July 26, 1997 - Saturday 

---

Today started out a little later than usual.  Seeing as it is the weekend some of us do like to sleep in once in a while.  We  started out with breakfast.  For some reason my coffee pot started spilling out coffe out the top and onto my hands as I was carrying it back to the table.  I've some small blisters now where I was scalded.  I guess I won't be carrying the coffee pot to the table anymore.   Today I had planned that we would go to Verona.  It's within a one hour train ride and seems to have a lot to offer according to the  Lonely Planet Guidebook   We packed some food and water into a small backpack.  Then we went down to the train station around 10h00 and not surprisingly the next train wasn't until 12h05.  So we had a couple of hours to kill.  We went by the pond with the swans and ducks and fed them some bread.  Actually, it was all the bread we had so we had to hit the supermercati for more.  We then dropped in on the Accademia Hotel to say hi to them.  Then off to the parks and then back to the train station.  Of course, this was one of those trains you needed reservations on to get an assigned seat.  At least this time we didn't have all our luggage with us so we comfortably hung out on the fold down seats along the aisleway. 

We walked from the train station into the city centre.  It is a short 20 minute walk and was probably faster than trying to figure out which bus to take into town.  The first thing we came across was the Arena.  An old 12th century place that can hold 20,000 people!  This thing is large.  We paid the admission to enter and walked around.  While the kids are sitting in the grandstand you can not imagine how hot those stones were!  So we took a quick shot and ran back inside to the cool air.  Verona is a significantly warmer climate than Trento, although still not uncomfortable.

From the arena we started walking the back streets of Verona.  This is a very picturesque town with lots of little back alleys and piazza's to explore.  We went searching for Juliet's (of Romeo and Juliet fame) house but I'm not sure we found the exact location.  At any rate, the walk was really getting to the kids.  Even where a gelato was not doing the trick to keep them moving.  So we hung out near the arena for a while in the shade of yet another old Roman building.  There we sat watching the people going by.  Sitting on cool marble does help recover from the heat.  One thing I noticed is that in the warmer climate of Verona the people are more sparsely clothed than in Trento.  Here the idea is to stay cool even in the hot sun.

I hate to admit it but we did end up hanging out at the McDonald's here for a while.  Primarily because they had outdoor seating, in the shade, and you didn't really have to buy anything to sit here.  Plus you could watch the people walking by and still see the ancient archways to the entrance of Verona.  Oh, the free and clean toilets were another benefit.

After 6 hours of this walking we caught a train back to Trento.  This time we were able to snag a cabin all to ourselves.  Was it ever nice to take our hiking boots off!  It was a good thing we had the cabin to ourselves because I don't think anyone else could've stood the smell of our feet!

Back in Trento we hopped on the bus and made our way home.  We put dinner together and by the time we cleaned up it was already 21h30.  The kids went to bed and fell asleep almost straight away.  I'm almost ready to hit the sack myself!  I think we're probably going to sleep in tomorrow.

 Click here to see all of the day's pictures. Warning - this will download about 1M of data.