^UP^
Saturday
22-December-2012
With the nice motorway
between Newry and Dublin, it now takes only about 90 minutes to drive
from Belfast to Dublin airport. Maybe one day the Northern part of
the route will be upgraded too. We parked the car in the long-stay
car park and got the shuttle bus to the terminal.
Air travel is tedious,
the security pantomime is stupid, and fellow passengers are gormless.
Nevertheless, we arrived safely in Verona, and I spotted Giulia and
Niccolò waiting for us. We were driven the short distance into the
city and introduced to the apartment. Charmingly, they had set up a
Christmas tree and illuminated nativity scene.
One of the things our
hosts had to show us was the "cave". Each apartment in the
block has one of a series of underground storage rooms, like a
concrete bunker, acessed from stairs in the courtyard. Let me put it
this way: it would be a good location for a modern horror movie. The
reason we needed to know was that our departing flight was in the
evening, but we had to clear out of the apartment at ten in the
morning for the next guests. We'd be able to leave our luggage in the
cave.
It was nearly ten by
the time our hosts left, but I'd identified a nearby pizzeria from
internet research and we had a late dinner.
Sunday 23-December-2012
Neither of us being
early risers, we didn't leave the apartment until about midday. It
was a soft, foggy day. There was a choice of two directions from the
apartment into the old part of Verona, both about 20 minutes' walk.
On this first foray, we arrived first at the old castle with its
swallowtail crenellations, and went inside to the courtyards.
From Castelvecchio, the
1355 Ponte Scaligero crosses the river in three unequal arches. We
crossed over, but then followed the river embankment round to the
more modern Ponte Vittoria and came back to the South bank. It was a
sort walk to one of the Roman gates, the Porta Borsari. From there,
we meandered and ended up in Piazza Erbe with its market in full
swing.
Up above the Roman
theatre (not the amphitheatre), up a LOT of steps, there's a
restaurant which was recommended in the airline's magazine for its
good food and great views over the city. We climbed up and checked it
out for Christmas lunch, but no; they weren't open on Christmas day.
But, anyway, the top of the hill was a good place to look out over
Verona and take some photos.
Coming back down, we
saw the famous amphitheatre -- known as the Arena -- and the open
space of Piazza Bra for the first time. Doing the whole tourist
thing, we entered the Arena and climbed up through one of the access
tunnels to the great ring of seats. As Grace pointed out, the open,
unbroken ring of terraces gives a more atmospheric feel than the
Colosseum in Rome, even though the latter is larger. For Christmas,
the Veronese attach a huge iron shooting star to the side of the
Arena, with its spiky head touching down in the piazza.
More internet research:
I'd found a supermarket which was open on a Sunday. It's a Spar store
which has been tastefully inserted into a stylish art deco building
right in the city centre, originally built as a Fiat showroom. We
bought some essential supplies -- pasta, wine and tea -- and went
home to have our first self-made dinner and a night in.
Monday 24-December-2012
After an even later
rise than the day before, we took the alternate walking route towards
old Verona. This one featured a rather pedestrian-unfriendly set of
crossings to negotiate a major intersection near the station. Given
that it's legal to turn right on a red light (as it is in America,
but the equivalent left turn isn't allowed in the UK or Ireland) it
was definitely a requirement to be alert at all times.
We arrived at Piazza
Bra by the big double gate, the Portone della Bra, built in the 14th
century, and navigated to "Juliet's House". It has to be
conceded that Verona does exploit tourist credulity by associating
real places with the entirely fictional Romeo and Juliet, but there's
no real harm in it. Juliet's balcony is a particular example though:
it was built in 1936.
The courtyard used to
be plastered with lovers' grafitti, but it's been cleaned up in
recent years, with the scribblings now restricted to the entrance
arch. You can still buy a little lock, write your names on it and
attach it to the iron grille to signify eternal love. There's no way
that the city authorities can really let them accumulate though.
There must be some behind-the-scenes process of regular removal. A
(modern) bronze statue of Juliet is is the courtyard, and for some
reason it has become traditional to pose for photographs with a hand
on her right breast, which is very shiny as a result.
At the town hall, or
Palazzo della Ragione, we chanced upon an exhibition of nativity
scenes ("presepi" in Italian) made by children, mostly of
primary-school age. But these weren't the little figures and animals
that you might expect. They were all recycled materials, with odd
items substituting for the holy family and the rest of the cast. For
example, one baby Jesus was a prosecco cork, there was one nativity
star made from cod liver oil capsules, and one scene was set entirely
inside an old television chassis.
