figuring out where we might go later in the day, if we felt like paying entry fees...

around 1300 we walked back to the guesthouse and checked in, then had lunch at another nearby cafe...pasta, of course...mine was supposed to be spicy, but wasn't...at all...

walking back into the city centre, we found the roman arena...every summer this arena hosts the 2 month long verona opera festival...it's a fantastic venue, and nothing matches watching an opera under the stars with 30,000 of your best friends...we took a look at the schedule and saw that aida was scheduled for that night, so we bought the cheap tickets...there are super cheap tickets, then they get really expensive really fast...some people pay more than 200 euro for a single ticket! those expensive tickets don't get you anything super special, just a better viewpoint from the folding chair!

Our next stop was a coffee machine, which had a darn good hot chocolate for .50 euro...yay...

from there we walked further down a street, and into the castle...we opted not to buy tickets for any of the museums, we didn't care enough to learn anything...hee hee...

since we had tickets for the opera which started at 2100, we headed back to the guesthouse to rest and clean up...(verona was a lot hotter than kyiv, i wasn't dealing very well with the heat)...we had dinner at a random cafe, which allowed us to arrive at the arena at 1945...

when we bought our tickets we were told that the arena opened at 1930 for people like us who had unreserved seating, we knew we needed to arrive early...we arrived just 15 minutes after the doors opened, but already many of our possible seats were taken...great fun to watch people as they arrived; fun to see what people were wearing, and how they behaved...we chatted with our neighbors, as you tend to do in these situations...mostly, or probably all, tourists (at our level anywho, probably a few locals in more expensive seats)...

the rain started at 2045...ugh...i had an umbrella, we tried to avoid getting too wet...(it didn't work, as water collected on the rows and soaked into our clothes...some people took cover in hallways, some people pulled out ponchos or umbrellas...nearly everyone who had one of the expensive seats went to the hallways, those of us in the nosebleed seats stayed out in the rain...there was one row of people in the expensive seats who didn't move...they all had blue ponchos, bo and i referred to them as the smurfs :)...

the announcement came over the loudspeakers almost immediately, that the performance would be delayed as the rain would injure the instruments...it stopped raining after 30 minutes or so, everyone cheered and the people with squeejies came out to clean off the stage...just as they finished, the rain started again...everyone started cheering again, we joined in, laughing...

the rain finally stopped for good, more cheering of course...the performance ended up starting about 45 minutes late but time moved slowly, so it didn't feel that late...

it was a modern interpretation of aida, with great costumes and scenery...the voices were strong, choreography smooth, etc...neither bo nor i could remember the synopsis, so we were a bit lost...since the interpretation was modern, we kept thinking aliens had come from another planet and decided to sing a few songs...we got home quite late...

the chocolate croissant i had the next morning had waaay too much chocolate inside...(not something i ever thought i would say)...maybe i felt that way because of the giant slice of nutella covered pizza dough i'd had on the way home from the opera the night before...

our first sight of the day was 'juliette's house'...juliette of romeo and juliette...even though the story was made up, this house has been decided to be juliette's house...there is a small courtyard inside, with a small balcony where people come out to have their photo taken...there are a lot of people, it's difficult to get a decent photo...

i decided to go up the tower, bo decided to wait...the entry fee was 8euro!!! crazy...the view over the city was nifty though, i was glad to do it once...in an effort to burn a few calories i took the stairs going up and down, my legs were burning...

we opted not to pay to go in the duomo, we could see most of the ceiling from the door and that was supposed to be the greatest part of it...i was already getting really tired of the idea of having to pay to go in every church we walked past...argh...

we had lunch at yet another random cafe, nearby which was a shop where i bought postcards...before heading back to the guesthouse we stopped by the drink machine again, i wanted more hot chocolate :)...from there we collected bo's car, then made our way out of the city...