Missed Part 1? <---click there.
Verona was our favorite. We arrived in good spirits and had a blast. We stayed in a B&B called VeronAntica. Which means attic and let me tell you, those were some serious steps. It was very comfortable and I loved the street view.
Verona was a lot of wandering around the streets. The little pop-up map that I bought for the city was critical for the first day but by the second day, Steven had the city figured out. Still, I used the map when I wanted to know where we were going. On the first day we found the Arena. It's like the Colosseum just a bit smaller and more intact. Unfortunately it was set up for a concert still so the center was filled with modern day contraptions and kind of ruined the look and feel of the ancient structure. Even with that though, it was pretty friggin awesome.
haha I don't actually have any pictures of it from the outside...shame on me.
Our first dinner in Verona was lack-luster. We went to a restaurant recommended by the owner of VeronAntica...and I can't even remember the name of the place. It was certainly off the beaten path and the first person we talked to didn't speak of bit of English. I tried saying "Un tavolo per cena?" asking if they had a table for dinner. But my Italian is still so elementary that she just looked at me with a confused look and then called over someone who spoke English. The same guy ended up serving us (probably because he was the only one who spoke English there) and he didn't seem thrilled about it. We kept on trying to speak Italian with him but he would always answer in English. It's frustrating enough trying to speak a language we hardly know but for our attempts to be ignored disappointed us. Anywho, I went "eeny meeny miny moe" and asked for the Baccala' con polenta. Sounded good. Steven got a steak thing and we got an appetizer thing with more polenta. The appetizer was super yummy so when my main dish showed up, I dived in. And then nearly gagged. It was the most awful tasting fish I had ever had the displeasure of tasting. So I tried it with the polenta mixed in, nope, still gross. Steven tried it, he agreed. When the server guy came back and saw that I hadn't eaten much of my dish, he asked if I liked. I said no and then asked what it was. haha he said "It's baccala". Thanks...not helpful. I asked how it was made. "Oh, we take fish, usually cod, and let it dry out in the sun then we soak it in water to led it re-hydrate and then bake it" Oh good god. No wonder it tasted like the way dead fish baking in the sun on the beach smells. Never again.
Day two in Verona the Giro D'Italia was passing through for a TTT stage in the afternoon. That morning we stumbled upon the outdoor market in Piazza delle Erbe. That. Was. Cool. All the fresh product...and the flowers! Oh the flowers were so pretty. Oh and every time you walked by the strawberries it was like angels tickling your nose. So fresh. So ripe. So awesome.
We wandered around Verona until the early afternoon. We saw the Duomo (cool big church) and walked on the old castle bridge and had lunch in a cute side street cafe that had the tastiest gnocchi we had all trip. I found myself too hesitant to walk around with my camera around my neck and kept it hidden in my bag. Not for fear of it being stolen but I didn't want to "look like a tourist". As if it were a bad word. All the blogs and advice website I had read before this trip warned me to "never look like a tourist" but honestly, I feel like I missed out on a lot of good pictures and scene's because I didn't want to walk around with my camera on my neck or stand in the street looking at our map. One site I did make sure to find was Juliet's house. No I didn't rub her right boob for good luck. That's just weird.
The Giro was in and out in a flash, like a traveling circus. We had a great place to stand under some shade on the final stretch of the course. I snagged some photos of the starting parade and then of our favorite teams making a mad dash to the finish line!
And the entire time there was a van selling Giro memorabilia behind us with a loud speaker promoting the crap...er...I mean merchandise with a recorded woman's shrill voice. We stood there for hours listening to it. By the end we had it memorized but thank god I've forgotten it by now. Something about cinque euro.
That evening we googled for a place to eat and happened upon the Google Places listing for Marie Callas. It was at the end of the alley that our B&B was on and considering we didn't want to walk far for dinner, it was perfect. When we got there, we saw people sitting in the outdoor patio:
But didn't see a server or host or anything. Instead of walking to the patio, we went in the front door where we stumbled upon a busy, very well dressed, server. "Un tavolo per due?" I stammered out and with a grin he said "Si si, this way" and led us around to the patio where everyone was sitting. Steven immediately felt under dressed in his shorts and polo shirt. The servers were in black suits and almost every male guest had a sport jacket. I was glad to be wearing a black dress. Thankfully the table hid Steven's shorts and a polo was dressy enough it seemed.
The patio was epic. They had scattered several large patio umbrellas around the square, providing almost complete coverage. There were small delicate lights hanging here and there and foliage all around us. It was so simple and so pleasant and so...perfect.
Our server greeted us warmly in Italian and allowed us to stumble through ordering a bottle of the house wine, water and an appetizer that looked yemmy. The night only got better from there. The woman who brought our wine was named Laura and took a liking to us immediately. She visited us often through the night and chatted us up (mostly in English). Our server (who's name I forget) was from Brazil and had lived in Italy for..10 years I think? I again ordered something I didn't know off the menu and hoped for the best, Steven got a plate of ravioli. When we were served, I got a powerful aroma of mushrooms from my plate. I. Hate. Mushrooms. Or so I thought. I still gave it a try and I can't tell you how glad I was. It was like heaven melting in my mouth. I got the Fagottino Radicchio Rosso Callas (we went back the next day to snap a picture of the menu items) the ravioli is what Steven had. Which by the way was the best ravioli either of us has had. Really.
We ended up killing two bottles of wine that night (mostly me since Steven was still sick) and cleaned a HUGE platter of dessert (a sampler). We ended up wobbling our way back to our B&B while chatting with Laura who was heading home on her bike (yes! bike, a lady in her 60's+ rode home).
We didn't have much time in Verona the next day but managed to find our way to the tallest tower in Verona and saw the city in a whole new way.
Lucky for us, this tower was a functioning bell tower, which tolled every 15 mins. We tried to make it back to the elevator before it went off but managed to get directly UNDERNEATH the HUGE bell that rang. Go us. I also re-realized my uneasiness with heights while on this tower. What the crap happened to me? I used to LOVE heights. This growing older stuff is annoying....
The last thing to see before we left Verona had to be the ancient Roman Theater ruins across the river. Bucket list item: See Roman Ruins. Check.
This first picture is actually the view from the ruins.
Now the ruins
(view from the other side of the river)
We hurried back across the river to collect our bags from the B&B and catch the train to Venice. We were sad to leave Verona but I was so excited to see Venice. I'd heard such amazing things.
Things we learned since Cinque Terre:
- Hotels/B&B's will store your luggage for you as your wonder around the city even if you have to check out that morning.
- Seeing a bike race in person is not as awesome as it sounds. You don't really get to see the cyclist. They're by in a flash and then behind layers and layers of fencing.
- I'm a sissy when it comes to heights.
- Baccala' is gross.
- The more expensive your meal is, the nicer the servers are.
Continue to part 3? Sweeeeeeeet
-Liz
No comments:
Post a Comment