We had a (very) late
lunch and set out for the distant Giusti gardens, but thought better
of it and aborted the mission after a long trek. We had a rest in the
church dedicated to St. Thomas Beckett and returned home, again via
the supermarket. We had decided that our Christmas lunch would be
DIY, and it was necessary to buy the ingredients, most importantly
brussels sprouts.
Since we'd walked so
much during the day, in the evening we went to the taxi rank at the
railway station and got a taxi into town. During the day we'd located
the trattoria "Pane e Vino", which was recommended in the
guide book for its food, service and moderate prices, so we made that
the destination. It wasn't actually all that cheap, but the food was
absolutely excellent. Grace ate a horse.
(http://www.trattoriapanevino.it/)
The other reason for
choosing Pane e Vino was that it was a short walk from the cathedral,
the Duomo, where Christmas mass was to run from eleven to midnight.
Heathens as we were, tipsy from the copious wine with dinner, and not
understanding much of what was said, we still felt perfectly happy to
stand at the back and take in the proceedings. The singing by the
choir was top class, as you'd expect in an important cathedral.
Spiritually and
gastronomically refreshed, we walked all the way home, hand in hand.
For some reason it took about twice as long as normal.
Tuesday
25-December-2012
Christmas Day
We exchanged presents,
pulled crackers and opened a bottle of prosecco. Grace, looking
exceptionally glamorous in a sparkly black dress, took to the kitchen
and began to organise the menu. We decoded the unfamiliar oven
controls and loaded in the joint. It hadn't occurred to us to buy
foil, but an improvised arrangement with one roasting dish inverted
over the other proved to be entirely successful.
With a fairly late
start and a leisurely approach to cooking (and a few drinks), it was
actually around four before we had "lunch", but it was a
one hundred percent successful meal. We make a good cooking team. In
the evening, leftovers and rice were magicked into a delicious
risotto, and we finished off all the wine.
Wednesday
26-December-2012
For Boxing day, a good
long walk would restore us after the previous day's overindulgence. I
wanted to see the other large church, San Zeno, second to the
cathedral. Zeno, first bishop of Verona, died in 380, but he's still
there, lying in state wearing a silver mask.
An invented tradition
is that the crypt of this particular church is where Romeo and Juliet
were secretly married. Since they didn't exist, that's impossible,
but who am I to argue. The crypt is suitably atmospheric anyway.
The church's bronze doors are interesting, with individual plaques
from different periods all mixed together. The style is simple and
rustic and reminded me strongly of medieval African bronzes.
As well as the actual
body of San Zeno, there is a larger-than-lfe statue, where the old
bishop is grinning and has caught a fish on a line dangling from his
crozier. In the adjoining cloister (originally part of a 9th century
abbey) there was a half-scale nativity scene, with sheep, shepherds
and the baby Jesus, lying in a manger.
After some more
exploring, we returned home, pausing only to buy the panetone (now
cut price) which we had missed for Christmas.
Our target for the
evening was another restaurant which had had a positive write-up,
this time in the Guardian newspaper. I persuaded Grace that we should
take the bus to save walking, and we went to the bus stop outside the
apartment and carefully checked the times. Then, just before the bus
arrived, I suddenly realised that we were on the wrong side of the
road! Buses in Italy drive on the right, of course. We crossed the
road and because of some dithering on my part, just managed to miss
the one coming in the correct direction.
There was nothing for
it but to walk, and bad planning was further exposed when we found
that our target restaurant inexplicably wasn't open. Fortunately, I
had prepared a Plan B. One of the readers' comments on the Guardian
item had recommended San Matteo Church, a pizzeria and restaurant in
a deconsecrated church. (http://www.smatteo.it/)
It's a large and busy
place, with a mezzanine floor inserted into the body of the church.
Although it seemed crowded, we were instantly directed to a free
table upstairs, where we could look at the diners below on the ground
floor, as well as having a panorama of the place in the huge mirrors
on the walls. The service was efficient and the meals were excellent.
Good house wine too, and we got complimentary little lemon sorbet
glasses to end the meal.
