Day 35 - Drive to Verona

Today we leave Vernazza and head for Verona, this is a 3.5hr drive to get us closer to Venice.

We had our breakfast, packed our bags and I had too finally use the cases on my back as the stairs are too steep to get them down other wise. This obviously took two trips and to say I was hot was an understatement afterwards.
We got a coffee and called the parking lot operators to come and collect us.

Once at the car we started to make the ascent up the hill. Going slow was our tactic! Half way up the hill sits the original town of San Barnaldo, we wanted to visit the winery that makes the Rose we had the first day. This proved difficult with the narrow roads and seemed to only have resident parking, we saw two cars start to go up the hill so I jumped in behind them instead and started the next climb to the top road - my theory is, if they met someone, they would get the fright first!

We jumped onto the Autostrada once in La Spezia and the toll booths said - ‘Free tolls, strike today’ - So we went on our way. I still can’t get over how Italians drive and how 2 lane motorway can have the slow lane doing anywhere around 90km & the fast 130km.
We got just outside of Verona and got off the Autostrada, this is where we went to an operator of the toll booth to find out there is no strike and we didn’t have a toll ticket. No problems though as he got out his book, I told him where we started - seeing it was the other side of the country I don’t think he was going to question if I was lying!

We checked into the hotel and walked into Verona.
First off we walked down to see the Ponte Scaligero bridge, it is a brick & marble bridge with 3 spans & arches, built in the 14th century & reconstructed after WWII. Seeing it was hot and Katie was dealing with the heat amazingly (I was just my usual sweaty mess) We saw a gelato store next door. I had cherry & Katie passion fruit - the passionfruit is the best we have tasted and so refreshing on a hot day!
We walked to the Verona Arena which will be coming back too next Friday for the Opera. The arena is a well preserved Roman amphitheater that was built to seat 20,000 people. Much like the colosseum just smaller but better preserved.
What would a trip to Verona be without strolling down Via Giuseppe Mazzini, a narrow pedestrian thoroughfare with designer boutiques - again the cats need food so we were happy window shopping.
This led us to Piazza delle Erbe the historic town plaza which had Torre de Lamberti to the North east side which is the tallest medieval tower in Verona. Down the street from this is the famous and way overly crowded to be romantic these days, Juliet’s House and the famous balcony. Believe us, Romeo would of gone else where if he saw the masses these days.

We went to Osteria del Bugiardo for some tapas and a cheeky 3 Euro Rose, kept walking through the streets, went to Aldi for some supplies & then headed back to the hotel as we were both a bit buggered from the drive today.

We are both glad we changed our plans to not drive on the outside of Venice and stay in what essentially was middle of no where, Verona has been nice to spend the night and see the very picturesque main town.Read more