WR, Center of the Universe!: Verona-Venice 2001

Grand Tour of Europe 2001 – Venice and Verona

17 April – Travel day number four. Our train to Verona left at 9:30. I bought some goodies that came to exactly the amount of money I had. Lucky! At first, we couldn’t find our train car, then it turned out we were the only people in the compartment (of 6) for a while. The ride was pretty nice. I spent most of my time staring out the window at the gorgeous mountains. The Austrian Alps were all snow-covered and lovely, with little green valleys with villages. Then we came into Italy. The Alps became rounder, rockier and tree-covered. They were green and brown, the sky was blue, and it looks warm out! At one stop in Italy, a lot of people got on, and a smelly man sat next to me. Ick. The total train ride wasn’t that long – 5½ hours. I exchanged some money, then we caught a bus that would take us near our hostel. It was a bit of a walk from there, but we got beds. Had to stay out until 5, so we walked up the hill to get a good view of the city (much larger than I expected). At 5, we went back to the hostel to haul our stuff up to our room. The hostel is ~~Ostello della Gioventù~~ {Ostello Villa Francescatti chiuso} and it’s in an old villa. The paintings on the wall leading up to the room are beautiful. Our view overlooks one of the wall-topped hills surrounding the city and the houses and villas below it. And it’s spring here! It’s in the 60s, and the air smells so sweet. It’s nice not to be cold for a change. And our room only has six beds, which is another nice change. We bought dinner here, not knowing where we could get anything in the area. I read and took a little rest before then. Dinner was nice. We met another girl traveling around and ate with her. We got bread, pasta, vegetables, wine and I got cheese instead of meat. It was starting to get chilly out, and we have a full day planned tomorrow, so we went straight up to our room. This hostel has some pretty strict rules, especially an 11 pm curfew. Not that we were going to go out or anything.

Verona hostel
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View from our hostel

View of Verona

18 April – Madeline and I were going to take a day trip to Venice today, so we were up and out pretty early. We were going to make reservations at the train station for part of our trip to Nice, but it turned out no reservations could be made. We caught the 8:33 train and were on our way. The ride was nice, and we were finally there. I had decided to break out my sandals because the weather was nice, and they were already giving my pinky toes grief. We started walking through the narrow passageways, making our way to the Piazzo San Marco. We stopped at a mask shop – I got a small sun mask for Cassie and a necklace with three cobalt blue Venetian glass beads for myself. As we were walking, we ran into one of Madeline’s friends from Iowa State, Dan, who had been traveling alone. They caught up on how our respective trips have been going as we made our way over the Rialto bridge to P. San Marco. The tiny streets were wonderfully car/moped/bike-free, yet crowded with people. The Piazzo was crowded, especially with pigeons. Took some pictures, looked over the water, then proceeded to wander a way through the labyrinthine streets. We bought some nice gelato as we went. I found a great handmade Carnival mask for myself. I started to feel a bit woozy, so we stopped and got something to eat. And more gelato. We wandered up and down and around. It was very pretty – the colorful, shuttered houses, teensy alleys, milky-teal water… My feet were absolutely shattered from walking so much. Eventually, we made our way back to the train station to catch a train back to Verona, bringing Dan with us. We took the bus back to the hostel, threw our stuff down, then went in search of food. We ended up at a pizza place that mainly delivered, but we could sit and eat at. Good thing, because it started raining. I got a cheese and potato pizza that was very good. We walked back through the rain to the hostel, played cards for a while, then called it an early night.

Venice Canal
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Piazzo San Marco

Dan and Cara
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19 April – We were up early again this morning. 9-5 lock-outs will make you do that. Dan decided to go straight off to Florence this morning, but we had some time to kill, so we explored the villa gardens and passageways cut into the rock behind the house. He left, then around 10, Madeline and I began our walking tour of the city. Found our way to the Roman arena and decided to start there. It was large, rosy-colored, and pretty, but there were too many people about for our tastes! I bought postcards and decided to send one home. We’ll see if it gets there. I’ve heard the postal system here isn’t the greatest. We walked to the old castle, walked along the castle walls, along city walls, stopped by some churches. By this time, it was noon and we were already sick of walking. Nevertheless, we pressed on, deciding to take a break for lunch. We walked down to this café near our hostel and ate and rested. The food was prepackaged, but it was good and pretty cheap. We went to the ruins of the Roman theater and “archaeology museum” to kill some time. We took a couple pictures, then sat in the sun in the stands. A friendly, drooling cat gave us company. After that, more walking, “Juliet’s House” was extraordinarily crowded. We got back to the hostel an hour early. I went and bought groceries for the train ride. Came back and read before going back to the pizza place for dinner. It’s going to be an early night tonight, because a long travel day tomorrow.