Verona

On Saturday, after visiting Lake Garda, we drove back to Verona with the intention of finding a hotel room for Saturday evening since the campground could not take the camper. We parked along the Adige River, and entered through the Castel Vecchio into Verona.

Verona is the town famous for being the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette. It is picturesque and romantic, just as you would expect, and the balcony where Juliette allegedly had her famous nighttime encounter with Romeo is a place to visit.

Verona is famous today for their Opera Festivals held every summer in the Roman Arena in the center of town. The Arena resembles the Roman Coliseum in Rome. It was built in 30 AD and is the 3rd largest in the world, after Rome’s coliseum and the amphitheater at Santa Maria Cappua Vetere near Naples. It is very beautiful and the acoustics excellent.

We had some difficulty finding a place to park the camper, but after a while located a spot by the river and walked into the center of the city to look for a hotel. We found one relatively easily and it was just steps from the Arena which was nice.

Verona is in the Veneto region of Italy, the same as Venice. The drive out of Tuscany was a remarkable change in landscape from olive trees and vineyards and rolling hills to flat plains of produce, like corn, wheat, and many fruit trees, in particular pears. Verona, like most Italian cities is very small, and we walked around for most of the afternoon to see the sites. The buildings are romantic and beautiful, and Verona has many Roman ruins, second only to Rome.
The opera started at 9:00 p.m., but the gates opened at 7:30 and it was important to be there early as our seats were first come, first serve. We arrived at 7:00, the gates opened at 7:30 and we went into the theater. The seats were stone of course, and after 3 hours of the opera were uncomfortable. The production was beautiful, and so was the evening. The vendors of course sold wine, so we were very happy.