Learning Public Transport in Verona

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Kim: After our brief stop over in Vicenza we trained on to Verona and tried to make our way to our next accomodation. We were staying in a little town called Sona, which didn't sound too far out of Verona when we booked, however it was a bit of a mission to get to. Some intense study of the bus timetables and an hours ride later we arrived in the dark, finally found our BnB and after checking in started scouting dinner. It turns out that Saturday was not a very busy night and nothing was open expect the local bar which made us up some toasted sandwhiches. Tried the national drink "Spritz", kind of like an orange pre-mixed vodka drink, probably wont be trying it again.

Up bright and early the next day to catch the bus into Verona, ended up in a slight rush as the normal bus routes don't run on Sundays. Arriving in Verona city centre we found a huge local market full of the most amazing pastries, olives, meats and cheeses! Got a quick snack and headed out on a little road train for a tour of the city to get our bearings, then we hit the museusms and churches and of course all the Romeo and Juliet sites. It turns out the first Sunday of every month is a festival day, and all the main sites had discounted entry down to 1 euro, making it a cheap experience. Went through an amazing castle/fort which had its own escape path over the river (just incase the commoners got angry during medievil times!) and watched hordes of people lining up to touch a statue of Juliet for good luck in love.

After an eventful day, and as the weather was begining to turn a little cold, we started our journey home. Now we learnt our first travel lesson of why never to stay outside the city centre. Because it was a Sunday, only half of the buses were running, and our bus back to Sona had already stopped for the day so we tried to take an alternate route. For the first time ever we ended up in a situation where neither driver or anyone else on the bus spoke english, and so followed a very confused conversation about us getting home. The driver was incredibly concerned about driving us anywhere until we knew exactly what we wanted, and after about 20 mintues of the whole bus discussing us in italiano we were proposed a solution- jump off where the driver tells us and walk for about 1.5-2km to the village...sounded fine. On the bus ride out, it started to pour with rain, and being slightly under-prepared we only had one little umbrella and no rain jackets. As we started walking the longest and most intense thunder and lighting storm I have ever been in started, and it continuted for our entire walk home; through windy country roads with hardly any light except for the occasional car headlights that would wizz past now and again. We tumbled into our BnB soaked and cold, only to realise that again there was nothing open in the town again so we would have to walk another 1km to get to the closest resurant for any dinner. We set out again to Villa Eire and turned up looking like drowned rats to the fanciest resturant we have visited in Italy. It was a nice dinner and we treated ourselves to a glass of desert wine each to celebrate walking in the rain, turns out some Italian dessert wine isn't actually wine but a distilled grape drink (Aquavite, similar to grappa) which gets up to 40% alcohol, and that suprised us a little bit! Completing the day we wandered back home in the rain, which hadn't eased at all no thunder thankfully, and crawled into bed.

The next day we headed up to the town of Sirmione naer Lake Garda, but there wasn't a whole lot to do given it was a Monday (most things in Italy are closed on a Monday) and it was drizzling on and off. We settled for a pizza lunch and gelato at a local place while we attempted to book accomodation for that night in Bologna, and tootled back to Verona before trainimg our way down to Bologna in the afternoon.

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Photos

Trying to find our Sona accomodation
(it ended up being back the other way)

Comments

[Ryan]

Heh..
Can just see dos sitting at his PC with this lol

[Vanessa Ortynsky]

Thanks for sharing your travel experiences with us, Kim and Greg! I loved reading this post and checking out all the photos! It looks like you're having a wonderful time! xxx

[Nana & Grandad]

Good to read of your experiences. You both look well.