Verona - part 1

Tuesday 7/8/08
I have no idea yet if there will be a Verona - part 2. I just thought that is sounded like a good title. Plus, Verona really is a beautiful little city. The few pictures that I chose from the hundreds I took will surely not do it justice. Anyway, I was falling way behind in my posting so here it is. Oh, and by the way, I decided to change things up a little. During this Veneto trip I became really bored with writing in my little black book. I think that it served its purpose on the trip over the Atlantic when I had no access to a computer, but now I think it will be best if I just use it to write little bits of information to help me remember exactly what I did. So my postings might be more picture-driven than prose-driven. Unless something really exciting happens. Anyway, Sarah's postings are much more entertaining so I'll stick to the pictures.
Now, on with the show...

This trip marked the first time that I would be taking a direct train rather than a regional train that makes stops at every little town (unless you count a few years ago when we went from Rome to Paris). They are quite nice, but we didn't get to sit right next to each other. For some reasons the eight seats (four to each side of the aisle) are numbered in a manner that makes no sense. It's something like this:

72 76 77 78 That's not exactly it, but you get the picture. So even though our seat numbers

71 74 75 73 were consecutive, we were accross the aisle and diagonal.

Sarah and I on one of the scenic bridges. I'm the one on the left with the man-purse.

This is supposedly Juliette's balcony which, as Sarah will tell you, shouldn't exist since Juliette did not exist. I don't know how romantic it could have been anyway with all those people in the courtyard.

This is the wall (or one of them) where lovers from all over the world leave their names. So Sarah and I did likewise. First, I wrote our names with the only thing I had. The little pen was not very visible. So Sarah found a better space to write, on someone else's piece of paper. I must apologize to Kellin. I think that half of my pictures have part of her head in them. I never give her any warning either.

There were a number of locations around town that had exposed Roman ruins. This one was right in the middle of a street with shops all around. It is also near the scene where I would later spill melting gelato all over one of my favorite shirts while taking a picture. It was one of those classically stupid moments similar to spilling your glass of whatever while looking at your watch to see what the time is. Not my best moment. We had to go to a nearby store to get a new shirt. I had managed to completely cover the front of my shirt. By the way, does anyone know how to get gelato out of a shirt?

Again, this one picture from inside the cathedral does not do a good enough job of showing what some of the churches here look like. I probably took 20-30 pictures in the churches we went into. Maybe some day I'll make an entire posting about a church or churches. I just don't want to spend that much time putting pictures of the same thing on here.

Beneath part of the floor in one of the side chapels you can see more Roman ruins. I think that might be distracting during mass to be sitting on glass above Roman ruins.

This is one of the walls of an old castle called Castelvechio, which means...wait for it...Old Castle.

This is San Zeno. It's a beautiful church with an odd set-up. Below the altar is a lower floor accessible by steps visible in the picture. By the way, if anyone ever wants to see more pictures of these places, and we have plenty of them, just let us know. Just drive to our place in Italy and I'll show you.

This was the hotel room Sarah and I stayed in, courtesy of our new friend Luca. A very nice room with a suspiciously translucent sliding bathroom door with no lock or latch.

This fortified bridge was really cool because you could climb up to higher defensible positions and get great views of the riverside. Also, the arrow slits provided a lot of breeze on this hot day. Seen below are Sarah, Kellin, and Lara patiently waiting for me to stop playing in my new fort.

Sarah checks her hair while I look into the wrong end of the camera.

Kellin, Lara, and Sarah salute a plastic bag that this patriotic youngster was ceremoniously raising on the flag pole.