Postscript 

Our trip home

Annette and I transited through Frankfurt and had a 2 hour layover, conveniently at lunch time. We had quite the lunch decision to make. Those German hot dogs looked mighty tasty but then there was the bakery with those beautiful breads and sandwiches and pastries. What to do???
Let's get a hot dog AND a sandwich AND a pastry. We will share one of each!! What a brilliant solution. 

And a good thing we did because the food on the plane was yecch. Our three person row was full and Annette was crushed in the middle by a VERY large German guy that either tried to engage her in conversation in such heavily accented English that she understood nothing, snored/coughed/belched, or made repeated visits to the bathroom requiring both of us to unplug our ear phones and devices and navigate out of our ridiculously narrow seats. On one such exit, he stepped on the plug of my iPhone, damaging it such that it could no longer be plugged in so I had NO devices.
Oh well.....we arrived safely and only slightly worse for the wear.

Day 10

Sunday, and moving day. We packed up and left our wonderful Verona apartment about 10:30 in beautiful weather with sparkling clear air after the violent storm of the night before. Our plan for the day was vague other than we needed to end up at our hotel near the Venice airport at the end of the day for our departure home on Monday.
We began by driving to the town of Valeggio about 25 km from Verona where we planned to visit a small suburb called Borghetto sul Mincio, considered one of the most beautiful villages of Italy. We found it uneventfully and found that it was quite the lively place because it was hosting both a Vespa convention and also a classic car show.

Maybe for Rocco and Rosie??

Most of Italy appeared to be there for these events but nevertheless, it WAS a lovely little town. We strolled through it stopping at some of the shops and admiring the scenery in general.

We decided against staying for lunch because of the crowds and came to the decision to go to Mantova (Mantua) because I had some vague recollection of there being something there to see and it was fairly nearby. Once there, we asked a passerby if he could recommend a restaurant which he did and we stopped there for lunch. We had an appetizer of culatello (the most prime part of a prosciutto) accompanied by chunks of grana padano (a hard grating cheese similar to Parmesan) and mostarda, something we had never heard of. Mostarda is fruit which is cooked in water with vinegar and sugar until the fruit is tender. The fruit is removed, the liquid reduced to a syrup and the fruit and dry mustard and dijon mustard are added. It was a really nice counterpoint to the meat and cheese. It was a delicious antipasto. 

 Annette and I shared a pasta dish of asparagus, shrimp, mushroom in a tomato cream sauce (tasty and they provided grated cheese despite it having seafood in the pasta) then split a main course of seafood spiedini (seafood on a skewer) which was just OK.

Anabel had a filet in a truffle sauce which she said was the best meat she had on the entire trip! It came with a gigantic order of roasted potatoes, enough for the three of us along with any passersby that may have needed a few potatoes.

We had wine, of course, and then shared a dessert of the worst panna cotta ever!
After lunch we made a rather feeble effort at looking at Mantova and easily gave up and decided we may as well head to Venice 1-2 hours away since it was close to 4 PM by then.

An attractive canal in Mantova

We had a completely uneventful drive to our Best Western about 5 minutes from the Venice airport, checked in and went to the airport to return the car. (And incidentally forgetting that we had not gotten gas...another contributor to the gigantic rental car bill!) Our hotel asked us to call and they would send a shuttle for us on the hour or 1/2 hour so we gave them a call and they told us where to wait. Well.....the Venice airport is totally unintuitive in terms of finding your way around and even with the instructions from Hertz, it required wandering through a dark parking garage, crossing a busy street and meandering through the employee parking area to find the shuttle. We were delighted when a Best Western van showed up and we hopped in along with a couple of women from China. The driver immediately entered the autostrada which struck us as strange since the hotel was just up the street and after about 10 minutes of 80 miles/hour, we realized something was terribly wrong. Annette, sitting in front queried the driver on his destination which......SURPRISE....was a completely different Best Western 30 minutes away. He refused to discuss the problem until we reached HIS destination. After much discussion with his manager, it was decided that we could be returned to our hotel for a cost of 6 Euros each. Such is life...we paid up and were returned. Some hours later, our desk clerk telephoned to say that she didn't think it was right that we had had to pay when the driver should have asked where we were going so she had a discussion with his manager and our 18 Euros was returned!
After settling in a bit, we decided to go to a small cafe a few doors up where we shared a pizza and Anabel and I had a beer. Annette had an exotic Aperol spritz, a drink with one part seltzer water, two parts Aperol (an orange colored Italian liqueur made with herbs and orange flavor), and three parts prosecco, garnished with a slice of orange and an olive. She pronounced it tasty!!

While enjoying our pizza, the sky opened up and never stopped so we got significantly wet making our way back to the hotel. Packing up happened and off to bed. Anabel was getting up at 4 A.M. for her very early flight. Annette and I were a bit later and could sleep until 7. 
And that was the end of our Italy adventure. A good time was had by all.

