Kyle and I returned last night from a very lovely trip to Verona. As much as I am enjoying Venice, it was nice to leave it for a while and to see another Italian city. And to become reaquainted with cars…!

We left on an early train on Friday morning, and arrived in Verona around 10am. Our first stop was Castelvecchio, the 14th-century castle of the city which is now an art gallery and museum. The collection was much like those in the art galleries we have seen in Venice, but of particular interest were the Roman and medieval scupltures. The castle also offered neat views of Verona from its towers. Venetian palaces are great, but I naturally felt a little more at home in a castle!

Next, we visited the church of San Zeno, which houses the body of the patron saint of Verona (Zeno was a 4th-century bishop of Verona). It was a large and beautiful church, with really neat medieval frescos on the inside walls, and a spacious crypt which held a chapel housing the relics of Zeno. The church also has a beautiful monastic cloister attached to it.

After a stop at our Bed and Breakfast, we headed over to the Roman Arena (in the centre of the city), for the highlight of our trip: watching the opera Carmen in the arena. Luckily, we got there as the gates were opening, and thus found decent seats in our section of the arena. The arena is quite spectacular – so well-preserved for its age, and in much better condition (according to Kyle) than the Colosseum in Rome. To sit in an arena that has seen spectators for several thousand years was pretty awesome.

The opera itself was also spectacular – the cast was easily over 100, the orchestra close to 80, the sets were incredible, and the show even employed about 7 or 8 horses, and 4 donkeys. We were suprised that neither the orchestra nor the cast used microphones, but for the most part, we could hear everything from our high seats (I suppose that is why the orchestra had 5 harps…I didn’t think that Bizet wrote 5 separate harp parts). Anyway, it was a lovely performance, even though it was 4 hours (with 3 intermissions), and the seats were not so comfy (how did those Romans sit through shows without cushions…?)

The next day, we visited an archeological museum in an old monastery on the top of a hill in the city, which again offered lovely views of Verona. Below the monastery, at the base of the hill, was a Roman theatre, which we got to walk around as part of the museum admission. Next, we went to the Giardino Giusti, a well-known renaissance garden which was visited by Goethe and Mozart, among other famous people. It was a relaxing last stop in Verona, after which we returned to the train station.

We both found Verona to be a very picturesque city, and the visible evidence of Roman activity was particularly neat. All in all, a lovely trip!

Early tomorrow morning we will take the train to the Cinque Terre, for our second and last little trip before leaving Venice for England in a week’s time.

[Update: Here's a link to the rest of the photos from the Verona trip.]