We were up early this morning so that we could catch the 8.23am train to Varenna which is approximately half way up the eastern side of Lake Como. This regional service departs from Milano's Central Station so we had to take a Metro train from our B&B early enough to make the connection. Although we arrived at Milano Centrale yesterday and caught the Metro to the B&B to familiarise ourself with how to get about on the trains we still thought it best to allow plenty of time to get confused (or lost?) doing it in reverse. Our early start also meant that we missed the 'and breakfast' part at the B&B this morning. They do breakfast from 8.00am, but Bernie wanted to leave by 7.30am so we ate the fruit, etc that we bought at ... read more

We started our sightseeing this morning at the Museo Lapidario Maffeiano where we purchased 48 hour Verona Cards that entitle us to see pretty much everything that we want to see while we are here in Verona. The museum consisted of Etruscan, Greek and Roman stelae and funerary monuments. It certainly made us think. Here we were looking at headstones prepared for people who lived and died more than 2,000 years ago. In another 2,000 years there'll be no such tangible record of our lives and deaths as we move more and more to an entirely digital existence! We walked by the Arena, but it was ridiculously busy in and around the Piazza Bra which we assume was due to it being a holiday weekend and/or the 'Wings for Life World Run' that is on on ... read more

The forecast for today said that there was a zero percent chance of rain. Hmmn, on that basis we decided to go out without our raincoats for a quick pre-breakfast visit to the Piazza San Marco before the hordes arrive. Of course as soon as we reached the square it started to spit!! What a difference an hour makes though to the number of tourists that are around. Yesterday afternoon the piazza was a heaving mass of people, at 8.00am this morning it was just us and a handful of of other people. There was some professional photography going on at this hour of the day. One was a wedding shoot, the other involved a woman in a flowing red dress so it was probably a fashion shoot? The photographer's assistant had to keep throwing the ... read more

Unfortunately it was still wet this morning, but seemed to be showing some sign of easing? After breakfast we settled our account with Donatello and headed off to the Galleria dell'Academia with our pre-purchased tickets for 9.00am entry. Although Donatello is expecting new guests today he doesn't have anyone allocated to our room so we are able to store our bags in the room until we leave early this afternoon. With the rain falling there were colourful umbrellas everywhere so we tried to capture some interesting rainy day shots with umbrellas the stand out feature. When we reached the Galleria dell'Academia there were queues everywhere. They didn't seem to be as well organised as the Uffizi Gallery, with people generally confused about which queue they should be in. Even with our pre-purchased ticket for 9.00am it ... read more

Donatello put on a huge spread of food for us to choose from for breakfast so we pigged out on fruit, cereal with yogurt and pastries. Well, we shared a pastry so we didn't pig out too much! Bernie had pre-purchased our ticket to visit the Uffizi Gallery so we walked straight from the B&B to the gallery to make our 9.30am timed entry. We exchanged our voucher for our tickets and then joined the pre-purchased ticket queue. Although this queue was much shorter than the one to purchase tickets the screening point was shared with groups so we had to wait a bit while a large group entered ahead of us. The Uffizi Gallery is one of the most famous museums in the world holding works of art by great Italian artists such as Botticelli, ... read more