Verona

Linda and I have just returned from Verona, where we stayed for 3 days and then another day in Padua (Padova in Italy). We are only back in Florence for a day and then we head off to Perugia, and then another solitary day after we return from there we will be off to Cinque Terre. As a result this won't be my usual epic exposé (no time!), but I'll try to get some photos up to keep everyone entertained. [in the end I didn't have time, so now this is being posted about a week after the event].

On our first night in Verona we went to see an Opera at the Arena, which is like a small-scale Colosseum (it holds 20,000 people, and is the third largest of all Roman amphitheatres) in the heart of Verona. We've been having incredibly hot days recently and the sun heated up the stone seats so much they kept your bottom warm all the way through to the midnight finish. The heat wasn't helped by the €5 water they were selling, which meant we were both hot and tired by the end of the night. It was excellent to have experienced it though, especially since we saw Aida, which is the signature performance of the Arena, and you can't beat the atmosphere, with opera affectionados calling out Bravissima! on the last note of an aria.

The next two days were spent wandering around Verona, which you could probably do in one day if pressed, but we had spend some time organising a whole lot of stuff relating to our impending move to Lausanne.

There are a lot of very nice churches in Verona, mostly made up of the local marble which is pinkish in colour and is also used for many of the pavements, which makes for somewhat perilous walking since it is quite slippery. There are so many churches, in fact, I think I've lost track of which is which in my photos.

We were also very impressed with the Teatro Romano, a ruined roman theatre on the other side of the river, which has a museum with roman artifacts, but also a great view over the city.

Aside from all this, we took some time to indulge in some romantic kitch by visiting the house of Giulietta (of Romeo e Giulietta) where they were putting on a dramatic recreation of that famous scene from the play. And of course Linda dragged me into lots of shops, which I was less objectionable to than normal because they generally had wonderful, cool, air conditioning.

You can see all the photos here.