Verona, and the italian train

Trip Start Jun 03, 2008
1
8
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Trip End Oct 14, 2008


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Flag of Italy  ,
Saturday, June 21, 2008

Verona gained fame from being the supposed hometown of Romeo and Juliet, and currently being the host of world famous opera festival set in a restored roman theater. It's home for 5 churches and a cluster of palaces and towers the local royalty build before surrendering their power to the Florentine Medici. Because of my train misfortune, my day trip from Venice was curtailed to only a few hours. Other than snatching a picture of the Juliet sculpture that every tourist at every age have their picture taken with, I was able to visit two well decorated churches, and had a taste of some remarkably fine wine at 1.5 euro from a local bar.A long trudge to the reputed local garden was not quite worth it, but one day I would love to go back sampling the opera, wine and cuisine again. Or a different season,  would be a charming place when the heat and crowd in gone. 

Instead of narrating my sad train expience, let me just say that Eurail in Italy is simply not worth it. There are two potential advantages for the Eurail pass, to save money and to save you from the long line at the ticket office if you take a train that does not require reservation. Sadly, almost every train in Italy except the very slow local ones require reservation, and reservation can cost 15 euro, save you neither money or time. The fast way of traveling is to simply go to the automated ticket machine and feel your way through there. Be careful about using big notes of money though, there is a limit how much change the machine would return to you, beyond that limit you will need to return to the ticket office line and redeem your voucher to money there.
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