Day 15 – Sunday 5 June 2016

A slow start after a delicious breakfast with some really nice prosciutto, salami & cheeses. Our drive this morning took us to Verona where we parked just outside the centre of the city & had to catch the shuttle bus into the city centre. Verona is a lovely old town with an old Roman amphitheatre a prominent feature of the city centre. It was being prepared to stage some large outdoor opera productions, not bad for a building 1,900 years old. Just across was the large & imposing walls of the old city, again in remarkable condition & still in everyday use. Verona is the city of Romeo & Juliette so our first walk was to the small courtyard to see the famous balcony. The same as every other tourist in Verona. It was very crowded so just took the obligatory photos & left. There is a bronze statue of Juliet in the courtyard & lots of young women were getting their photos taken cupping the bare breast of Juliette – bizarre behaviour (supposed to bring good luck, you wonder about the stupidity how could a long time dead 14 year old girls statue do anything). We walked slowly back up the narrow street looking in all the shops & walked around the main town square with lots of interesting old buildings. The outdoor cafes were packed & there are people moving everywhere. (not only tourists, it is Sunday so locals like to wonder around the city too & eat & drink coffee) Good thing this area is closed to cars.

We stopped to share a gelato when Tereza said something is dropping from the roof, it was rain from the sky – rain drops on our heads (it was amazing how quickly it all happened) so we quickly scampered to a nearby small arcade & waited for the storm to pass. The rain was bucketing down & we shared our shelter with lots of others. A very wet & bedraggled other Insight tour group whom we had breakfast with this morning shared our shelter for a while before moving on. After the rain we wandered around some more looking at the old buildings & shops & stumbled across a vintage Vespa scooter rally being held out the front of the large Town Hall, next to the Roman Amphitheatre. There was a huge array of these quaint scooters, even some with sidecars. We walked up to the main gates of the old city & the adjoin square before re-joining our group for the shuttle bus back to the coach park.

The journey towards Bolzano was very interesting & beautiful, as we drove further up into the mountains the valley grew narrower & the mountains became vertical cliffs towering high into the air. The river we were following upstream was crossed numerous times, running very briskly with floodwaters. The villages are different here, mostly old stone & brick, mostly multi story & built on the scree slopes up against the cliffs. All the arable land is planted full with grape vines or fruit trees, there is hardly any land not producing. There are small villages on both sides of the river dotted all the way up the valley. We spotted the odd castle here & there, always in a commanding position up high. The Dolomite Mountains surrounding Bolzano are capped with snow & are very impressive.

Our hotel is right in the middle of Bolzano, the Park Hotel Laurin & is a beautiful old building with very nice comfortable rooms. The old lift even has a leather couch to make your ride more comfortable. Once checked in we went for a walk around the town & enjoyed the very pleasant 29 degrees whilst looking at the many old buildings & soaking up the atmosphere of the city. As it was Sunday many of the locals were out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. We had a nice walk before returning to our hotel for a delicious dinner. The steak was particularly delicious. After dinner we went for a stroll around the hotel gardens, the roses were at their best & the garden is laid out nicely with some interesting statues highlighted around the garden, some good, others interesting.

We are in Bolzano, Italy (once Austria) & the people speak mainly German.