In Fair Verona, Where We Lay Our Scene/Laundry

We woke up Monday morning with plenty of clothes that needed washing, a sketchy washer, and last night's laundry still wet and taking up most of the real estate on the clothes hanger in the apartment. We needed a laundromat, but our Google searches weren't turning up much. Our landlady pointed us to one, but it was something of a long walk and the washers themselves were frustrating because they didn't always want to accept the 2-Euro coins they said they accepted. We got everything washed and dried, though, which is better than where we'd have been if we had relied on the apartment machine.

We spent much of our afternoon walking through Verona. It did rain, but just for a few minutes. We looked around the market at Piazza delle Erbe,

visited the courtyard at "Juliet's House" (my quotation marks, because even if Capulets lived there, it's not known whether there was a real-life Juliet behind the legends),

and checked out the Arena.

My daughter got tired fast, but we stopped to rest at benches whenever we saw them. The seats at the Arena and a gelato stop helped out, too.

We went to bed to the sound of singing in the streets. Apparently Verona's soccer team did well enough to move up a division, so people were celebrating.

Our original plan had been to make a day trip to Venice while we were in Verona. We had decided to wait to buy the train tickets because we were unsure about whether our daughter would be up for a day-long trip to a place with lots of walking and perhaps few places to sit and rest. We finally decided against Venice because the walking in Verona had been difficult for her, and the difficulty would only be amplified in a new city where it is notoriously easy to get lost and where there would not be a hotel where we could take breaks. I'm a little sad to miss Venice, but I think it was the right choice, because we very easily could have been miserable there.

We spent our last full day in the city of Verona. We were interested in seeing views of the city from the Castell de San Pietro, but it was a long walk to the bottom of the bluff where it was located. We then learned that no buses go up to the top; we would have to climb a long series of steps. I was skeptical that we could do it, because my daughter had already asked for a couple of breaks on the walk over. We agreed to try, though, and my husband successfully turned it into a game: "let's see how many steps we can climb." We made it to the top and picnicked to some nice views.

After making our way up and down those stairs, we felt like we had earned dessert, so we stopped for some gelato. Then we made out way to the Piazza Bra and took a ride on the City Train, an open-air bus (something like an oversized golf cart) made to look like a train.

We had seen it around town, and our daughter is a big fan of trains, so we decided to give it a try. It was a very bumpy ride through the cobblestone streets! There was taped commentary in 4 languages including English, but I didn't learn a whole lot. It might work best for people who haven't already oriented themselves to the city... or for families with young kids. Our daughter loved it, bumps and all!

Tomorrow we leave Verona for San Gimignano. Send us some dry vibes--for the weather and the laundry from 2 days ago that is still hanging in the apartment!