Verona - I don't really remember a thing.

  Verona, Italy
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

We took strictly regionale trains from Varenna to Verona, so we had to switch trains twice, but we didn't have to wait in line for seat reservations for our Trenitalia Passes.

Note to everybody - you do not need the Passes. They are a pain. Do not get them.

We actually got to the apartment we were staying in in Verona about two hours early, so we sat around being hungry for awhile. We were in an upscale neighborhood where everything was closed (on the middle of the day on a Saturday), so hadn't had anything to eat since a breakfast snack at one of the train stops - Brescia, I think. I'm still not clear on why all of the stores were closed on Saturday. We were in an upscale area rather north of the main district, but the main areas were walkable. Sarah said it reminded her of the Garden District of New Orleans. The Al Quadrifoglio was a lovely apartment, and the proprietor (I don't remember his name) was great. He gave us maps and excellent directions both to his place, to the internet, and to the good places to eat. He really seemed to love his city, and apologized that his wife was out of town in Sicily for the weekend. I think he may also have been a licensed chef from a certificate I saw.

After dropping off our stuff, we went to the city center to look around (very expensive food), and found the internet. While downstairs in the almost completely dark internet cafe, I started feeling a little woozy and hot. I attributed it to typing in the dark in a hot basement, but decided to go back to the apartment to lay around, anyway. So this update is already at an end, as no one cares about my adventures in making toast and tea and having a scratchy throat. Sarah will have more about Verona on her blog, which is listed under my favorites as "azmarine."

Things I found out about Verona - It's nice, but forgettable (especially if you're sick). The story of Romeo and Juliet was not created by Shakespeare, but by another poet many years earlier, and he based his poem on reality. All of the things marketed as R&J-esque, though, are pretty much fabrications based on reasonable estimates of dates. ("Juliet's House" was owned by the Cappelli family at one point, I think, but the character in question did not live there. Her tomb was definitely not hers, but something they decided to start calling "Juliet's Tomb" just about a hundred years ago.)



(May grab some of Sarah's pics to use here.)
ETA: A few up here, a few more at Flickr.