Thursday
27-December-2012
I hadn't realised
before arriving, but on the Saturday night, our host Giulia had
mentioned that Milan was only 90 minutes away by rail. Well, actually
a check on the internet showed that the cheaper train (at €11.30 or
half the price of the express) took all of 115 minutes, but that
seemed pretty good as well.
Not being early risers,
we picked the slow and cheap afternoon train, arriving in Milan at
half-past three. One of the stops was Peschiera Del Garda, giving us
a brief view of the lake.
I blame myself for what
happened on arrival. With the trip being an on-the-spot decision, I
hadn't made a proper plan for visiting Milan. I'd checked the maps
and worked out the right direction to the Cathedral, in one of the
main historic areas, but had no idea how far it was. So we walked and
walked, managing to lose our bearings in the process. Eventually, we
saw a bookshop and bought a laminated tourist map. With its help, we
found the Duomo, some 90 minutes after leaving the station.
Although it was getting
dark, there was a cheerful Christmas market around the Cathedral, and
ample luxury shops to keep any woman happy. Grace cruised the shoe
shops and spotted a pair she liked. Having tried them on and selected
the correct size, she was pleased to discover that they were even
cheaper than the price in the window. A bargain!
Near La Scala theatre,
we found a cafe and had a pleasant pasta dinner, before taking the
Metro directly back to the central railway station. In retrospect, of
course, we should have taken the Metro on arrival and saved a lot of
aimless wandering. A tip for our next visit.
Friday 28-December-2012
In the opposite
direction to Milan is Venice, at about the same distance, some 150
km. Again, there was a choice of fast, expensive trains or slow,
cheap ones. In fact, the "regional" trains are fully a
third of the cost of the express, at only €7.40 each way.
Compare that with the
€6 for a single vaporetto ticket in Venice, but still, learning
from the previous day's experience, it seemed worth it to sail
pleasantly down the Grand Canal to St. Mark's Square. The weather was
fine and blue-skied, and by the time we spied St. Mark's, the sun was
getting low enough to tint the stones with pink.
We'd both been in
Venice before, but hadn't been into the Doge's palace, the Palazzo
Ducale. The entry fee is very expensive (although it includes other
museums in the vicinity) but we took the hit. For me, the best bit
was to cross the Bridge of Sighs and look out at the canals through
the tiny windows.
Leaving St. Marks, we
explored some of the tiny winding streets (many full of shops with
loads of touristy junk) and spotted a pizzeria which claimed to be a
genuine Neapolitan one. Very good pizzas and a couple of beers. You
can't beat it.
Following the chain of
prominent yellow pedestrian signs to "Ferrovia", the
railway, through the maze of streets and bridges, we easily found the
station in good time for a late train back home, a double-decker. It
was even slower than the other one, taking over two hours, with a
stop at every one-horse platform, but it was only a short walk home
from Verona station to bed.
Just before bed, it
occurred me to check my e-mail, just on the off chance there was some
information from the apartment owners. And indeed there was: the next
guests weren't due until late in the evening, so we could leave our
bags in the apartment all day, rather than going underground.
Saturday
29-December-2012
The cleaning lady was
still due to do the apartment at ten however, so for the first time,
we were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and out on the streets of Verona at
ten. Well, ten past. We walked into town to say farewell. Piazza
Erbe, still with a busy market. The river. Piazza Bra and the Arena.
At a chic place on
Piazza Erbe, we stopped for coffee. Or at least, I had a coffee while
Grace decided to try the classic "spritz" which was being
enjoyed by a group of German tourists at the next table. She liked
it, so we ordered one each. Then, a little later, with the day still
being sunny and warm enough to sit outside, we took a table
overlooking Piazza Bra and ordered "torta della nonna",
granny's tart, a classic Italain cake; and a coffee or spritz
according to preference. (Hint: I had the coffee.)
On the way, we'd
checked out the Guardian-recommended restaurant and found it was open
until three. Good for a late lunch to tide us over until we were at
the mercies of airport and airline. The restaurant, Enocibus, had a
mere paragraph in the newspaper's "Top 10 Budget Eats In
Verona", but the owners were very proud of it, even bringing a
print-out of the web version for us to read. (It was exactly like the
one I'd printed before leaving home...)
After the lunch, we
walked back to our apartment, no longer ours, and collected our bags.
It was a short walk to the station, where we took our places on the
airport shuttle bus. Our flight departed more or less on time, unlike
the one at the adjacent gate where unfortunate Moldovans had been
waiting for four hours and seemed doomed to wait longer.
