Verona, Italy, Europe
Lady Capulet Apartments

I really love this country! We started out today with a ridiculous breakfast at the B&B. I don’t know how all Italian people aren’t HUGE based on just what they eat for breakfast. It’s just all sweet things and cakes and breads. I haven’t seen anyone have eggs or bacon or sausage, it’s just cookies, cakes, and pastries. It seems very strange. Of course we didn’t want to be rude, so we partook in the local breakfast options and filled ourselves up for the day.

We packed up the car and walked up to the two main tourist attractions in San Marino, Towers 1 and 2. Tower 1 is closed to the public due to some damage from weather earlier on this year. There is a walkway between towers 1 and 2 and the view is spectacular all along it. We got up to Tower 2 and this was open so we paid our €4.50 each and went inside to check it out. They have a whole museum filled with old stuff like weapons from the middle ages. I wasn’t really so bothered about all that stuff, I just wanted to get to the top of the tower and check out the view. It was an awesome view from the top and you could see all around to Rimini and back to Tower 1.

After checking out the towers we decided to head out and get on the road. We had about a two hour drive to Ferrara, which was another city that was recommended by the car rental lady. We got into Ferrara and took a walk into the old city center. It wasn’t quite as nice as Ravenna, but it was still nice. We grabbed some gelato (obviously), and walked into the old city and checked out the castle in the center. It was cool, but nothing to write home about. We really wanted to get to Verona, so we didn’t stick around for too long. On our way out of town we did grab two local specialties which was a pastry filled with ragu (sauce) and meat. It wasn’t at all what we expected because the ragu was more of a gravy than a spaghetti sauce, but it was still delicious. We ate on the road on our way to Verona so we could make good time getting there.

We got into the city around 4pm and met Julia, the owner of Lady Capulet Apartments. This is an absolutely stunning two floor apartment in the center of Verona, in a building from the 1500’s. Julia (who is from Boston) bought this whole building and refurbished it to make it four apartments that can be rented out. She’s done an amazing job with the place, and was really helpful on letting us know what to check out and where to go eat (more importantly!).

We had to move the car to a parking garage not too far away, and then headed up to the north side of the city where we could climb up a hill and get a perfect vantage point for the sunset. We weren’t the only people with that idea, so of course it was a little busy, but it was still really nice. Enough people were shuffling around that we managed to get a few nice views of the sun setting over Verona.

We headed down after sunset and headed toward a restaurant that Julia had recommended and made a reservation for us at. It was called Cenacolo and the reservation was at 7:30pm. We were really hungry just before 7pm, so we tried to go early, but the restaurant opened at 7:30pm, so we had to waste some time. We found a nice bar not far away where we could sit outside and have a couple of spritzes. We tried one Aperol and one Campari. They were definitely different, but I can’t remember which one I liked better.

We headed over to Cenacolo at 7:30pm and had what Melissa voted as the best dinner of this trip. It was excellent, but it was a bit snooty for my liking. We both did the tasting menu and thought we were going to choose one starter, one main, and one dessert. Wrong. We got a little bit of everything, which meant we had about ten courses. Most of them were really good, but a couple of them I didn’t care for. Similar to last night, it was far too much food, so by the time dessert came, we were stuffed. We still managed to finish the dessert, but it was a struggle.

After dinner we walked back to the B&B and have been chilling here for a bit. Melissa has some work she needs to finish and send over by tomorrow morning, so she’s doing that and I’m working on my blog and pictures. We have decided that we are going to stay in Verona all day tomorrow instead of trying to squeeze in something else before the airport. It seems like a lovely city, so we want to make sure we explore it properly.