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Published: August 14th 2014
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We started out our first full day in Verona with a delicious breakfast spread made for us by our host Rosanna. There was fresh fruit, eggs, yogurt, cured meats, cheeses, fresh biscuits, croissants and lots of Nutella 😊 After breakfast we figured out the bus system without struggling too much (taxis are extremely expensive in Verona) and headed to the city center. The bus dropped us off right outside Castelvecchio. This "old castle" was built in the 13th century during the rule of the Scaliger dynasty and was a very important military hub. As you wander around inside the walls of the still very sturdy Castelvecchio, it really does make you wonder about all of the things that went on when people actually lived there. We crossed the bridge of Castelvecchio over the Adige river and headed towards the house of Juliet. While we were walking there it started pouring rain. Luckily, the Verona street market was much more prepared for a day like this than we were, and every stand had panchos or umbrellas for sale. Verona is about as crowded as Florence during the day, sooo very crowded, but when the entire city is also walking around with umbrellas
it is a bit hectic. With umbrellas in our hands and sandals on our feet, we walked along the slick marble sidewalks trying hard not to slip and fall. Just a couple blocks from the market is the entrance of Juliets house. It is a brick archway with the interior entirely covered by love notes and signatures of past tourists. Through the archway is the courtyard and balcony pretty much everyone is the world is familiar with. Being at the location of the where the most tragic love story took place is like being in a fairy tale, it just doesn't seem real, even with the massive amounts of pushy tourists waving around umbrellas. Of course Gina and I did what every girl goes there to do, stood on the balcony while the other one snapped a picture. We walked through the rest of the house, saw her bedroom, dining room and an old velvet dress that they say she actually wore. Since it was still pouring when we left, we decided it was a good time to have lunch and a glass of wine. We found a very quaint and intimate cafe close by and ordered our relatively standard
lunch meal... a tuna salad with hardboiled egg, radicchio, zucchini, carrots and tomatoes. The tuna in Italy is nothing like the canned tuna we get in the United States. It is not necessary to drown it with mayonnaise or some other type of dressing to make it taste good. The only dressing necessary is a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We had their house white wine, a soave that paired perfectly with our salads. The last site we wanted to explore that day was the Arena. The line wasn't bad and once we were inside we just sat and stared at its beauty. Sitting in the stands definitely made us both wish that our time in Verona overlapped with opera festival. There are several operas in running in rotation at the Arena during August, but sadly the two nights we booked in Verona were off nights. That evening for dinner we went to a restaurant owned by the son of our host Rosana, Osteria Sgarzarie. It was an adorable restaurant with a great outdoor patio. I ordered organic wheat spaghetti with pesto and Gina had a macaroni with meat and eggplant ragu. The spaghetti was easily the best I
have ever had. It had a very simple but fresh tomato sauce with the greenest pesto in existence drizzled on top. By the time we finished dinner we were exhausted, so we called it a relatively early night (1 am) and headed back to sleep. When we woke up we were supposed to head to Venice, but tonight happened to be the 100th year anniversary of the opera "Carmen" showing in the Arena, so we changed our travel plans and bought tickets to the opera. It was nice not having to spend the day on a train since we were so busy yesterday and today ended up being just what we needed, a relaxing day of laundry and catching up on sleep. We are about to start getting ready for the opera, and are so happy we made the decision to stay and experience something we never imagined we would be able to. Ciao!
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Debbie Cifelli
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Yum
What a beautiful, colorful picture of you and your snack, I want one ;)