Italy with Kids - Verona

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14 Sept 2008

As is often the case, a boys' eyes are bigger than his stomach, and that proved to be the case for both boys last night. Liam and Joseph each had a chocloate sunday after a hot chocolate drink (they were completely chockiffied). Ky had a type of pav/meringue that was extraordinarily sweet, while I had chocolate profiteroles.

But the 14th being Sunday, it was our day to depart from Cavallino and make our way to an area north of Ravenna for our next stay. due to having to checkout early, and not checkin at Camping Tahiti until 4pm, we opted to drive via Verona and visit that city. More rain again today, but it eased by afternoon.

Verona!

Well, after the usual little tiki tour around the central streets trying to find a park, we found a spot and were kindly advised by a local that it was free parking Sundays. We oriented ourselves towards the Piazza Bra and saw the Arena. What a grand structure it is, made of enormous blocks of white and pink coloured stone. We took a look inside for €8.00 each (kids €1.00), and although large there was not much else to it.



We then walked along the Via Mazzini, with beautiful stone slab paving, and marvellous curvy and crooked path towards the Piazza dei Signori. I took a number of shots of the wrought and cast iron balconies, as we're putting together ideas for a wall with iron work at home. The Piazza dei Signori was magnificent, with a real eclectic mix of frescoes, balconies, arches, statues and fountains.



After a little wander around the back streets we ended up at the Basilica San Zeno Maggiore, with again a wonderful collection of paintings, and elaborate detail on the ceiling.



From Verona we took a secondary road with the aim of saving around 40km from the Autostrade. This time we were lucky: the secondary road was in poor condition for a 110km/hr speed limit, but didn't have many towns along the way. It took us directly south to Ferrara, which we intended to skirt around but due to a missed turn ended up driving right through the middle of. Our experience so far has been that it's impossible to drive right through the middle of the towns or cities due to the windy streets, one-ways, roundabouts and the rest. But Ferrara was very accomodating and being Sunday the streets were nice and quiet.

Then south to Porto Garibaldi and eventually we found our camping ground at the Lido Delle Nazione. We later worked out that each of the streets is named after a country, hence the area we are in is literally the beach of nations. This also explains the unusual name for the camp ground. With the rain and it being the end of the peak season, the place is quite empty which has its advantages and disadvantages. We get first go at the activities, but the shop and restaurant are operating at reduced capacity, which showed when we had a simple dinner.

Oh: the kids were amazed at the pools. They are as good as they look on the website www.campingtahiti.com. If only it hadn't been raining.

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