Verona

On Saturday, Rita and I decided to try our luck with the bus to Verona, as it's only about a 20-30 minute drive from Brognoligo. We drove back to San Bonifacio, found out where the bus stop was, stepped into the Tabacchi to buy our biglietti, and killed time in a cafe with the "due cappuccini" I mentioned yesterday. It took about an hour to get into Verona with all the various stops the bus made, and once there, we actually rode the bus for a bit too long. Since Rita had never taken the bus before, we went right past the stop for Piazza Bra and the large Arena (roman ampitheatre), and in fact on through to the bus depot on the other side of the city. So we had a fair walk to come back into the city, passing through both it's medieval and roman city walls. We strolled up Via Manzetti, well known for shops like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Diesel, most of them hideously expensive, all with high Italian fashion displays in their windows. We turned down a side street to visit Giuletta's house...about the only thing that is true of Romeo & Giuletta (Shakespeare had never been to Italy when he wrote the play), is that the families of Capulet and Montague did in fact exist. Ironically enough, Giuletta's house is a set-up, much like that of 221 Baker St here in London. (I have a picture of "the balcony" and there is a statue of her in the courtyard which people stood in line to have their pictures taken with, all from girl of about 8 to man of 72 cupping one hand around her breast and giving the thumbs up or smiling cheekily.) Romeo's house, on the other hand, which probably did belong to the Montague family, has a small plaque to mark it, and there aren't any crowds-- Rita didn't realize it existed until I read it from a walking tour of Verona. I guess the plain truth just doesn't draw the crowds the way a house built to the specifications of Shakespeare's imagination does. Anyway, we found our way to the market of Piazza Erba, where I joyfully discovered a vendor selling panzerotti (like calzone, but smaller and better, with a different sort of dough). Before the afternoon was through we'd also seen the memoralized Scaligieri graves (the ruling family of Verona, the way of the Medicis in Florence), an old Roman theatre (smaller than the Arena), and the Castelvecchio (old castle), built by the Scaligieri family. We bought some deliciously gooey amaretti for the bus ride home, and made our way back to the bus stop only to find the next bus didn't run on Saturdays, and it would be an hour until we could catch a bus. Not that this should have been surprising, given that things in Italy, and in Greece for that matter, just seem to happen in slow motion.

We arrived back in Brognoligo eventually, where the plan was to join Rita's family for pizza. In Italy, everyone orders their own pizza, it's sort of a personal thin-crust pizza, probably a good 12 inches in diameter, and it's the best pizza in the world. Somehow just different, somehow just so much better. To the delight of Rita's family, I put my good appetite to use and polished off my whole prosciutto e funghi pizza, and said yes to some of Pippo's homemade salami. I think he was disappointed when I stopped after three slices, but I was full to bursting, no matter how delicious it was. And of course we had apperitifs, vino di tavolo, prosecco, sweet fizzy wine, limoncello, and grappa, all homemade. Not too much grappa, because the homemade stuff is not to be trifled with, usually at least 80 proof. Italians usually put a little bit in their coffee.