18/11/24
For the second time in a week we were taking a “rest day”. We rarely actually benefited from these days off from cycling as we were invariably bounding around, though this lapsed into traipsing sometimes.
We were only a short walk, and a single bridge crossing, from the old city of Verona. We’d saved the sights on the map on our phone and intended to make an efficient journey to see them all, alongside some pastry and gelato stops of course.
In fact we first went for some croissants and coffee at an eatery known to cater for us. Along the way we accidentally passed “Juliet’s house”, the balcony being the supposed inspiration for a romantic conversation with Romeo. As a lovers destination there expectantly a lot of writing on the walls although there was also a chewing gum wall. This is exactly as it sounds and the security guard agreed with us that it was absolutely disgusting.
We also stumbled across the beautiful Piazza delle Erbe, with its mural covered old walls and imposing tower. It was the sight of a market as it is everyday. Nothing too exciting to buy though. The coffee shop was a nice treat though a little underwhelming. We wanted there to be filling in the chocolate croissant damn it! The fig one had green food colouring stripes which was exciting alongside the enclosed jam.
The castle was next up after passing through a hoarded Porte Bosari. Why it also needs a crappy advertising board, no one knows. Despite the Castelvecchio museum being closed, it was Monday and loads of things were shut, it was an amazing sight. The large walls and turrets carried on across the clear river, which flowed fast, as all the water does here. We were a little surprised to see how much the brickwork had deteriorated and wondered why it wasn’t repaired, there were sadly obvious signs of abuse by cement.
Our next stop was Technomat, no this was not a museum, but the home improvement store on the edge of town. Think B&Q. We needed a new 1/2” wrench to try and do away with the dreaded creak on the Green Surly. The buses were confusing, and the ticket machine rejected our card, but we made it easy enough. The store was overwhelming and had too many options! We wanted a torque wrench but boy are those big and heavy. We had to settle on a single metal bar.
Having got that out of the way we could now peruse the rest of the Città Antica. The arena was stunningly preserved. It rivalled the colosseum and was actually still in use as an opera venue. Usually you could go in, but alas it was undergoing repairs.
We headed off in search of Focaccia. On the way we managed to go through the German market, it was strange how they had the same stalls over and over again selling the same overpriced food. We assume it must be a ploy to convince you that you’ve got the best price by the time you get to the other end and eventually relent to their greasy offerings.
Focacceria Genovese was an excellent shop that served olive oil infused bread by the slice for €2 and had multiple vegan options. Yes it was greasy too. We bought 4 pieces including an experimental chickpea tart thingy and headed up the hill to Castel San Pietro. This offered the most wonderful panorama of the city. We wondered if the endearing terracotta would ever get old.
There were a few more stops on our list, including the Scaliger tombs. These were the burial grounds of the ruling elite of Verona from the 13th to 14th century. And then gelato of course. We’d been out of creamy vegan luck in a couple of places, so we panic bought the first dark chocolate ice cream we found. We shouldn’t have because we made the trek to Geletaria La Romana which was further out and had an incredible array of flavours.
After confirming that the green ones were vegan we set about ordering the 5 best flavours. This included a peanut butter one as well as a chocolatey fruity one. The woman then said “oooo try this one” and passed Jonathan a spoon. It was quickly obvious that it was not in fact vegan!Spitting it out, in the toilet don’t worry, and washing his throat out amid perfuse apologies from the server, it was hard to fathom how she hadn’t grasped we were vegan having only ordered vegan flavours.
It was easy to forget about. Kind of. The gelato was fantastic.
The Sun was about setting and we headed back to our little room. We found some more bread and jam on the way back. Despite all the wheat we had already consumed, cycling demands evermore. As the cooker was disabled in the pretend Airbnb, bread was the best and only option to secure carbohydrates.
Surly They Won't Make It 