We tour Verona and go to the opera gala

Finally it was time to get away to Henrik's dream destination that has been on the list for several years, the Dolomites. We had decided to start from Bolzano which is right on the border with Germany. The nearest major airport is either Innsbruck or Verona and of course we chose Verona because we like Italy so much. Then we also got the chance to explore this beautiful city.

We were in Verona in two rounds, first when we landed in Italy and then one more day when we were going home. So it was a total of about two days in Verona and if you just want to stroll around, it is good enough. The first time we stayed right by the city's oldest bridge and memorial Ponte Pietra. It is a short distance from the train and bus station so the tip is to take a taxi when you come from the airport. Otherwise, the location is great for looking around. As you can see in the pictures above, there was a lot of water in the river Adige, I think it is a promenade otherwise, but right now there was water right up to the treetops.

We lived on Relais a Ponte Pietra, a charming bed & breakfast where each room was named after a famous opera. The best thing was that you got breakfast served in your room, which felt very luxurious, but was probably really about the fact that they had no dining room.

Verona is a small and beautiful city with lots of cosy photo-friendly alleys. Almost everywhere you go, you'll find vespas or small Fiat cars parked, adding to the cosiness factor.

As I said, we were content to just look around the city, but there are lots of museums that you can spend time in. If you want to spend money, there is also a large shopping street Via Mazzini with all the big fashion houses. If you're more into love-themed souvenirs, you'll find Casa di Giulietta conveniently located in the centre of the tourist districts. Imagine that Romeo and Juliet are said to have pined for each other from a balcony in this very district. 🙂 Jokes aside, it's not really any stranger to queue to see this balcony than to go on a Friends tour in New York. We skipped the balcony anyway.

Welcome to semifreddo land

Every area of Italy has its signature dish, in northern Italy it seems to be semifreddo. Every restaurant had some variation of this on their dessert menu. I have probably never eaten as many semifreddo in my life as I did during this week. On a side note, Henrik loves semifreddo so much that he thought for a moment that the plane had crashed and he was in heaven. He ate even more semifreddos than I did. 🙂 Of course we also had some ice cream. If you want something more moderate, risotto di amarone is otherwise the standing on the menu. Super good, but difficult to get a nice picture of. Instead, you will have to make do with a picture of the nice trattoria where we ate the risotto.

When we were back in Verona after the week in Bolzano, we stayed instead in an apartment hotel right near the large square Piazza Brà where the old amphitheatre is located. Since we had booked ourselves in for a gala performance the night before we would go home to Sweden again, it was perfect to stay so close.

Opera at the Arena de Verona

Before we went to Verona, we had heard about the old amphitheatre in the middle of the city where they play opera in the summer evenings. The amphitheatre is almost 2000 years old and is still used extensively, which is pretty cool. It turned out that this year's big opera event, "La Grande Opera Italiana Patrimonio dell'Umanità", took place on one of the two evenings we were in Verona. We had bought tickets earlier in the spring on a whim. The information was clear, in case of heavy rain, the gala would be moved to another day and repurchase was not an option. However, we avoided the pouring rain, it was rather too hot, almost 30 degrees of blazing sun. We were very glad that we skimped and did not buy tickets for the parquet where the dress code was "Black tie", it was really hot, even without a dark suit.

A couple of days before the gala, we received an urgent email telling us that the gala would be televised and that all of Italy's prominent dignitaries would be attending. We were asked to be there at least an hour before the start of the show, and we were expected to be enthusiastic and grateful to be part of the small, small group of about 10,000 lucky people who got to take part in this gala live. So all we had to do was do as we were told, sweat it out and walk graciously across the closed-off square to get to our seats after queuing for over an hour. Naturally, the high rollers were the last to arrive, and without queuing.

Once there, we were treated to a fantastic gala evening with opera stars, ballet stars, a large choir and a symphony orchestra. Below you can see a sample of the closing number from La Traviata.

The opera at the Arena di Verona is probably the one thing you really can't miss when you go to Verona. I'm so glad we got to do this on our last night in Italy.