Italy Field Report 9 – Day 8

That’s it! Last day.

We spend the morning in Vicenza today – but lunch at 1PM + Italian trains being notoriously late = we got back to Verona around 4PM!

Again it was worth comparing fast and slow trains, on the way home for example the fast train was 16€ for 25 minutes and slow one was 4€ for 40 minutes!!

Vicenza is beautiful, almost like Venice without the water and the decay, but it’s also very small so a 1/2 day is plenty.

  

Back in Verona, we took a last wander through the city and had a last diner in Piazza Del Elbe…  sadly – predictably – the food was lousy.  It always is when you have a meal in a touristy place. Good food and nice views are often mutually exclusive!

We called it quits around 6:30, back to the room early to pack and get ready to fly home tomorrow. I am pissed off because I can’t find my luggage locks ANYWHERE! I know they are in the room somewhere… but where??? GRRRR  plus, I only have 1 back-up lock!! don’t know how I could have misplaced (let alone lose) them when I unpacked.

I hope this is not a sign of the kind of journey we will have on the way home.  Please God let us not miss our 3AM wake up call – or 6AM flight to Germany – and please let the Lufthansa pilot strike chaos which ended today not delay us and please let us arrive home safe and sound!

(I miss my cats!)

Italy Field Report 8 – Day 7

Not the best day.

I don’t want to go as far to say it was a BAD day, but let’s say I was not in love with this day. We went to the Ferrari Museum; it was just OK. If it had been here in Verona I might have a better opinion of it, but to me it was just not worth all the travelling.

As you know, I strive to stay within a 2 hour travel perimeter for day trips. To get to the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, you have to take a bus from Modena. Modena is about 2 hours by train from Verona, and the bus to Maranello is about 30 minutes – not bad, we figured it would be a good 2-city day.

Not.

There is nothing to see and do in Modena. One nice square and the church, that’s pretty much it. It’s not very touristy.

When we arrived at the bus station to take the Bus to Maranello, it JUST left! We watched it pull out of the station just as it we were crossing the street and it was an hour wait until the next one.  The bus terminal (not near the train station) is on the eastern edge of the city, so we walked back to the old town, took a few pictures of the church and headed back to take the next bus. That was at noon – already half the day gone and nothing that great to show for it.

The bus dropped us off in front of the Ferrari Restaurant. I think you need a secret code to get in. We were IGNORED. It it because we look like tourists? Guidebook and camera in hand? I guess they don’t want to serve the kind of people that are likely to take pictures of their food.

Meh whatever. We ended up at a great mom & pop place down the road where a Caprese Salad, 2 pizzas and a bottle of wine only cost us 40€.  It was delicious!!

The Museum, like I said, was just OK – but keep in mind that I am not an aficionado.  Perhaps people ‘in the know’ will tell you that it’s great; I feel like I’ve seen it all before through a mix of Formula One Races, Formula One Weekend displays in Montreal and various museum exhibitions. Perhaps it was good because it’s all so many in one place? Meh whatever, I didn’t care enough.

I have to say however that this message in the entrance did make me sad:

 

After lunch and the museum visit, we caught the 4PM bus back to Modena, took a walk through the city hoping to find a nice café for a drink – no luck – ended up on the 6:15PM train back to Verona (not direct, we had to transfer in Mantova) getting us back just before 8:30. Too late to go to the square and have a night cap, but too early to call it a night. I felt like the day was so incomplete with no Aperol Spritz breaks!!!

We ended up having a light meal at the hotel restaurant – nothing great, but better than nothing.

Come to think of it, that phrase captures the whole day!

Italy Field Report 7 – Day 6

Another short and sweet post today. I am still congested, but feel fine. No fever, 100% energy level…  all systems go! But I still want to play it safe and go to bed early.

I cut Trieste from our plans because it’s 3 hours away. I am striving to stay within a 2 hour travel-perimeter, so we’ll so we'll visit the city some other time! We replaced it with Lake Garda.

We spent a little time in Desenzano, then took a boat over to Sirmione. We spent an afternoon here in 2003 but I remember NOTHING about it so it still felt like we were seeing a new city.

Great day, a lot of walking, scenic lunch…  I am good for another 10 years ;)

 

Italy Field Report 6 – Day 5

Going to keep it short today – I am congested and I don’t want it to turn into a cold so it’ll be an early night for me.

First thing’s first however: The Crema di Limone is great!

We went to Bergamo today. Very nice place but I can’t see why people RAVE about it. We liked it, nice things to see, great lunch – an overall very enjoyable day but I doubt I will ever be back.

Possibly the best pictures we took all day were these of a Mama Duck and her 15 ducklings at the Botanical Gardens…  SOOOOOO CUUUUUUTE!!

This cat nearby might have had a good meal, but we did not stick around to watch the potential carnage!