My Verona

I'm back in Italy for the third time in a month (it's a long story, and I'll be back once again in 5 or 6 weeks). But this time it's for fun, to places we've never been: Verona and Bassano del Grappa. They're both in the Veneto region, about an hour or two outside Venice.

Verona is famous for being the setting of several of Shakespeare's plays, including "Romeo and Juliet" and "Two Gentlemen From Verona," but why Bassano del Grappa? Well, a friend of mine from Bellevue Expedia moved to London Expedia at the same time as I did, and then she and her husband moved to Bassano del Grappa. We have wanted to visit them for a while, and we figured we should make a long weekend of it, and see lovely Verona as well.

Also, Bassano del Grappa invented GRAPPA.

As we arrived at the BCN airport lounge for a pre-departure cava, Matt began singing "My Verona" to the tune of "My Sharona." Between the cava and that earworm, I didn't realize I'd left my favorite black leather jacket in the lounge until our plane was taxiing down the runway. So Earworm 1, Denise 0, and I'm going to freeze my ass off this weekend.

Shockingly, our cheap EU flight landed fifteen minutes early, and we arrived at our guesthouse earlier than expected. Our elderly host showed us our room- it's essentially a tiny apartment in a huge medieval palazzo where her family has lived for over 200 years. It was a classic peak AirBnB moment (circa 2010 or so) when real people would occasionally rent out a spare room in their homes, and you could meet some fascinating people. (Of course, this sounds amazing until we realized she really liked to talk, didn't seem inclined to actually leave, and I started to get images of waking up in the middle of the night and seeing her standing over the bed.)

We managed to extricate ourselves, and headed to Trattoria Pane e Vino for our 9pm reservations for a seven-course tasting menu.

Long-time readers of our travels (all three of you) know that unlike most humans, I do not love Italian food, pasta, or pizza. (I am aware that this makes me a subhuman oddity to many, but in my defense, I'm right.) So while it seems unlikely that I would indulge in an Italian tasting menu, Pane e Vino came highly recommended...and the amazing menu featured only one course of pasta.

I am about to say something I have never said before: This Italian meal was one of the best things I've eaten all year.

Each course featured very typical Verona ingredients presented in atypical ways, beginning with a "surprise of starters." One of the four "surprises" was two hollow chocolate balls filled with Italian vermouth- two of my favorite food groups- and I was so excited that I promptly spilled the vermouth all over the table. The following courses included housemade sausage, tiny pumpkin bread sandwiches filled with foie gras and goose (which I was so excited about that I forgot to take a photo), roasted quail roulade, homemade gnocchi with local cheese, a pasta dish in a thick rabbit ragu, and a deconstructed tiramisu. Now, normally I cannot be bothered with foo-foo "deconstructed" food (I'm paying the chef to literally CONSTRUCT my meal, so do yer job, pal), but this tiramisu did not fuck around and just served the goods: The delicious boozy custard and some cookie crumbs. That is perfection. No notes.

After three hours, we walked back through a dark, rainy, beautiful Verona to our palazzo. As we passed Casa di Giulietta (Juliet's House), I started singing that Taylor Swift song "Love Story" about Romeo and Juliet, because nothing says "romantic evening in Italy" like a little Tay-Tay.

(Matt countered my earworm with Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet." I may not have a jacket, but I have a playlist.)Baca lagi