Una Lunga Giornata

Another day, another train. According to the timetable we should be nearly at the station by now, but we’re running 18 minutes late, so I’ve got a bit of time to get a headstart on tonight.

Today was our final day in Verona, which we have concluded was a very nice town. I could easily live there if I had to. It’s not just the Centre Storico that is historic, there is a lot of Roman and medieval history still visible outside the centre as well. And the rest is a thriving, clean, pleasant, modern commercial city. They’ve got Romeo and Juliet, and they exploit that, but who wouldn’t? They could support themselves perfectly well without those two. (And I did see a reference to “The Gentleman of Verona” – it could have been a bar but it looked like a gentlemen’s club, so it's not a one-note town.)

"Juliet's" "House" and her "balcony" and

a statue whose right boob is lucky to touch, 

or some such nonsense

"Romeo's" "House" or wall thereof

Today was our sightseeing day, and our plan was to walk up through the middle of the Centro Storico, taking in Juliet’s House and Romeo’s, then over a footbridge and have a look at some Roman archaeological sites. And that’s pretty much what we did. Juliet’s House is of course a made-up attraction, but you wouldn’t know it to read the blurb outside it. I read recently that it was the city burghers in the 1930’s who designated the (genuinely medieval) house as Juliet’s, then built the balcony to order, but I had read earlier that that decision had been made in the 19^th century. The blurb also said that the likes of Charles Dickens and Lord Byron had visited the house on their Grand Tours, so I think my earlier information may be more correct. (Why did Byron do a Grand Tour? Didn’t he live in Italy? And die here? Ach, who knows what’s true any more.)

Then Romeo’s house was just a wall with a sign on it. There was a gate in the wall, with a sign saying “Private”, and a woman came and unlocked it and slipped inside while we were there. Poor woman, to live behind that wall! One small tour group came and went, but at Juliet’s house there were hordes of people, of all nationalities, squashed into a little courtyard.

Funicular

 Verona, north of the river

We continued on upwards, towards the curve of the inverted u-shaped river. There was a footbridge there, at another ancient gate. There were no actual city walls here, because the River Adige did a good enough job of defending the town. We crossed the bridge and found the Funicular not far on, and we rode on it, though we didn’t know what was at the top. It’s called Castel San Pietro, but the building seems relatively new (mere centuries old, not millennia) and it wasn’t open, but there were gorgeous views over the terracotta roofs that spread in all directions below. Off in the distance there were faint hazy outlines of higher office and apartment blocks, but they didn’t detract, just showed that Verona was a modern city that happens to have retained a lot of its historic buildings.

We funicularred down again, and walked along the road to the left, as there was a Roman theatre there that had to be worth a view. Again, like the Arena, this is currently in use, with steel seating over the lower steps, and a modern stage set up already. (By the way, the Arena was being set up for a show on the day we arrived – last night there was a pop concert there. I could hear some of the music but none was familiar so I am assuming it was an Italian (or at least European) pop star.)

Roman and present-day theatre

Connected to the theatre was a museum with bits and pieces excavated from the theatre site, which had been covered later with a church and convent (although they kept talking about the monks, so surely it was a monastery, or an abbey perhaps.) So more Roman and medieval artifacts. It was interesting enough.

We were getting a bit tired and hungry by now, so we stopped for lunch at a bar that served panini, but we were starting to realize that we still had some time ahead of us. Our train wasn’t till 4.45, and it wasn’t yet 2 o’clock. Stephen thought he’d like to get a beard trim, so we looked for a barber. Two hairdressers, men’s, said they didn’t do beards. A proper barber could do it at 6pm.  And the other proper barber that was reasonably close, according to Google, no longer existed in that place. So we gave up and had a cold drink. Now it was getting on for 3. Looked for an ATM, because the B & B had wanted to be paid in cash, so we were could do with topping up our money; and then a slow stroll back to the B & B to pick up our bags. But actually we stopped to get a taxi, and have him wait while Stephen brought the bags down, to go to the station in comfort.

The building with the sheer walls is a former convent

or monastery, and now a museum

And a jolly good thing we got there early - about an hour and a half before the train was supposed to leave. Once again the ticket wouldn’t show up on my phone offline, as it should have. It took me a while to figure out which app I’d used to book it, and find the ticket again, but even when I did, it wouldn’t download. No problem, plenty of time to go to the Customer Service office and ask them to print the ticket out. Except there was somebody ahead of us, already at the counter, who was taking an awfully long time to solve his problem. When he finally finished, I was next, and the lady was lovely, but she couldn’t bring the ticket up on her computer either.  She turned it off and on again, and eventually I was another one who took at least 15 minutes to get my problem solved. Finally she brought me a printout, and we were ready to go.

We were at the platform only a couple of minutes when the train arrived, so we were able to get on with not many other passengers, heave our luggage on (up to 7 pieces now, but mostly quite light because it’s spread out among 7 bags) and be on board well before departure. And don’t worry, it was the right train, no more problems to relate here.

We were now on our way to Milan. Many people have said, “Why Milan? There’s nothing there!” but in fact we have renewed acquaintance with a fencer who stayed with us for a week or so 20 years ago, and he offered us hospitality in Milan. (I looked it up: in Italian, that expression definitely means “You can stay with us.”) In fact, we are staying in his parents’ apartment, because sadly, they both died earlier this year, a couple of months apart, and he hasn’t yet done anything about the flat. So it’s a little weird, but not spooky. It’s like being in another AirBnB.

We had dinner tonight at a restaurant very close by, with Filippo, his wife and two young sons, and Valentina, who used to be his girlfriend and who accompanied him on his trip to NZ, and who is clearly still a family friend, and a favourite of the two boys. We talked about Vietnam and NZ and Italy, and hashed out some plans for the next few days. They all seem to want to give us a great holiday and show Milan at its best for us. This should be fun!