Verona!
Since I was on vacation and still a little jet lagged, Kristin and I tended to get a late start each day. On Monday, we didn't get moving until around lunch time again. We decided to walk to a near-by restaurant for lunch before leaving Milan and heading to the city of Verona! We reserved a hotel in Verona for the night, which was on the way to Venice. The drive to Verona took less than two hours, and after we checked into our hotel, we took a bus to downtown Verona and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city and exploring as much as we could find! We had a really nice dinner under a covered patio (thank goodness!), as the bottom dropped out during the middle of dinner.
After dinner, the rain let up and we walked around some more in search of the bus stop where we'd catch the last bus of the night back to our hotel. On the way, we found the Verona Coliseum, where a concert was just finishing up. Our bus stop was near the coliseum, and we were able to slip into a little cafe across the street from the bus stop and enjoy a glass of wine as we waited for the bus and watched all the people from the concert empty out onto the streets of Verona. It started raining pretty heavily as we waited, and naturally we had forgotten our umbrella!
Fortunately we didn't have to wait in the rain long for the bus to arrive, but when it dropped us off at our stop, we had to walk several blocks back to the hotel in the middle of a thunderstorm. To make matters worse, we were dropped off in a different location than where we caught the bus to begin with, so we had no idea where we were at in the pouring rain. It was pitch black outside other than the flashes of lightning, which made it more than a little creepy, but we ran into some nice people who pointed us in the right direction, and eventually found our way back to the hotel! We were drenched by the time we finally made it, but got a good laugh out of the entire situation and chalked it up to another adventure that will go down in the Kristin and Gayle memory book!
Standing in front of our hotel before our trip downtown
Our first stop after getting off the bus was a big clock tower, where the remains of this church are also found.
There was an interesting little drama presentation going on we were able to witness
We walked across the bridge to the other side of the river
The view from the bridge
The view of the tower/bridge from the other side of the river
We crossed back over this bridge and into town again
This structure was kind of like an entrance into the city
The other side of the entrance
Looking down the street once we entered that part of the city
Lots of window shopping to be done!
A piazza we found where a market was just closing up shop for the day
The buildings were so incredible!
Another Duomo
I just loved the cute little Romeo and Juliet balcony in the background!
The outdoor covered patio where we dined
Yummy authentic Spaghetti with a thin layer of cheese covering it
In front of the coliseum
The coliseum
Wringing out the shawl that served as our only cover from the rain!
We look like a bunch of drowned rats, but we made it back to the hotel!
