Verona

Verona has lots of Roman ruins, so we stopped there enroute to Venice.

-- What we expected: Idyllic strolls through historic piazzas and churches, along quaint picturesque streets.

-- What we got: Throngs of tour groups and crowds of tourists, and a confusinng maze of medieval streets. (And ancient ruins and picturesque streets).

Leaving the train station, we took a city bus to the old town area. We mistakenly thought that we'd be able to navigate an unfamiliar bus system in another language. Silly us! We got where we wanted just fine, though; and viewed some sites (along with a million other people). I was amazed that many of the streets and most sidewalks in old town were made of pink marble! Marble streets? I can't get over that. The Roman arena is the 3rd largest in Italy, also made of pink marble. All of it!

Lunch was amazing - traditional Italian food, unhurried atmosphere, linger-worthy. After viewing more sites, we tired of the crowds and needed to take the bus back to the train station to catch our 2:20 train to Venice. Then it got tricky.

Long story short, we walked part-way back, never seeing a bus. We finally found a main bus area with a lot of bus stops. However, buses either didn't stop or were not headed to the train station. After trying several bus stops, and asking several Italians, we finally found the magic bus stop going to the train station. But not in time for our train. So we left an hour late, and arrived to more crowds in Venice!

All good, though. We got our vaporetto (water bus) to our apartment and got settled. Whew!Baca selengkapnya