Day 9

(post author, Annette with various editorial changes by Norma)

Annabel and I insisted Norma stay home and nurse her sprained ankle. (Norma was pain free because of the excellent medical care and reluctant but obedient.) We set out for Piazza Bra, a beautiful piazza with a row of restaurants with large outdoor seating areas, and then on to the Roman arena without once getting lost.  Anabel climbed to the top row of stone seats for a view of the surrounding city. We learned that Aida had been performed here and we imagined how glorious that must have been. 

Porta Borsari, a city gate

Piazza Bra'

                                                                             

Roman Arena

 We then walked to Castlevecchio a huge castle with a moat, parapets and many courtyards, the home of the Scaligeri family.

View of Castlevecchio bridge from castle

We explored the museum containing many galleries of Italian art from the 13th to the 18th century. We were exhausted but determined to see it all and after 2 hours we left, settled at the nearest restaurant across the street from the castle entrance and realized we had left with our audioguides (which we returned.)
 We called Norma who was eager to jump in a cab and join us for another great lunch across the street from the Castelvecchio.

Anabel thinking about lunch in the Piazza across from the Castelvecchio

We did it again...another terrific lunch. Norma had a delicious meat filled tortellini dish with butter and sage typical of the town of Valeggio (near Verona), Anabel had some so-so gnocchi and Annette had pasta with asparagus. We had our only Valpolicella wine of the trip (an entire delicious bottle) and then finished with a sinful dessert of layers of puff pastry with creme Anglaise.

Dessert...we dug in before the photo was taken. It was much prettier to start.

Not such a good wine in the U.S. We loved this one, the whole bottle!!

We then all walked to the San Zeno church which took us along the picturesque Adige River and with views of the Castelvecchio and its bridge.

San Zeno dates back as far as about 500.

As you enter, you see simultaneously a lower level, dimly lit, containing behind gates the tomb of St. Zeno and an upper level with the main chapel and altar.

A choir and small orchestra was rehearsing in the main chapel and we climbed the stairs to sit and listen to Mozart, enjoying both the music and the acoustics in this incredible setting. (No luck attaching the video with sound to this blog.)

We took a cab home, shopped for groceries and had a light supper featuring one of Annabel's wonderful salads. We listened to opera on Norma's phone while a spectacular hailstorm with thunder and lightening matched the drama of the singing.

Day 8

A big day.....we're off to rent a car for the weekend. We have reservations to see the Scrovegni chapel in Padova so we have a day trip planned.
The Hertz dealership provides us with a dirty Fiat Punto that is prescratched and they manage to add on enough stuff to our contract (GPS, additional insurance because we're in Italy and bad things have a history of happening to rental cars there) to get the price from an "inclusive" 73+ Euros to close to 300 Euros!! 
We made it to Padova with no problem except for a final glitch in finding the right parking lot so we dropped off Anabel to pick up our tickets while Annette and I found the parking area.
The Scrovegni Chapel has been described by art experts as the "greatest piece of art of the Western world." It's a small chapel built in the early 1300's as penitence by a Duke who was worried about his future in the hereafter because he and his father were usurers. The entire chapel was frescoed by Giotto with the story of Mary's parents, Mary and Christ and is an astoundingly beautiful work of art. According to Anabel, "this is better than the Sistine Chapel!!!" The drill is a 15 minute wait watching an informational movie in an equilibration area to protect the art from the humidity associated with a bunch of sweaty people and then only 15 minutes in the chapel itself. We are left breathless by this art!

Last Judgment

Death of Christ

Massacre of the innocents

Chapel with its ceiling of incredible lapis lazuli blue

The Eretimani Museum is in the same complex as the chapel and there was a special Tintoretto exhibit in addition to it's usual extensive (REALLY extensive) art collection. The Tintoretto exhibit was great! We very much enjoyed the museum but it almost "arted" us out as we spent the next 2+ hours making our way through it.  
All this culture made us hungry so we went to Cafe Pedrocchi for lunch. This is a famous cafe that has been in existence since the late 1700's near the University of Padova. It made it's name as a place where the riots against the Habsburg rulers occurred in the mid 1800's, a place for artists, students and dissidents through the centuries and where one could sit and read the paper (or whatever) without buying anything or could have a coffee or a full meal. It's a huge building taking up an entire city block and there is a 2nd floor with large meeting rooms and an art gallery (which we didn't visit...there's only so much art one can tolerate in one day!)

