We woke up and stood on the balcony for a while, soaking up our last morning looking over the lake. I cannot say enough how absolutely beautiful and serene this place is. We headed down for breakfast, but caught a staff member in the middle of her stressful morning, and so she was nowhere near as pleasant as every other staff member had been. She told Mark ‘no toast’, which kind of peeved me as I had my vegemite and didn’t feel like ham and cheese on a roll for brekkie! I grabbed a few other things and then the lady who owned the place walked in and said good morning. So I asked the staff member again if she could please toast my bread, she said I would have to wait 5 minutes. I really like the lady who owns the place, she just interrupted and said “Madame, you would like this toasted, certainly, we will do that now” and looked at the staff lady. Needless to say, this made her stressful morning even more stressful and she gave me an overly large smile and grabbed my bread and promptly toasted it for me. I may have had a slightly smug smile on my face at that point. She gave me back my toast, and muttered lots of Italian words, so I just said thank you and happily headed out to the balcony to have vegemite toast for brekkie.
We had two cuppas each, just so we could sit there a little longer. Then we went upstairs to grab our bags, and stood on the balcony just a little longer. We really didn’t want to leave (can you tell)? We eventually made it down to the car, and then headed out along the narrow ‘scenic’ route back to Lecco, on our way to Venice via Verona.
Our ever faithful satnav seemed to send us on an extremely round-a-bout route - it’s always a worry when the sign says turn left but the sat nav says go right - but we eventually made it to Verona. It’s a vibrant place, and there was lots to see, so we made our way to a big parking station, grabbed a tourist map, and sat down in a café for some lunch and route planning. Our first stop was ‘Il Arena’, Verona’s Roman amphitheatre completed in AD30. It is the third largest in the world and is still very much intact. In its heyday, it could hold the entire population of Verona. It is still in use today, mainly for operatic performances, and they were building the set for Aida while we were there. It was pretty phenomenal to walk inside. It was roomy and airy on the interior, and you could well imagine thousands of Romans excitedly pushing their way in to watch the latest gladiatorial fight. The steps up were very high, Mark commented on how they just don’t meet workplace health and safety standards. Once you got up the (huge) steps and into the centre, it was rather awe inspiring. You could sit anywhere in there and have a fabulous view, and the sound would be amazing. We climbed all the way to the back row, and sat on the huge (pinkish) sandstone blocks. I tried to imagine everyone there in togas, cheering and/or booing whatever was happening down in the ring below. I looked around, but could see no co-conspirators discussing the life of Brian….
We wandered out through the Piazza Brá onto some of the most fantastic buildings we have seen so far. They were all (obviously) very old, and most still had frescos, or at least parts of frescos painted on them. The buildings themselves were all in those lovely earthy colours that you see in postcards; the terracottas, yellows, creams and oranges, with balconies made from decorative iron that had flowers in pots hanging from the railings. We wandered around the streets and into Piazza Erbe, so named as it was originally an herb market. There are markets there today as well, which means it’s been a marketplace for over 2000 years now. There was a fountain at the centre, with a Roman statue in it, and the piazza itself is surrounded by more beautiful buildings (a couple were from the 14th century) that were covered in frescoes. It was all about the feel of this plaza that was the great part. You could feel the years of trading, the millions of feet that had passed over it, and the trillions of conversations that still somehow echoed around the buildings.
We kept on walking and came across an old church (well, one of many old churches actually, this IS Italy afterall). This one was Santa Maria Antica which is where the tombs of the Scaligeri (the 14th century rulers of Verona) were. Next to that was a little chapel which we went into, and the walls were covered in religious paintings, many had bits of plaster that had fallen off, but it was still wonderful to see as the colours were still very bright.
From there, we made our way to the Adige river, to see an old medieval bridge. It had been blown up in WWII, but the Veronese dredged the river to find its bits and pieces, and rebuilt it. It is Ponte Pietra. We strolled across, and stopped to look up and down the river at the halfway point. The water is a lovely aqua-ish blue, it’s very inviting when it’s a hot day and you have been walking for a couple of hours!