Air travel is tedious,
but you just have to sit it out. At Dublin airport, while the shuttle
bus delivers you directly to the terminal door on the way in, to
catch it for the reverse journey you have to trek across a long
distance of bleak concrete walkways. But we took the bus, got back to
the car, which started reliably and carried us the 90 minute drive
back to Belfast. It was after one in the morning. End of an
adventure.
^UP^
Neither of us being
early risers, we didn't leave the apartment until about midday. It
was a soft, foggy day. There was a choice of two directions from the
apartment into the old part of Verona, both about 20 minutes' walk.
On this first foray, we arrived first at the old castle with its
swallowtail crenellations, and went inside to the courtyards.
From Castelvecchio, the
1355 Ponte Scaligero crosses the river in three unequal arches. We
crossed over, but then followed the river embankment round to the
more modern Ponte Vittoria and came back to the South bank. It was a
sort walk to one of the Roman gates, the Porta Borsari. From there,
we meandered and ended up in Piazza Erbe with its market in full
swing.
We arrived at Piazza
Bra by the big double gate, the Portone della Bra, built in the 14th
century, and navigated to "Juliet's House". It has to be
conceded that Verona does exploit tourist credulity by associating
real places with the entirely fictional Romeo and Juliet, but there's
no real harm in it. Juliet's balcony is a particular example though:
it was built in 1936.
Since we'd walked so
much during the day, in the evening we went to the taxi rank at the
railway station and got a taxi into town. During the day we'd located
the trattoria "Pane e Vino", which was recommended in the
guide book for its food, service and moderate prices, so we made that
the destination. It wasn't actually all that cheap, but the food was
absolutely excellent. Grace ate a horse.
(http://www.trattoriapanevino.it/)
We exchanged presents,
pulled crackers and opened a bottle of prosecco. Grace, looking
exceptionally glamorous in a sparkly black dress, took to the kitchen
and began to organise the menu. We decoded the unfamiliar oven
controls and loaded in the joint. It hadn't occurred to us to buy
foil, but an improvised arrangement with one roasting dish inverted
over the other proved to be entirely successful.
For Boxing day, a good
long walk would restore us after the previous day's overindulgence. I
wanted to see the other large church, San Zeno, second to the
cathedral. Zeno, first bishop of Verona, died in 380, but he's still
there, lying in state wearing a silver mask.
After some more
exploring, we returned home, pausing only to buy the panetone (now
cut price) which we had missed for Christmas.
There was nothing for
it but to walk, and bad planning was further exposed when we found
that our target restaurant inexplicably wasn't open. Fortunately, I
had prepared a Plan B. One of the readers' comments on the Guardian
item had recommended San Matteo Church, a pizzeria and restaurant in
a deconsecrated church. (http://www.smatteo.it/)
I hadn't realised
before arriving, but on the Saturday night, our host Giulia had
mentioned that Milan was only 90 minutes away by rail. Well, actually
a check on the internet showed that the cheaper train (at €11.30 or
half the price of the express) took all of 115 minutes, but that
seemed pretty good as well.
Although it was getting
dark, there was a cheerful Christmas market around the Cathedral, and
ample luxury shops to keep any woman happy. Grace cruised the shoe
shops and spotted a pair she liked. Having tried them on and selected
the correct size, she was pleased to discover that they were even
cheaper than the price in the window. A bargain!
In the opposite
direction to Milan is Venice, at about the same distance, some 150
km. Again, there was a choice of fast, expensive trains or slow,
cheap ones. In fact, the "regional" trains are fully a
third of the cost of the express, at only €7.40 each way.
Leaving St. Marks, we
explored some of the tiny winding streets (many full of shops with
loads of touristy junk) and spotted a pizzeria which claimed to be a
genuine Neapolitan one. Very good pizzas and a couple of beers. You
can't beat it.
At a chic place on
Piazza Erbe, we stopped for coffee. Or at least, I had a coffee while
Grace decided to try the classic "spritz" which was being
enjoyed by a group of German tourists at the next table. She liked
it, so we ordered one each. Then, a little later, with the day still
being sunny and warm enough to sit outside, we took a table
overlooking Piazza Bra and ordered "torta della nonna",
granny's tart, a classic Italain cake; and a coffee or spritz
according to preference. (Hint: I had the coffee.)