On to Verona

Saturday 19^th April.

We woke to the sound of rain upon our roof, which changed our plans as we were planning to go to a caravan park to have a day’s rest and catch up with the washing.  Along the road shortly after we left Jenny spotted the place where a landslide had occurred last year and she remembered it from the news. We drove through the valley through the small towns, seeing castles upon the hillsides, farms, orchards and vineyards and marvelled at the steep cliffs on both sides of the valley.

Arriving at Verona we were happy to discover the weather had cleared and we would have a fine and sunny day for our sightseeing. We arrived at the camperstop to find it full, then moved on to a nearby carpark to find it also full and then drove to another area that had been in our tom tom as a designated parking place to find it was a tour bus only parking area. A helpful attendant directed us to a convenient parking area and explained the parking system so we left and drove around the block to a quiet street nearby to find a convenient spot.  Parking up and paying our €4 we had some lunch in the camper and set off to explore Verona. Making our way to Palazzo Bra we encountered another market that was selling food and we thought it was a pity we had already eaten lunch. Walking through to the Arena we joined the queue and had a look inside. From the Arena we walked through the very busy shopping street to see Juliet’s balcony, fighting our way through the crowd we entered the small courtyard and got a glimpse of the famous balcony. A few pictures taken for posterity we couldn’t wait to get out of there, it was crazy busy and so much tacky tourist paraphernalia.

We then walked up into another square and found another market set up but after a cursory look we walked along into a quieter square with old medieval building. We spent most of our time just wandering through the warren of ancient streets, enjoying the atmosphere and admiring some of the architecture.  We walked back through the town and stopped to buy some fresh ravioli from a merchant which we decided to have for tea. We decided to try our luck again at the camperstop as it was late in the day and we hoped someone would be leaving. Our luck was in and we managed to get the only place available at that time and so we had a good spot to stop for the night.