Across from the bridge is the Museo Archeologico, an amphitheatre built around 1st century AD, so we wanted to go and have a look around there. We bought a gelati (I have branched out from just lemon and coffee and had pineapple and vanilla this time!) and wandered up to the Museum. We climbed some steps, and then some more, and then more steps. We took some photos of the view over Verona, and then wandered up some more steps. We got to see some of the amphitheatre, but then there were even more steps, and we’d both had enough of bloody steps by this stage, so we made our way down again. Our next stop was even more frustrating, as we headed off on a 90 minute search for ‘Juliet’s balcony’… In a nutshell, we couldn’t find it. It was meant to be a big tourist spot, but no map, nor local person, could actually decide where it may be. We walked back and forth and around, and in and out of all sorts of streets and lanes, but no balcony matching the one in the travel guide was found. There were lots of other balconies though, many of which were very pretty, and so I have just decided that one of those must have been Juliet’s instead.
We figured there would be lots of taxis around Juliet’s balcony as it was such a big tourist spot. We were going to catch a taxi back to the parking station, since it was on the other side of town. But the taxis proved to be even more elusive than the balcony, so we ended up walking all the way back again anyway. Back in the car again (yay, finally) and off we went for Marco Polo airport. This is our number one travel tip to anyone going to Venice with a car – and Mark’s greatest bit of research and planning so far. Naturally, there are no cars in Venice, so you have to park somewhere and ferry yourself in. Parking is phenomenally expensive, and the buses only take you so far into Venice and you have to walk (or hire the very expensive water taxis) to your hotel. Our hotel was just off San Marco Square, so not close to the railway station or the bus station at all. Rather than pay the huge parking costs, we decided to park in the long-term car parks at the airport and take the water-bus into San Marco. We paid €11.00 per day (and they seem to charge ‘per 24 hours’ rather than per calendar day) and €25.00 return water bus fare. So we’ve saved ourselves around €50.00 doing it this way.
We got to the water bus stop, and jumped on board with lots of other tourists. It was around 6:30pm, and the trip was 90 minutes, and so we arrived in Venice itself just as the sun was setting. The water bus was excellent as we got to see a lot around the islands of Lido and Murano as well as the outside of Venice itself. The sun setting over Venice was just gorgeous. We pulled into the ferry stop at San Marco Square and walked into the throngs of people. This is serious tourism, there were huge tour groups, one after another, and just people everywhere. It was pretty exciting! We only had one block to walk to our hotel, so we made our way there and checked in. We were exhausted after our big walk in Verona, so we cleaned up and then headed downstairs for dinner.
There was a seafood restaurant across the lane from the hotel, so we just went in there. We had read all about service charges and cover charges and numerous other charges that are not necessarily clear on menus in Venice. We’re glad we read and paid attention! €3.50 cover charge per head, plus a 15% service fee makes an €80.00 fish and a €25.00 bottle of wine a bit more expensive, as the people opposite us discovered. Oh, and then there’s entrees, desserts and bread as well…. The waiters really push for the expensive meals, but we weren’t starving by any stretch of the imagination, and so we only wanted a main meal and not much else. After lots of trying to convince us conversations, we settled on the cheaper mixed grilled fish platter, which they were certain was not going to be enough to feed us. When it came out, there was a huge sea bass, not much smaller than what the previously mentioned couple had, as well as three other smaller fish, plus a big yabbie each. It was €25.00 each, so I think we had made the right choice in the end, and it was more than enough to eat! It was very yummy on top of everything!
We went for a little wander after dinner, into San Marco Square. We crossed the bridge and saw the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ which was sadly surrounded with advertising (every square inch of space, right up to the bridge). It was lovely to walk around though, the place was alive and even though there were so many people (and so much advertising), it was very romantic. We walked around the outside of the Doge’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale) and the Basilica di San Marco. The facades all looked fabulous against the night sky. We read somewhere to take a small torch with you to read your map because Venice is so dimly lit at night. It is indeed dimly lit, and this adds to the atmosphere. We saw a bride and groom as well – you couldn’t miss them actually as they (along with their guests) were running through the square all yahooing and leaping about. Very exciting indeed!
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