Love & Light and everything bright...

FROM MAUI, HAWAII

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Touring Central Italy, Adriatic Coast, Lago di Garda, Verona

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VERONA, Sep 19 - Our stay in Rome was short but sweet.  It remained as the highlight of our trip, along with our first day in Florence.  Leaving Rome and finding our way back to the freeways was easier than getting to our hotel.  After all, we had already traversed it once in the opposite direction.

Adriatic Coast

Soon we were tootling along central Italy, enjoying the sights of idyllic old towns perched on hilltops, such as the two in the left pictures above.  We did not stop to rest until we got to the Adriatic coast, where Elizabeth, for the first time in her life, dipped her toes in the sea in which I spent much of my youth.  The beach was mostly deserted, although there were some sunbathers, as you can see.  We also stopped in a cute small town of Bellaria (right) for some gelato.  We made it just before the store closed for lunch.  Guess it would be fair to say that we "gelatoed" our way through Italy. :-)

Lazise on Lago di Garda

After checking into out Verona hotel, we immediately continued driving to Lago di Garda, and Lazise, a beautiful lake and an ancient town on its shores that lie within about 15 miles from Verona, right in the Valpolicella wine district.

We walked through the pretty town of Azise...

... before going for a lovely walk along its "riva" (the waterfront).

On our way back, Elizabeth insisted that I try on some Italian summer fedora hats.  I eventually ended up buying one...

... which you can see me modeling here, as a bride and a groom passed by, being filmed by a professional photographer, guess for a wedding video.  And yes, we had another gelato, or at least I did.

Verona

Verona has been immortalized by many events in its long history, but none as memorable as the tragic story of Romeo and Juliette, depicted so beautifully in Shakespeare's play of the same name.

As is the case with most ancient Italian cities, Verona also lies on a river that cuts right through the center of town.  That's where we stopped to take some pictures after having a devil of a time finding a parking spot.  Soon, we were to find out the reason the city was bustling even in the off season.  And yes, we again came across another bride and groom here, too.  "We must be attracting love wherever we go," I said to Elizabeth.  This was about the fourth time we came across a wedding on this trip alone.

We stopped on the old bridge to take some pictures of Verona as well as of one of the tourists from America. :-)

But it wasn't until we got to the center of Verona and the old Roman Arena that we realized that something extraordinary must be happening.  The crowds were enormous.  Using my limited Italian, I talked to two ladies who explained that a festival of Italian folk music was taking place at the Arena, as well as art exhibits and other special events all over Verona.  And it all started just as Elizabeth and I arrived there - on Friday night.

Of course, that made chances of us finding a nice restaurant for dinner rather slim.  Yet somehow, an invisible hand led us to a delightful place in one of the back streets away from the main square.  The restaurant was fully booked for the evening, but the maitre d' saw fit to find us a table anyway.  We had arguably the best meal of all places we had eaten in Italy.  And Elizabeth enjoyed a colorful local drink whose name sounded like "spritzy"... (right).

On our way back to our car, we took a picture of the same old tower we had visited earlier in the evening.

And that's all she wrote from our ninth day in Europe.

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