​“sat in a 2,000 year old coliseum, watching opera. I’m feeling quite cultured. But, I’d love for it to hurry up and finish”

​Lake Como - Verona

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​​We started with a leisurely morning, and started to give Meg a taste of the Italian life that I am sure she will never see – e.g. sat by the water’s edge, sipping on cappuccinos, watching the world go by in a small café. More likely, she’ll be sweating in a kitchen, being shouted at by some Italians to cook pasta better. But, for one of the first times on the trip, we could actually take it relatively easy – we neither had a city we needed to get to & frantically see, and we had a comparatively short distance to travel.

After the calm & tranquil setting of Lake Como bored us (before our coffees even got cold to be honest), we got going for Verona, and a few hours later, and yet more ‘a pollo’ sandwiches from motorway service stations, we got to our hotel. From experience, and our limited budgets, we have plumped for hotels slightly out of town, and this one was no different. What must have been a throw back from Verona Expo 1978, we were too close to really get a bus into town, but far enough to have to cross numerous roundabouts, walk over motorway bridges, and past a few 1euro shops.
 

Verona, as with all of these European cities we have seen, was just most impressive. The Lonely Planet is clearly getting back handers from most major cities, with their over the top adulation, but with Verona they may have got it right. It’s got the usual ‘could do with a good lick of paint’ look of Italian towns, but this time they have put some flower boxes out, so that seems to make it all ok, and give it some old-worldly-charm, rather than ‘get off your arses Italy and get painting’.

After some ubiquitous gelato and photo by a fountain in an old square, we wandered the streets, and ticked off what sights we should have seen (i.e. none of the ones included in the guidebooks. We never saw the balcony that Romeo & Juliet was ‘from’, nor the inside of any cathedrals or churches). Tonight, we had gone a little off EurHair piste, and actually booked some tickets for something. Carmen at the Coliseum. For a few months in the summer, they lay on an opera, and the hordes of tourists agree it is a great thing to do – how romantic, sitting on the stone steps of a 2,000 year old coliseum, watching some opera. I suppose it was. But, when after 2 hours it was only the end of the 2nd act, yet it was 11pm, I think it was time to tick that one off, and actually get back home – all opera’d out.