We said good-bye to the Zattere:
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| Vaporetto stop near the apartment |
Next order of business: Vaporetto from Santo Spirito, only a few meters from our apartment and rode to Piazzale Roma where we completed the paperwork for our rental car, a Renault Elf (nine passengers!). Greg and I were more than happy to leave the driving to our son-in-law.
After driving to Verona, the plan was to leave Greg and I at the hotel while the Tisarannis went to Gardaland, an amusement park northwest of Verona. We had a GPS miscalculation and overshot Verona and had to double back. It all worked out and our room was ready a couple of hours early. Greg and I had lunch and then crashed for most of the afternoon.
After the Tisaranni's returned, they rested for a bit and then we all started getting hungry. I asked at the desk for a recommendation and the clerk recommended the Osteria Mattarana, only 2 kilometers from our hotel. It was a huge place with a very large outdoor area and was packed. They also had a playground and after deciding what she wanted to eat (small pizza, of course) Julia dived right in with the other kids.
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| red line pointing to Julia |
Alison, the two older girls and I were all craving salads after our carb laden days but John and Greg both went for pizza. It was a lovely, balmy night and we all wished that there were places like that in the states. .good food, reasonable., calm atmosphere (read, no piped in music). It was in the middle of farmland on the city outskirts. Could such a place succeed in the States?
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| La famiglia! |
On Friday (next day), we drove into Verona to see the Casa Di Giuletta and stroll the fancy shopping streets. The older two girls were really captivated by all the messages and the locks on the gates. That, timed with Alison and John's 16th wedding anniversary, had them clamoring for their parents to leave a lock with their names on it.
After some shopping and snacks, we went back to the hotel for a siesta before the opera. After five or so, we headed to a market which John found earlier that afternoon. We got sandwiches and snacks and made it to the Arena parking garage by 6:50 or so. The gates for those of us in the cheap stone (unnumbered seats) opened at 7, which ended up being more like 7:30. Surprisingly (ha!), there were vendors selling cushions to sit on. . .2 euros each.
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| Julia |
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| Ashley |
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| Jordan |
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| Greg |
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| Almost full moon over the anfiteatro |
While we were waiting for the opera (Nabucco) started at 9:15 and we all read the plot and tried to figure out what was going to happen. The sets were very impressive, large pillars that could be moved to create a palace or a temple.
The highlight for Greg and I was at the end of act 3, when an enormous chorus sang Va Pensiero.
(linked to Muti conducting in Rome under a moon similar to that evening). This evening, there was so much applause, they sang it again! The girls were all doing very well, in spite of the minimal barrier provided by the cuscini (between bottoms and stone seats). Julia fell asleep on her mom and at one point jerked away a fell off her lap onto the step in front of her! Luckily, there were some people to break her fall and she sort of shook it off and climbed right back on Alison! That, in combination with the day we had planned for Saturday, convinced Greg and I that three hours of opera was quite enough.
Traveler's logistics: I was pleased that the tickets printed out from home were all accepted by the usher's bar code reader and also that our reserved parking space worked as expected. .before the opera, I had shown the attendant our voucher and he gave me back a paid receipt. John fed it into the machine at the exit and it opened it!
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