Italy - Verona

http://portale.comune.verona.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1

When we go to Vicenza, Verona is the airport we fly in and out of. It was also the first place that anyone took me, and it was one of the few places where my mother came along. (She usually stayed with my aunt.)

One of the attractions there is L'Arena, an old Roman arena. There are tours, and they have people dressed as gladiators to draw you in, but they also still use it for shows. I believe the upcoming events when we were there included Bruce Springsteen, but they also have operas. One of my other aunts has very fond memories of taking the train to the opera there, and everyone would be holding candles so there were little lights all around the theater.

After coming back I ordered some DVDs of operas from there for my mother, and they show the audience with the candles, so they still do that, but also there is a park nearby, Piazza Bra, and they show the fountain there, which we saw together, so those videos are one of the best ways of making her homesick.

I wish I had a picture of the fountain, but I can't find all of my photos from then. There is also a plaque listing Verona as a Unesco World Heritage site for all of the history there.

In the pictures above you see the arena, the piazza, and also the town hall, which is the Palazzo Barbieri.

Like every town in Italy, there are many churches. We visited Sant'Anastasia.

You may notice that arch has what appears to be a tomb under it, and think that would be Anastasia's tomb. It is actually the tomb of Guglielmo di Castelbarco, a podestà of Verona, which would be something like a chief magistrate. This practice of building arches that become your tomb would become more popular, with the Scaliger Tombs later being built at Santa Maria Antica, but Guglielmo was an early adopter.

It is a really beautiful city, with a mix of Roman, Gothic, and Romanesque buildings. The Adige River runs past, and occasionally floods, but is also the location of two beautiful bridges, the Ponte Pietra and the Ponte Scaligero (also known as the Ponte di Castel Vecchio).

One of the more random things we saw while we were there was a parade of cooks. I had gotten the impression that they were graduating from a cooking school, but when I search on cooking school I just find ones designed for tourists, not for training actual chefs.

It may seem like I am missing some key attractions, but I will try and get to those next week.