Verona, day 2
We didn’t sleep especially well – I fell asleep quickly and then woke up early, Aviva didn’t fall asleep for a while and then sleep until time to wake up.
Aviva’s phone stopped accessing data service, so we called AT&T – my phone was on a different carrier and working fine, but we couldn’t get Aviva’s phone to switch networks. After some resetting and fumbling we finally got a menu of service providers, picked the one that worked for me and all is well again – the secret was to turn off and on 3G.
And it’s raining as we get up, luckily we packed travel umbrellas, hats and jackets. However, the rain stopped quickly and the sun came out.
And the earthquake has upended some of our travel plans – Aviva has been on the phone working out what towns were hit and what our options are – we won’t be stopping in Mantua, it’s apparently closed, and we’re unsure about Ferrara – we’ve canceled our reservation there and will call them again to see what we should do. Cell phones and the Internet have changed how we deal with modifying travel plans.
The hotel also restarted their access points (as I’d suggested a day ago) and now WiFi is working well.
At your first location with admission, you should purchase a Verona Card – for one fee you get in a large number of sites without further admission, it’s cheaper and faster.
Our first stop today was Chiesa di San Fermo.
We had a good lunch at Osteria da Ugo; we both had the veal chop special which came with potatoes and a tasty sauce with thin-sliced mushroom slabs. We decided to have desert – Aviva had the tiramisu and I had a wonderful bread-cake with creme caramel sauce.
Next we walked past Chiesa di San Thomas Becket, which wasn’t open so we continued on to the Teatro Romano, which is still used today for summer concert events. Above the theater is a museum with many items restored or found on the site, including some beautiful mosaic floors.
We walked back across the Fiume Adige to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Matricolare (Duomo). This Duomo stacks up well with other Duomos we’ve visited. The back half has three ‘chapels’ on each side – they aren’t rooms, just individually decorated wall areas for prayer. The cross shape provides two small chapels on each side near the altar.
Walking back from the Duomo we stopped at Chiesa di San Pietro Martire, where the frescoes were all damaged when plaster covers were removed – frescoes went out of style and were often covered, poorly, with plaster; removing the plaster meant hammering out chips of the underlying frescoes.
Our last stop was Chiesa di Santa Anastasia, one of the most interesting churches in Verona. Their organist was practicing while we were there – I love to sit and listen to live organ music.
We went back to the hotel and we showered again – it’s so hot out (in the 80s F) and humid that by the time we get back to our room to get ready for dinner we’re sticky with sweat.
We went to a very good pizza place two blocks from the hotel – Pizzeria Leon d’Oro. The insalada mista was fresh, and the pizza became one of my favorites.
We walked all over Verona’s city center over two days – time to relax before Bergamo.
Location:Vicolo Pallone,Verona,Italy
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+Bob Hays
- I'm a father and husband, have two schipperkes, like to read, compose music, travel. And I manage a couple software development teams at DIRECTV.
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May 31st, 2012 by alephnaught