Home Again

Sunday, September 15th, West Chester

We are home... the last few days were as amazing as the first.  The last post has us figuring out a plan following Ferrara.  I was feeling it was time to go straight  to the  Lake District.   But Lester did some research and was interested in stopping in Verona.  I had done some minimal research on Verona and found the Colosseum and a lot of Romeo's house and Juliette's grave.  Which, wasn't appealing...because they're not real people.  But, Lester dug deeper and found many churches, several UNESCO world heritage sites and of course the Colosseum.  The Colosseum is the second largest intact Roman Colosseum after Rome.  

Off we went.  We found our way into town, found a nice hotel just outside the walls of the old city and a short walk to the Colosseum.  The biggest unknown benefit of this facility was the "on-site" parking.  The parking is sufficiently hidden that they actually send a bellboy in the car with you to direct you into the parking garage and the parking spot.  I was settling into the room but Lester described his experience as bizarre and somewhat spy like.  But the car was safely tucked away and we went to explore.  Our first stop was St. Anastasia's Duomo of Verona, then a castle and some lovely medieval streets. We also saw some people rafting on the Adige, the river that runs through Verona.  We had a nice dinner with some really good, almost indistinguishable from the real thing, gluten free pasta near the Colosseum.  

Verona sells a city card that gives  you access to all the UNESCO sites for 24 hours.  We managed to fit in all of them except the Colosseum on our first day. So after we checked out we went to the Colosseum.  The advantage of getting there at 9:00AM is that there were only two other tourist in the entire building.  We had the freedom  to explore without stepping over anyone.  After our fill of ancient Roman ruins we headed to Lake Como.  Our designated last stop prior to going to the airport.  In addition to deciding which lake to visit we needed to determine which city to use as home base for two nights.  We settled on Varenna.  Varenna is off the beaten path a bit, it is north of Bellaggio, on the east side of the lake.  It turned out to be simply beautiful. And we decided the next two days would be filled with slowing down and soaking up the natural beauty of the lakes and the "pre-Alps" that surround the lake. Lester began  this process by taking a nap while I went for a stroll and did a little shopping.  Dinner was at a restaurant overlooking the lake watching the sunset.  The next day was spent  quite  peacefully riding the mid-lake ferries and visiting several of the lake towns.  Friday, our last full day, dawned way too early so we checked out and headed down the lake to the city of Como. Upon arrival we were glad it was just a quick stop over.  Como felt too much like the Jersey shore of the lake.  We decided to just get the short drive to our last stop over started... which meant we were starting on our way home.  

We are home and I will get some actual photos posted in  the next few days.