Travel Day: Milano a Verona

 Travel Day: Milano a Verona

Quote of the Day: Alice says to the White Rabbit: I can see the mouse's tail is long, why is the tale so sad?

Amazing, THB goes the Fitness Center. Not sure what THB was thinking, there was one other person there and she was playing her workout routine on an i-Pad, loudly. THB was in and out in 7 minutes.

Fitness Center art

The weights are in kilos!

Breakfast as usual downstairs outside. It is notably cooler today. In fact, it is a lovely day. No matter where you live, this is as good as it gets. A bit blustery, blue skies, a few white clouds, maybe a light sweater day. 

We putter around, packing carefully since we are only spending one night in Verona. The taxis are back to normal: Magna Pars calls on their device, a little ticket prints out right away and the cab shows up a few minutes later.

Watching the board for train track assignments

The train works just as advertises: you provide your 6 character confirmation code and the train attendant thanks you very much and moves on. No need to print anything out.

Of course, getting to your assigned seats isn't always easy: a pair of "youngsters" are in the wrong car and can't figure out why two women have their seats. Shades of going to the ballgame. Those e-tix can be hard to figure out.

DB buys some nice sandwiches and tall waters at a stand just outside the train station, $18. Otherwise, everyone is supposed to keep their masks on when not eating, and most travelers comply. 

Across the street from the hotel entrance: FOUR towers

Our hotel, Due Torri, is something different: charming and old-fashioned. Nice, snall in scale, and none of our hotels so far has been like the others. In our room is a bottle of bubbly chilling and a plate of fruit. We must be dignitaries or horribly overpaying for our nice room. 

Verona is a charming town, easy to walk. Well, not that easy, there are maybe 400% too many people here and the reasonably sized shopping streets are chock-a-block. THB already suffers from butt-brush disease (you know, when you have to turn sideways when going down an aisle in a store), and now he is feeling a bout of this illness coming one even though THB is outside. 

Some guy in the 1500s wrote a couple of pretty famous plays that take place in Verona. Here's THB's cliff notes version of one of them.

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ...idiot, you have the wrong story, this girl has really long hair

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

not that one, idiot, can't your follow my pointer

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong houses!

Juliet? Juliet? Where art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Wher art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, you have the wrong house

Juliet? Juliet? Wher art thou? ....She's not here, idiot, and you'll never get in here this way

Okay, on to Act IV: THB doesn't like the traditional ending, so he re-wrote one for Hollywood...Juliet finally came out, they played around a little (winky-wink), had a gorgeous little bambino, and went for the splash destination wedding with the both families along

THB hits the wall and DB continues shopping. THB gets back on his own and asks the desk if we can have our bubbly and fruit on the roof-top dining area. 

There is a long discussion, some of it over the phone, and finally the guy at the desks apologizes and says no, sorry, how about a room somewhere else or outside on the first flow in the middle of the hotel (like being told the dungeon is yours to use, we'll leave the air shaft open for you).

Not here

Not here

DB returns, hears the sad story and says let's go take a look from the roof anyway. We run into another desk person who explains how to get to the fifth floor. DB asks her if our bubbly and fruit can be brought up to us there. Sure, no problema, she'll take care of it. Hmmmm...the feminine voice works in Italy!

The elevator to the 5th floor isn't working. Hmmmmm...a sign from above? The guy who told THB no dice on the top floor shows us another way to get to 5. Off we go. We get to the 5th floor and a guy there tells us that, no, we can't have our bubbly on the 5th floor. We explain, the story is getting longer and longer, and we say fine, make sure the bubbly and fruit go back to our room on 3. That agreement takes a minute or two and sure enough, here comes a guy from the rear of the 5th floor with our bucket of bubbly and plate of fruit and napkins and knife and forks. The guy saying no gives in. The guy who brought up the bubbly and fruit serves us. Another Hollywood ending, and here are the pics from the 5th floor:

We get a table with a great view, enjoy the fruit and bubbly and now here is THB writing up the story. Remember the song: the piano has been drinking not me...Tom Waits. Remember, the laptop  has been drinking, not THB.

Dinner was really not good (not at the Due Torri...other than that, you will have to check with THB to find out which one we ate at and THB will give you thumbs down if it is a match). We did a tasting menu and the only course even reasonably good was dessert, in itself a tasting menu of 6 different sweets. With a good bottle of Soave, $215.