Italia: Verona and Bologna

We got into Verona and, after a bit of difficultly, got on what we thought was the right bus to our bed & breakfast. Once off the bus, we spent about 20 minutes walking around with our suitcases, trying to find the place. Thank god for insecure Wi-Fi. Ivana was able to get GoogleMaps on her phone, and we had soon found it.

We buzzed into the bed & breakfast, located on the fourth floor of an apartment building, and were met by the adorable owner, Emmanuelle. Ivana and I weren’t sure who we loved more, Stefano or Emmanuelle…so we decided to bring both of them home with us. The bed & breakfast was really cute. Ivana and I were put in the obvious honeymoon suite, decked out in red and tons of flowers. Emmanuelle told us, “It’s very romantic.” Thanks, Emmanuelle…

It WAS quite romantic.

After Emmanuelle mapped out the city for us and gave us advice on where to go, we caught to bus to the city center. We immediately fell in love with Verona. When you think “Italy,” the vision you get in your mind is definitely exactly what Verona is. A small city, surrounded by a river, it’s quaint, cute, and though touristy, there are plenty of places where you can get away from it all.

We explored for a long time, holding off on going to Juliet’s balcony, as Ivana wanted us to write letters to her, like in the movie. After, of course, searching, we found a nice lunch place and ate our pizza and drank our beer outside on the patio. The whole “letters to Juliet” thing didn’t actually happen and apparently (I’ve never seen it), her balcony was nothing like it was in the movie. The tiny square with the balcony was filled with people and a little overwhelming, so we got out of there as soon as possible.

Then, we crossed the river and paid to go into an old Roman amphitheatre. Having been a theatre major, I was finally able to share my knowledge about vomitoriums and choruses in an appropriate place. We explored for a while and, while sitting, overlooking the city, a bird pooped on me. Great. We took it as a sign to leave there.

Channeling my inner Evita.

We stayed on the other side of the river, outside of the main city, and walked. We ended up in a park and sat for a while, doing dramatic readings from one of Ivana’s Kindle books. We didn’t really want to go back to the bed & breakfast, just to sit there all evening, so we tried to delay dinner for as long as possible. We went back into the center and found a cute, but completely deserted cafe. Deciding to stay for one drink, I ordered a prosecco, and Ivana a spritz (a bright orange, bitter drink that I tried in Venice…not a fan). The cafe ended up being really fun, playing American oldies classics, with the bartender bringing us an endless supply of small sandwiches and chips, and even a free second round of drinks. For four drinks and tons of food, we only ended up paying 5 euros (plus a small tip as a “thank you”)…sometimes I love being an American girl abroad.

We went across the street for a nice dinner of more prosecco and gnocchi. Catching the last bus back to the bed & breakfast, we got back, said goodnight to Emmanuelle, and got ready for our last full day in Italy.

For Wednesday night, we had originally booked a place to stay in Bologna. But back in Florence, we realized it was stupid, as Ivana’s flight was at 6.30am and we would only be in the bed & breakfast for a few hours (and paying a lot for it). So I emailed the owner (they never asked for any credit card number as a guarantee) and told him we had gotten food poisoning and wouldn’t be coming to Bologna anymore. He was fine with it and told us to get well soon. How sweet. Because of this, we knew we would be spending the night in the Bologna airport and wanted to put off getting there for as long as we could.

Wednesday morning, we had breakfast with Emmanuelle and two South American boys who were staying there as well. After chatting, we went into the center and stocked up on food for the day and night from a grocery store. Having our luggage with us, we went back to the park we had been at the day before for a morning/afternoon of reading and hanging out. It was fine for a while. We ate some baguette, cheese, and ham for lunch, and I even made a trip to go get us gelato and bring it back to the park. But then, the weather started to change. We had been so lucky all week, having sun…but that day, not so much. We sought shelter in a café and got cappuccinos. After talking it over, we decided to just head over to Bologna and take it from there.

Once our train arrived in Bologna, we had no idea what to do. It was only around 3.30pm and we didn’t want to go to the airport until at least 9.00pm. Having our suitcases, we couldn’t really go sightseeing, so we sat at a café and again, had prosecco (me) and a spritz (Ivana). Killing more time, we moved to another café and had macchiatos. We didn’t want to keep wandering, as it was raining there too, so we decided to be adventurous and go see a movie…in Italian. We ended up seeing “Mirror Mirror” (“Biancaneve”) and actually really enjoyed it! I was able to understand most of it because Italian is so close to Spanish, and I think Ivana got a lot of it too (come on, we all know the Snow White story). After the movie, we picked up some paninis and got on the airport bus.

Once at the airport, we found some chairs to sit in and I went over to the RyanAir terminal to try and check in (even though my flight was over 12 hours away). For the first time ever, RyanAir decided to be kind and I was able to get my ticket stamped. This way, I would be able to go through security with Ivana early in the morning. Getting back to our spot, we went in search of a better, more comfortable spot to spend the night. Luck was with us. Like manna from Heaven, we found an easily overlooked space with real lounge chairs in them…like almost laying down! There were many and only one was taken, so we had our pick. We got comfortable and a few hours of chatting and snacking later, we were even able to sleep for an hour or two.

After going through security, we shared our last pastries and cappuccinos of the trip and said our goodbyes around 6.00am when Ivana’s flight boarded. I spent the next three and a half hours hanging out, until my flight left. I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane, so I was very tired by the time I reached Madrid. Navigating the metro to the bus station, I was all set to get on the next bus to Navalmoral. Unfortunately, we can’t be lucky in all that we do. The next two buses were full and I had to wait about four hours for the next one. Wanting to cry from exhaustion, I bought my ticket and headed across the street to pass the time eating lunch and having a coffee. When it was finally time for my bus, I was thrilled to get on. A little over two hours later, I was home!

My Italian vacation was perfect. It was a wonderful time with wonderful company. This year, I have definitely developed a love affair with Italy. Not as much as Spain. But very close.