We had a marvelous lunch of local specialties...a sweet and sour warm chicken salad for Annette, a special pasta dish for me (but now I can't remember exactly what was in it other than artichokes) and Anabel had spaghetti carbonara, all delicious. I believe there was a green salad involved also. All accompanied by an excellent red wine in quantity sufficient to ease our tired feet. There was an assortment of tiny delicious pastries for dessert and I had the coffee special which was a combination of coffee, mint and chocolate with whipped cream. Sounds weird and was but was fairly tasty.
After lunch we went to visit the university where we wanted to to take a tour which included the ancient anatomy lab but, alas, the tour was full so we meandered about the courtyard where I, paying no attention because I was rubbernecking at the surroundings, took a misstep off a small curb twisting my ankle. It was painful for only a few minutes and I continued on, seemingly without problem.

A courtyard of the university

Facade of university

Another courtyard

 We hit up the university store for a couple of souvenirs and took the tram to visit St. Anthony's Basilica. Construction started on the church in the mid 1200's and new construction continued to be added until the mid 1600's. In addition to relics of St. Anthony (chin and tongue), he was buried here and the basilica has become a shrine for pilgrims who throng here from all over the world for healing. The art and sculpture within the cathedral is lovely and there is a large, beautiful courtyard that can be used for picnicking. Next to the cathedral is the oratorio which we didn't visit.

Oratorio

Courtyard

It was now late in the day and we made our way back to the tram and then to the car. I noticed progressively worsening discomfort in my foot and ankle that I had earlier twisted. As we drove though the afternoon commute traffic out of Padova, my sore foot (the clutch foot in our standard transmission car) was painful and by the time we reached Verona, was definitely a problem. 
A note about our apartment garage....something new for all of us. First of all, the entrance was from a very narrow side street. I had been warned to make sure the car was precisely lined up with the garage entrance which required a bit of backing and forwarding on the narrow street. The door was opened by the remote control I had been given which allowed entrance into the ELEVATOR! (narrow and requiring folding in of the side mirrors.) The motor had to be turned off as both the front and back doors of the elevator closed to allow the elevator to descend to the garage level two floors below. A bit creepy all in all but functional.
I could now no longer bear weight without lots of pain and my ankle and foot were quite swollen. Not to fear, I had my own medical team. Anabel had an ACE wrap and after getting me to a chair with my foot elevated, she expertly wrapped my foot and ankle and Annette came up with ice packs. By bedtime, I was much more comfortable. 
Thus endeth day 8.

Day 7

After a good breakfast, we went to a farmer's market located not to far away to get some nice produce for our home meals.

On the way back we stopped at the church on our corner, an ancient church dating to the 14th century with an interesting interior and some nice art. Dante said that this was his favorite church.

We dropped off our purchases at the apartment and set out for a day of some serious sightseeing.
We headed out to visit the Duomo (cathedral) and on the way stopped at the Ponte Pietra (stone bridge) that provides another crossing for the Adige river that snakes around Verona.

View from bridge

From the bridge, we could see the old Roman theater high on the hill across the river. 

Poor photo but Roman theater is behind house in foreground and old fort is behind cedars at top of the hill

The current Duomo dates from the 12th century and is very large and dramatic. There are significant artworks by Titian and others in the church.

Organ with beautiful side panels

Next to the church is 

also a baptistry that has an elaborately carved baptismal font carved from a huge single piece of red marble.

The site had it's first church in the 4th century and remains of that structure are seen in an area of archeological excavation that is actually beneath yet another small church next to the Duomo called Sant' Elena. 

Sant' Elena with area of excavation

It had now been quite a while since our breakfast and our feet were asking for a rest so we stopped for coffee and a shared small sandwich for Anabel and Annette and a gelato for me.
Fortified, we made our way to the next church on our list, Sant' Anastasia that had a lovely pink, pale blue and white facade.

It actually is larger than the Duomo and has lots of beautiful frescoes in addition to hunchbacks (thought to be lucky!) holding up the holy water fonts.

Next was the Palazzo della Ragione, a 15th century palace that now house a collection of modern art. We really needed the break from medieval and Renaissance art and found it to be a very enjoyable museum. It's located between two of the main Piazzas of Verona, the Piazza dei Signori and the Piazza delle Erbe so after the museum we looked around both and admired the beautiful buildings and the statue of Dante who lived in Verona after being banished from Florence.

 Next to the Piazza dei Signori are a group of tombs of the family Scaligeri which ruled in Verona in the 13th and 14th centuries. They are Gothic structures mounted on pillars and are quite dramatic monuments.

By now it was cocktail time so we stopped at a cafe with seating on the Piazza and enjoyed a nice glass of prosecco with some snacks fo peanuts and potato chips.

We felt sooo Italian

This was quite the sightseeing day and it involved lots and lots of walking. We just didn't have it in us to search out a place for dinner so we went back to our lunch spot of the day before.

Yet another delicious meal with a good red wine to accompany it. Anabel had a filet, I had liver and onions and Annette enjoyed osso buco

This looks serious

I guess Annette's osso buco was good

And a flaming dessert to finish off