Ma Ma Ma My Verona

Verona

Or, the 1st of 3 Vs

We chanced upon Verona as a money saving 24-hour stop from Bologna to Venice and were glad did. En route, we were surprised to find 2 whole pages in our guidebook devoted to the city we didn't intend to visit. Our "hotel" was a 45 minute walk to the train station in pouring rain. (Or a dry 2 euro bus ride, but that's not how we roll.) This gave us our first opportunity to put our rain gear to use and look like total dorks as we walked down charming pedestrian shopping streets and through beautifully lit Christmas piazzas.  Almost all the old buildings in Verona had a distinctive candy cane motif that gave you the sense that city was meant for Christmas markets.

For December, every city square had a Christmas market, and there were dozens of them, each with their own nativity and theme. One of them was German themed, selling sausages and sauerkraut.  

But the most stunning and fun square was Piazza Bra, bookended on one end by an arch with a gorgeous clock, and on the other by the ancient Roman Arena.  For the holidays, they install a giant white metal star of Bethlehem shooting out of the top of the arena and landing in the square. They apparently do this every year, and we were stumped as to how they assemble and disassemble it, and where they could possibly store it between seasons.

We happened to arrive during the two day festival of Santa Lucia, for which Piazza Bra had a huge market with a Target-like selection of gifts from wool socks to miracle mops and space saving hangers we were 25 euros away from buying.  We spent both our evenings window shopping the stalls.

Just like in Prague, Verona had a tourist card with a checklist of sights, few worth seeing.  But with our huge bus savings from the night before, we opted to go for it and see almost all 15 listed sights. We hit the arena first, but our visit did nothing to solve the mystery of the workings of the star. But it was almost as colossal as the Coliseum, so we were pleased.

Then, we church-hopped around to the city's most famous churches, walking in skeptics and walking out believers in our museum pass. San Zeno was built so that the ceiling resembled the bottom of a wooden boat, with 1,000 sculptures. Even though much of it was destroyed during the war, it was a sight to see.  But St. Anastasia (left) rivaled it for best Veronese church ceiling, with completely painted domes and more of our favorite red and white stripes.

And this is David

Imagine this is Robin

Our tourist card also took us up to Juliet's "house." The highlights are actually in the courtyard outside the house, with a statue for good luck boob rubbing, a gate filled with lovers' locks (either a new phenomenon or they get clipped off annually), and a wall covered in love notes stuck on with gum. But, determined to get our money's worth, we pushed on to the museum inside the house, and were rewarded with a questionable Juliet's balcony, clothes from Romeo and Juliet movies, and our favorite: a room where you can go 21st century and write an email to Juliet instead of all that archaic note writing going on in the courtyard. We're still awaiting reply.

Dear readers, you'll also be pleased to hear that this pass covered bus travel, so we rode in style back to the train station to continue our V trilogy. Next stop: Venice.