Verona: Sat 21 – Tue 24th Sept: Accommodation
Sat 21st September
It was a fine day for our trip to Verona and twice the temperature of the previous few days. We’d been cold and wet with temperatures of 17 degrees back then but today it was 34 degrees when we stopped off at Ferrara. Ferrara was a short stop to kill some time before our check in at Verona. The guide notes we used to explore Ferrara mentioned to watch out for any weddings at the city hall and we arrived right as the guests were gathering for one! We continued on to view the Cathedral and the Castle and strolled the nearby streets but that was all. The Old Town area was very busy and it seemed like the whole city had converged here for their Saturday catch up.
We found our Verona hosts with relative ease, as they had waited on a nearby corner so as to walk us to the apartment. Our accommodation was located right in the historical centre, beside the Verona Arena, and the area wasn’t accessible by car on a Saturday afternoon. It was pleasing to find the apartment to be a large, modern light-filled space with two delightful Juliet balconies, which was kind of appropriate given we were in Verona.
We didn’t dawdle though and set out to visit to the Verona Arena, but it was closed for an event, so we headed over to the other side of the city and to the Teatro Romano. The theatre dates back to the first century AD but was covered for centuries and only discovered in 1834 when a property developer bought a row of houses and demolished them as part of his renovation. It was then that the remains of the theatre were discovered.
From there we walked on just a few minutes and caught the funicular up to Castel San Pietro. The Castle is closed to visitors so it’s more of an opportunity to get a great view out over the city. We had a bit of a look around and then stopped off for a drink before catching the funicular back down to street level.
It was coming up to 7 pm by the stage we were back down at street level and so we decided to head for dinner to a place that had scored highly on Google and was just near our apartment.
The short walk back towards our apartment, and to our restaurant for dinner, was nothing short of amazing though as we had never seen so many people gathered in one place. It was like the end of a major event or an AFL grand final, where everyone had descended into the one area. I don’t know if Verona was normally like this, but it was a little overwhelming, especially for Mark. Verona was a much more visually appealing city than Bologna and it was amazing to think they were only 2 hours by car apart. Where Bologna was mostly medieval buildings of the traditional red brick with some hidden Roman ruins, there was a lot more limestone throughout Verona and many impressive Roman ruins around the city. Verona had more of a feeling similar to Rome that Bologna certainly didn’t have. Mark suggested that the Romans must have valued Verona much more highly than Bologna. There was a bit of green space throughout Verona old town too, that Bologna lacked, in fact our apartment building fronted onto one such green square. We’d also noticed the standard of dress in Verona had ticked up a few notches and there was much more activity in the morning with people out exercising and many more cafes open at an early hour.
The meal at our restaurant was just okay, despite its 4.8 Google score, and I noted it didn’t have cloth napkins. Our recent dinners at cloth napkin venues had been great so I stand by my aim; to have a Google filter that selects out venues that have cloth napkins. Call me crazy but it does seem to make the difference between an okay and a very good dining experience. We decided then that for the next couple of nights we would try and find places that had cloth napkins. Mark was surprisingly very on-board with this endeavor. Out host at yesterday’s balsamic vinegar tasting venue had mentioned a Verona restaurant, Greppia, and so we thought we would stroll by that to see what it looked like and then onto Juliet’s balcony. Greppia looked great so we booked that and we scooted past the overwhelming crowd at Juliet’s House but, in doing so, found another restaurant that looked great, Osteria Scudo Di Franca, so we booked that in as well. All was right in the world!
Sun 22nd September
It was a busy one for us today as we only had two days to see most of the sights in Verona as most of them would be closed tomorrow, being a Monday when most museums around Europe tend to stay closed. We ticked off a lot of boxes on our to-do list though, as noted below, and were grateful for the location of our apartment. It was never too far from any of these venues and that meant we could pop in and out between sights to rest up and charge our phones every now and then:
- Verona Arena: think ‘Rome’s Colosseum’ and you get much the same structure here. A bit annoying for this visit as there was no audio guide which we both found quite pathetic. An impressive structure though. Our apartment is about 200m from the arena and it can be seen from our balcony.
- Castelvecchio: a 14th century castle now a museum. Impressive and worth the visit.
- Ponte Scaligero: an impressive 14th century bridge used to escape from the adjacent castle (Castelvecchio)
- Verona Cathedral: this did have an audio guide which greatly helped. The Cathedral has the most magnificent frescoes and is worth a visit.
- Scaligeri Tombs: built in the 13-14th century: best known now as the location of Juliet’s staged death.
- Juliet’s House: crazy chaotic with huge crowds all day long. We had booked entry as it was free with our Verona card.
The streets were as busy again today as they were last night, which was rather unpleasant, but we battled along after finishing at Juliet’s House in the search of some white sandshoes for Mark. We found some eventually and they were on sale and cheaper than back home so it made the purchase seems less silly. After that we escaped back to the peace of our apartment to rest up for an hour before heading back out for an aperitif and then on to dinner at Greppia. Our meal and experience at Greppia was great so this is somewhere I would recommend you visit.
Mon 23rd September
It was a cooler day which suited as we had a 2 hour walking tour scheduled at 10.30 am. Mark got a bike ride in before this but I hibernated at home. Our walking tour was with Free Walking Tour Verona and this was quite good as it gave a bit more context, in some areas, to things we had seen the day before One thing I found quite amazing was the large fossils in the pavement limestone that our guide, Francesca, pointed out. I was going to be watching my feet a bit more closely now until we left the city!
Our tour finished up just after 12.30 so we headed to a small wine bar for lunch but we then had to go back to the apartment as we realized our E-sims had run out. It was around 4 pm before we set out again and we decided we would visit two places that made use of our Verona card. That only left Chiesa di San Fermo Maggiore and the Torre dei Lamberti. The most interesting part of the afternoon was just how many further fossils we found in the pavement limestone. There were so many I had to stop from snapping them! San Fermo was most impressive due to the basement Romanesque (11-12th century) chapel and the Tower was simply a chance to get a good view out over the city. It was raining by this stage and so we headed on to dinner at Osteria Scudo Di Franca, that was able to take us in earlier than our original 7 pm reservation time. We had a pleasant meal but noted there were no Italians dining there so thought that was a bit odd. It had been a very full couple of days and so, with the rain falling, we scrambled back to the apartment for an early night.
We had enjoyed our short visit to Verona and could understand why the place was so busy. There is a lot to see and do and there are loads of cafes, bars and restaurants and endless shopping to be enjoyed. I would highly recommend our apartment to anyone considering a visit. It was large, clean and ideally located for exploring the city. Tomorrow we head to Lake Iseo.
