Verona, Italy

We took one 5ish hour train into Verona from Munich and had a private cabin this time. Woo hoo! This was wonderful because the kids could be silly and no masks! The views through the mountains of Austria and Italy were simply stunning. However, my camera on a speeding train did not even do it justice, so you are stuck with cute pictures of my girls. We should be able to make it back to visit Austria, but just passed through for now.

Be proud of us because we culturally prepared our kids for Italy by allowing them to watch Luca and Gnomeo & Juliet.

When we exited the train in Verona, we immediately could tell we had gone much further south. We encountered some good old Texas style heat - well almost that hot. They actually have air conditioning at this hotel, but the air turns off when you leave the room. No washer and dryer still, so we will have to find one of those soon.

Our first day began with a bakery stop and cappuccino near a little market in Verona. Just the right way to begin the day. After caffenating, we were off to explore the city. This city is famous for the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. We ventured to Juliet's balcony and found several art sculptures around town honoring this ancient love story. We walked around the ancient arena dated back to 30AD in prep mode for an Opera. We also discovered parts of ancient roads that were exposed as we walked to through the shops.

We stayed in a hotel just off the Piazza Bra with shopping, coffee, gelato and pizza at every corner. We ventured away from the city center across the Pointe Pietra Bridge, built around 100 AD, and found this superb, tiny pizza shop that was delicious and cheap. We had read when traveling around Europe that venturing away from the city you often find better food at better prices, so far we have found this to be true. I will say this is the third best pizza we have ever had. Sorry guys, we still prefer Seth's homemade pizza over Italy's. Don't worry though, we will keep trying pizza.

We decided to make the trek to a hilltop and overlook the city. Along the route, Mabel got a blister and so we carried her around the rest of the day. The hilltop was awesome. As we overlooked the city, we couldn't help but notice the roof line was perfect for an action film. We could have "easily" run across rooftops to escape a bad guy. The carrying of Mabel was a workout, especially because of all the stairs and inclines.

Once we reached the top of the hill, we explored an old building and managed to get a little stuck. We thought we were on the path down, but it lead to a locked gate and the doors we went through locked behind us. We had to jump around/over the fence by using a ledge with a gnarly drop off. We made it out of there and found our way to the path again. Phew!

Once we reached to bottom of the hilltop again, we found a nice green space for the girls to play. Luckily, they got their puppy fix. They giggled so much as the played with several sweet dogs. They are missing Seth's friend's dog, Pablo.

Next, we plan to take a short stop in Venice on the way to some old Air Force friends. We are looking forward to a slow holiday weekend with good friends and hopefully some good food. We tried to meet up with them on our RV adventures a couple years ago, but a last minute deployment spoiled our plans.

Chocolate update: Chocolate is good is all the countries, but non has stood out above the rest. Happy to keep trying chocolate all the places despite the delicious similarities.

Oh ya! Addy lost a tooth in Italy and the tooth fairy still found her.Read more