Ma Ma Ma My Verona

Friday 9^th August

On the road, well, on the tracks to Verona for the day – about 40 minutes on the fast train, 90 on the slow coming home, this morning to Verona. From the station, we got a bus, to exactly where we needed to go – we are getting the hang of the buses now, and didn’t get lost.

At the Tourist Information we bought the Verona Card, which gets entry into about 20 venues, and in Verona you pay to see the churches. So, we headed off to see as much as possible, but intentionally avoiding Juliet’s House, which of course is a clever tourist trap.

Verona is a lovely city, situated on the Adigo River. There are many Roman ,medieval, Renaissance and some modern buildings, all mixed in together, and some buildings are combinations of all, building up and on as the need arises. There are two big squares, and the main one is Piazza Bra, where there is a big fountain, a huge statue of Victor Emmanuele – every Italian city has at least one statue of V.E. or Garibaldi or both, and it seems that every city has a special connection to one or the other. Verona also has a beautiful statue of the poet, Dante, who was exiled from Florence and settled in Verona for a while. The Roman Arena is adjacent to Piazza Bra.

The Roman Arena had all the props outside for opera performances, including Aida, but the queue to get into the Arena was very long and in the sun, so we walked on.

Our first stop (using the card) was the Torre de Lamberti, and for an extra euro, you can take the lift to the level where the bells are, so we did. We are so over stairs and steps. There are great views of Verona. From the tower we strolled to the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia. We’ve seen a lot of churches, but this is spectacular. At the entrance are two holy water fonts, being held up by carvings of hunchbacks – a different way of doing it. Building the church started in the middle-ages and renovations continued on through the centuries. It was worth visiting. There are about 20 side altars, all beautifully sculpted, frescoed or painted. There is an amazing fresco of the legend of St George and the Princess, which is way up high, and from floor level looks a bit faded and difficult to see. There was a video presentation that described the story and the showed close ups of the detail of the painting and its richly coloured and intricate sections. It’s amazing that so much care and work was put into something that can’t really be seen very well.  One of the chapels has a huge whale bone suspended from the roof. Why? No one really knows.

We then went to the Arche de Scaligeri family. These are huge tombs, right in the centre of the city. Before about 12oo’s, no one was allowed to be buried inside the city walls, but one of the Scaligeris, who ruled Verona, decided he was not going to be buried outside the wall. He changed the law so that he, and his family could be buried in, on and around a church. The Scaligeris also decreed that they were the only ones whose house could have an impressive tower, and ordered all other towers in the town be destroyed. Such power!

We sat by the river in a shady spot and ate our lunch of paninis con formaggio e salumi and then visited the Duomo – three churches for the price of one. The duomo was rebuilt when the previous church became too small, which had been built over a Roman temple. The lasagne effect again. There is a huge painting by Titian of the Assumption of Mary.

We had a gelati on the Ponte Pietra,  a Roman bridge which had been bombed in WW2 and rebuilt using the stone that had fallen into the river. There are lovely views up into the hills from the bridge.

We planned to go to the old Castle, and got about half way and realised we were just too tired and hot to continue. An Aperol spritz was calling us toward the Piazza Bra. The spritz was good! We sat there for a while watching the people moving about and then found a place, Ristorante Torcolo (recommended by our man, Rick) for dinner.

We had a Campari spritz for comparison purposes, a local red wine, sea bass and pig cheek for dinner. We felt then that Verona was “done” and so were we.

On the bus, checking it was going to the station and on the slow train back to Padua.