BEST of ITALY 2009 - Verona

Monday, November 2, 2009

Another early departure found us heading east out of Baveno, back towards Milan and beyond. Our luck with good weather finally gave out, and the morning witnessed the first rainy day of the trip. Once clear of Milan rush hour traffic and an accident on the motorway, we were on our way to the city of Verona. The entire bus was swept up in horse-racing fever as the Aussies organized two sweeps around the Melbourne Cup, a much-heralded annual race taking place later in the day Down Under.

The bus dropped us just inside the old city centre, made famous by Shakespeare as the setting for "Romeo and Juliet". A short walk along the ancient and crumbling city wall led us to the main square, under the watchful eye of Vittorio Emanuelle II, the first true King of Italy. The square also held the city's old arena, third largest in Italy and still in use today.

We set off in the drizzle towards Juliet's Balcony, a popular spot for tourists and lovers alike. Julie and Jane stopped to buy fashionable headgear in a local market, while Mike approached a random woman and asked her in vey poor Italian how to find the famous balcony. Luckily Paola also spoke excellent English as well, and in fact also taught French in Verona and was planning to come to Montreal to study. She took it upon herself to lead us directly to the balcony.

The crowded courtyard contained not only the small balcony rumoured to have inspired Shakespeare and the famous tale, but also messages left by lovers, scrawled on the walls and even applied with sticky notes under a nearby tunnel.

From there we wandered to the other side of the city centre and toured the old fort Castelvecchio and its ancient bridge over the River Adige. Mike even had his full full conversation in Italian, venturing into a tabacchi shop to acquire international stamps for mailing postcards. After a quick lunch under a protective awning, another short walk in the rain had us back on the bus and headed for the Venice area.

Our hotel stop for the night was in Mira, on the Veneto mainland and a little ways removed from Venice itself. Knowing that a full day tour of Venice was planned for the next morning, many travellers were content to ride out the evening rain in the comfort of the hotel.

While most of the group hunkered down at Hotel Poppi for the evening, we bought tickets and caught the local public bus to the train station outside Venice, joined by a few other intrepid adventurers from the group. From there, in the darkness and pouring rain, we ventured into the canals of Venice and gladly lost ourselves in the maze. We were quickly soaked and loving every minute of it.

The experience was nothing short of magical. Unless you have some place to be, getting "lost" in Venice is the best way to find things....including an excellent dinner at Trattoria Alle Colonelle. We eventually stumbled upon St. Mark's Square, amid driving rain and hiwling wind, and watched as the waters of the Venetian lagoon crashed over the breakwall and into the sqaure. Short benches were even erected throughout much of the main public areas to allow people to walk above the intrusion of water.

The darkened maze of alleys and canals eventually deposited us back at the train station, near the Liberty Bridge causeway to the mainland, where the local bus took us back to our hotel to dry out for the night.

Main Square and Arena in Fair Verona

Within the Old Walled City

Juliet's Balcony

Lovers in an Informative Time

Castelvecchio and Bridge

Castelvecchio on the River Adige