4 hours in Verona…
I’m not sure if you have seen the movie, Letter’s to Juliet, but if you have, then you understand my desire to see Verona. Verona is a small, adorable town between Milan and Venice. When we were making plans with our travel agent, Robert, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to see Verona during this travel day. He assured us this wouldn’t be a problem. This was already going to be a long travel day as it was, so I was concerned it would be too much…(I’ll remind you: We started the day in Como, drove to Milan, took the train from Milan to Verona and eventually planned on taking the train from Verona to Venice. That was a lot of ground to cover in one day! Look at a map…eek!)
Robert explained to us that all of these “transfers” would be very quick and we would have plenty of time in Verona! I did a little bit of research myself and most people said that one day in Verona is plenty. Like I said above, it’s a very small town. It has only a few “tourist-y” stops and other than that it’s just a romantically picturesque town! I agreed that a few hours was all we needed so we made the arrangements.
Back to Letter’s to Juliet! Without doing a full movie review…(I mean, c’mon…that’s not why you’re here) Basically, the movie is a love story circling around the main setting of the movie, Casa di Giulietta, the home of Juliet from the story, Romeo and Juliet. The movie shows many scenes of this spot in Verona…so I obviously had to go, right?!
When we got off the train in Verona, we had all of our luggage because we would be making our way to Venice that afternoon. We arrived around 10:30 or 11 and I think our train left around 3 or so. (I can’t really remember details…we’ve been on a lot of trains since then!) First order of business was finding the baggage lockers to leave our stuff for the day. After that, we got a taxi and made our way into the city. I had found a recommendation for a restaurant in Verona by a blogger named Julia Engel from Gal Meets Glam. Her and her husband had been in Verona earlier this year so I thought, we should check out this restaurant! The taxi driver took us straight there. Unfortunately the restaurant wasn’t open until noon so we decided to look elsewhere. I was pretty sad…it looked so cute!!
After walking around a bit, taking some cute photos and Aaron getting some gelato…this guy has had gelato at least once a day…not kidding! I wish I had his stomach of steel!! I can only have it every couple days (maybe). Anyways, we finally found a restaurant. The owner of the gelateria recommended us to a place just up the road that was her brother’s restaurant, all homemade pastas and food. We were so excited!
The restaurant was called Alcova del Frate. This restaurant experience has been another one of our favorites. The owner was the one who sat us down and served us. He was very energetic and involved. We were again, the only ones in the restaurant so it was a very intimate experience! We started with a salad each and a meat platter to share. If you follow Aaron on Snapchat you saw him snapping away at this place. He LOVED it. This was his favorite food experience so far. The meat platter wasn’t my favorite, but I tried everything and enjoyed the overall experience. After the meat platter we ordered pasta dishes. Aaron had the gorgonzola gnocchi and I had the tomato sauce gnocchi…oh my gosh. AMAZING! We are obsessed with gnocchi…if it’s on the menu you can bet one of us with order it! On top of all the amazing food, our server picked a wine that would go nicely with our options. It was wonderful!
Since we only had a few hours in Verona I was starting to get worried about time…if you’ve been to Italy, or Europe in general, you know that meal times are taken very seriously. You don’t rush; you take your time and enjoy every bite and every conversation. The experience was turning into a two-hour lunch…which was great!! But I still needed to see Casa di Giulietta and then get back to the train station!
We eventually finished our yummy meal and made our way to Casa di Giulietta. Many people told me that this little spot is usually CROWDED with tourists…so much so that it’s not even worth it to see. I was SO excited to see that there was basically no one else there. Maybe 10 other people…it was perfect! We didn’t have enough time to go into the museum but we read the signs, took some photos and sat for a minute and reminisced on our own love story. You really should see the movie or read about this location! It’s not the most beautiful spot in the world…but it has so much significance, and that’s something I love.
After our stop at Juliet’s home, we found a taxi and made our way back to the train station where we would head to VENICE! GUYS…can’t wait to share with you Venezia!!
(Stay tuned…Venice, Italy is up next)
xoxo, madison naomi
