Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we tour the intriguing city of Verona.
It was only a few hours train trip from Venice to Verona so what could go wrong. It started with us unable to find the carriage or seat numbers on our on-line tickets. They had to be on the paperwork somewhere we thought to ourselves but neither of us could find anything that resembled this information. So, we came up with the plan to walk along the station to the head of the train where the first-class carriage should be, and the seating would presumably be on a first-come basis.
Along the way we saw a train official and showed him our paperwork without any success other than being pointed to the carriage at the front of the train. While we were still both a bit sceptical of the situation we neverthess kept walking to the front of the train thinking we had the problem solved, that was until we arrived and boarded the first carriage and discovered that the seating consisted of four person cubicles with each cubicle having obscure numbers on the fronting glass wall. Pauline had another look at our tickets and found numbers in tiny print in one of the corners that were similar to what she was seeing on the cubicles but just not our numbers.
Immediately, the hunt was on to find the matching numbers prior to the train leaving and to unblock the corridor on the carriage from our luggage that wasd preventing other passages from locating their cubicles. I also relooked at the tickets and found in the same spot as the mysterious numbers was a number “269” and recognised it as the obscure number I had seen on the outside door of the front carriage, not Carriage 1 as you would expect. It seemed like everybody else knew the numbering arrangement except us. You always get surprises when you travel – you have to just work through them and not get too stressed although it helps having someone like Pauline on your team who has a real knack of resolving these types of issues with calming enthusiasm.
On the train we met this lovely couple from Dusseldorf heading home and we spent the entire trip to Verona chatting with them. As we approached Verona, we got our substantial luggage organised, said our goodbyes, and headed to the train door at the front of the carriage as the train was only doing a short stop at Verona on its way to Munich. We were already to alight when the train stopped and to our horror the green exit button on the door did not work. After many attempts, we ran back to our German friends who confirmed that the door was definitely not working and without hesitation took some of our luggage and ran to the other end of the carriage where they got the door opened and helped us get off before the train departed – who knows where we would have ended up had the train departed with us still on board. After taking some deep breadths we headed for the station exit and caught a taxi to our apartment. Just one simple train trip but so much unexpected drama.
Verona was always going to be surprise packet and it turned out to be a tremendous city. Our apartment Residenza Palazzo Brenzoni was a large studio near the river in the Old Town and was extremely comfortable and well equipped and of course, it had the essential washing machine for us to catch us on our washing since our last laundry stop in Rovinj. A short walk away was the main shopping street that had every global retail brand you could name represented, even some that we thought had shutdown, at least in Australia. Our first afternoon included the customary walk around to get our bearings and we both remarked how unexpectedly beautiful, clean, and easy the Old Town was to walk around.
At night we found a local Italian in the shopping precinct and when we went to leave, we ran into a couple of English ladies who told us they had flown over to Verona for the opera festival in the Arena. Not sure what that meant we thought we must investigate further following our short exposure to the Opera in Venice.
The next day we located the Arena which is actually an historic Roman Ampitheatre built in 30 AD and discovered that we could obtain tickets that night for a performance of Madame Butterfly and impulsively booked the tickets, albeit the only tickets available were up in the stars but for us it was more the experience we were looking for.
It turned out to a magnificent night with the seats being the original limestone slabs still hot from the day’s 30_ degreee heat, the moon rising over the back of the stage and the production just spectacular.
What a tremendous impromptu memory and introduction to Verona the night was, even though it did not finish until after midnight. I am sure the Italians stay up all night during the summer and just have their afternoon siesta as everything is always operating so late here.
The couple of days we had in Verona ended up being action packed and included a walking tour taking in the historical highlights including a walk by both Romeo’s house and Juliet’s house the main piazza Piazza delle Erbe, the famous Basilica di Santa Anastasia and many other landmarks as well as a gelato shop that we found that serves the most decorative gelato cones you have ever seen.
While we had briefly sighted Juliet’s balcony on the walkaround we wanted to visit inside Juliet’s House and discovered that we had to book on-line for entry so we booked tickets for the next day with a specific visiting time. When we arrived there was a long queue to get into the courtyard for the obligatory photo of the balcony and Juliet’s statue so we went around the line of people flashing our tickets and went inside the house where we found only a few people having a look around. While there is not a lot to see inside the house the benefit of going inside is you get the opportunity to stand on the balcony by yourself for a brief few minutes.
When it was almost Pauline’s turn, I rushed downstairs to the courtyard and took up position amongst the crowd to ensure I could get Pauline’s picture when she appeared on the balcony and performed the customary waive – one of her bucket list items ticked off successfully.
On one of the nights we went on the hunt for a quaint local restaurant in the back streets of the Old Town and came across Osteria Il Bertoldo, a small restaurant with only inside seating but with stacks of atmosphere. The waiter was a young guy who wanted to know all about Australia but also loved discussing the history of local wines. It was a lot of fun chatting with him and the authentic Italian food and his wine recommendation was fantastic. A young couple from Berlin sat down next to us after a short while and stated they were working in commercial real estate in Berlin. We ended up picking their brains about the current highlights to visit in Berlin as when we were last there the Wall was still up, so we wanted to know how much the city had changed. It was a great conversation and certainly enhanced the evening – it is always fun when travelling running into interesting people from other countries.
During the last few days, we walked a bit further afield from the Old Town and came across this unusual café near the entry arch that had panda’s sitting at one of the tables – we still do not know the significance of them other than a great marketing initiative, but it certainly added to our coffee stop.
We then headed across the famous bridge Ponte Pietra to visit the magnificent Guisti family Manor House and associated Gardens located on a hillside overlooking the city.
It was so interesting seeing how the wealthy Italian families lived back in those grand days and what can be behind a very uninteresting dilapidated wall when viewed from the street.
On our final day we waited until late in the afternoon and caught an inclinator up to Castel San Pietro, a lookout across the river that provides panoramic views overlooking the Old Town.
While some ominous clouds rolled in while we were there upsetting the sunset shots we expected to get, we did nevertheless enjoy having aperols’ from the bar at the top while we soaked up the tremendous view. The Old Town is located directly behing Pauline in the photo below with our apartment just to the right of the bridge, a short way behind the building with the white screening.
At night we again found a fantastic restaurant, Santa Felicita Ristorante, literally around the corner from our apartment that was set up in an old, converted church – simply amazing to see how they have converted churches here in Italy that are no longer active into charming restaurants that provide so much character and atmosphere.
Our time in Verona had come to an end and what started out as a visit to Juliet’s Balcony for Pauline and to catch up on our washing ended up being so much more with so many memories we didn’t expect when we arrived – Verona is an enchanting city and one we will most likely come back and visit again. Tomorrow, we pick up another hire car from the train station and head up into the mountains for what we expect will be a completely different experience in Northern Italy – until then.
Bruce and Pauline
When Wine Calls 
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