Sometimes, when you travel, you get treated to perfect moments of beauty. Mer and I went downstairs for breakfast at the hotel this morning, and the sun was brilliant, and the sky was clear. The mountains and lake were breathtaking. Neuf and Susan weren’t downstairs yet, so I went out on the veranda to enjoy the cool air and unobstructed views of everything. After a couple of minutes, Meredith opened the door. I assumed it was to tell me the others had shown up, but she kindly let me know that Andrea Bocelli was on the sound system. So I went back inside and heard his flawless voice singing his famous version of “Con Te Partiro” which even I, an apathetic classical music listener, love. That music and that view. Perfect.

I got more mountain/lake time while the others finished their breakfast. I’m a fairly fast eater, and normally would hang out with the others, but the mountains called. What a place. All good things come to an end on this side of heaven, and so we checked out and walked down to the train station, where we found no way to get a ticket. Meredith asked around, and we were told to go to the tobacco place down the stairs. That was correct, and so we were off to Verona via Brescia.

One small hitch – we had somehow read the time table wrong, and in my case, that was even with Google’s help. We thought we would catch the 11:33 train, but it turns out that it only runs on weekends. So we had to wait for the very crowded 12:33 train and lost an hour of touring time (or extra sleep). This is the price we pay for my not wanting to drive on this vacation.

We got to Verona and got settled in our room and got headed out to tour around 2:00. The weather was perfect here, and we strolled along the fifteen minutes or so to the historic center, coming first upon Verona’s colosseum. My friend Dubbs very helpfully taught me that every oval arena all over Europe can just be referred to as a “colosseum,” except the one in Rome, which is “the arena in Rome.” (Note to non-Dubbs readers – this last sentence is one hundred percent bogus and one hundred percent sarcastic. It will cause Dubbs to have a fit.)

The arena isn’t open on the inside, but the structure is still intact and in use. In fact, it was recently used to close the winter Olympic games held here in northern Italy. We walked around to the far side into a pedestrian zone, and kept up our strolling pace until we got to Star-crossed Lovers’ Lane. We had come to see “Juliet’s house.”

Meredith and Neuf are both English teachers and both love Shakespeare. Back in the 1970s, a very smart tour guide started spreading the news that this balcony on the this house was the one Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. It’s a lie, of course, but the tale caught on, and now the tourist hordes come to look on the balcony and have a picture taken with a Juliet statue. Then they go into the thoughtfully tasteful library to hear lectures on Shakespeare and to buy leather-bound volumes of plays. No, silly! They buy magnets and t-shirts from the tourist trap store, of course. But – pilgrimage done.

We then walked on to the Piazza Erbe, a grand medieval square full of pretty buildings and a large market area. On the far end is the Palazzo Maffei, a former palace that is now a small but solid art museum with an eclectic collection of art organized by themes (like “women,” “men,” “landscapes,” etc.). We did the whole museum in about ninety minutes, and I liked the themed rooms very much. Some rooms had works separated by hundreds of years side by side because they treated the same theme. And, as part of the ticket, we were allowed up on the roof to look out over the piazza.

After the museum, we went and looked at the Roman gate of the city, and then went for a very late and light lunch (it was 4:00 or so). Thus refreshed, we just wandered. The Italians have a tradition of “passeggiata,” which is a see-and-be-seen evening walk. We did that, wandering around the pedestrian area, starting near the arena and up and around the Erbe area, and out to the river, and then stumbling into a cool palace courtyard on a whim, and then finding the same river on the other side of the old city center. We popped into a couple of stores as things caught our eyes, and we admired the finely dressed people and perfect window displays. The Italians do know something of style. We finished our evening walk at a pizza restaurant, and then we walked home, walking past an ornate brick castle we hadn’t seen yet.

Verona is a remarkable town. We saw everything Mer wanted to see today, and it was a great day, but we have left plenty of things to see and do the next time we’re in northern Italy. So much beauty, so little time.