Thursday started with a problem. I walked the 8 minutes to the Glass Bridge over the Grand Canal and beyond to the Piazzale Roma, where the roads end and the parking garages and car rental offices are. I was going to get our rental car at the Avis office that was conveniently located so near our hotel and right by the road to Verona and the rest of Italy.
But the office was closed! There were a handful of other car rental offices open, so I asked at one of them when the Avis office would open, and I was told "Never. You must go to the airport".
At this point I was furious at Avis. I called Avis support and was told to go to the office at the Piazzale Roma. I said I was standing there and that the office was closed. She said "No, it opened a little while ago, at 9am." I sent her a photo and hung up.
Fortunately this area is also the bus terminal and there's a big taxi stand, so I got a taxi for the 35 Euro ride to the airport. I had learned a valuable lesson: American car rental companies often outsource their European operations and have no idea what's going on there.
So I got a car and parked it back at the Piazzale Roma parking garage, then went to get Lorna, Melissa, and the luggage. By then it was getting hot and 600 meters, including up and over the Glass Bridge, was not going to be any fun with luggage. I hired a Bangladeshi porter named Showkat to take our bags on his cart.
Showkat's not a big guy. He loaded up his cart, tied down the load, and set off. Then he stopped and turned left at the high stone bridge that crossed the Grand Canal in the direction of San Polo and San Marco. It's a high, steep bridge. I asked why he did not take the much less steep Glass Bridge, and he explained that full carts damage the glass embedded in the steps, so only empty carts may cross. He now had to go a full kilometer and over four bridges, which he did without complaint. I gave him a 30 Euro tip.
Eventually we escaped Venice and drove to Verona. This was an important stop, because I had tickets to see the opera Aida, my favorite, at the famous Arena di Verona, built 2000 years ago in the reign of Caesar Augustus and still in use for music!
Verona is a lovely little city in its own right, with an historic quarter nestled in a bend in the Adige River. We drove to the neighborhood of the Relais Pensiero, where we would be staying, and the owner helped us with his reserved parking and with our bags. The room was excellent, the location was excellent (just a couple of blocks from the Arena), and I recommend it highly.
We had the whole afternoon to explore Verona before the opera. It was late June, and Verona is at the same latitude as St John, New Brunswick, so the day was long and the show would not start until 9:15pm. We first went to the arena to get our bearings, and to get some lunch at one of the restaurants in the huge Piazza Bra. Then we went off in search of shopping and the Piazza delle Erbe, a big piazza with numerous stalls. I found a crushable white panama hat that served me well for the rest of the summer!
We also found Juliet's Balcony. Shakespeare's famous play is set in Verona, but the Bard never came here and Juliet's balcony was not an inspiration to him, but still it's a thing to see. The line was long, so we didn't stay.
Of course, all that exploring builds up an appetite! There's plenty to eat in Verona, and plenty of places to give your tired shoes a break while you indulge in pretty much anything you can think of and many things that you never thought of.
Eventually, though, we had to return to the Relais Pensiero to get dressed for the opera. The Arena di Verona takes their business seriously. When we were there in 2015, two fellows in front of us on the entrance line were sent home to put on long trousers because shorts or insufficiently respectful, despite the fact that the mercury had reached 100 degrees F that day! I had black slacks and a snappy white linen jacket, and of course my new white panama hat, I'm sure I looked every bit the summering American tourist!
The Arena is worth seeing, and you can get tours, but there's nothing like being there for a show, walking through the same stone tunnels and sitting in the same places where the ancient Veronese sat two millennia ago. The structure has been cunningly modified to meet many modern safety requirements (although of course there's nothing like the ramps and rails required by the Americans With Disabilities Act). The changes are usually not apparent, and when they are, they harmonize with the ancient architecture.
The show itself is a spectacle. Aida is set in the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and the Arena is a great place to evoke that long-ago time. The set includes a pyramid, flanked by sphinxes and other sculptures. The Pyramid is set upon a base that can rotate, so from one scene to the next it can revolve to show a background suited to the action. In the foreground there was lots of room for the principal singers and the many, many extras: musicians, priests, peasants, soldiers, tradespeople, acrobats, and choruses of singers. At one point I counted 160 people onstage!
I had bought these tickets in 2019 for a show in 2020, that was postponed by Covid. They were front-row seats, which I prefer because it ensures that Lorna can see and because I enjoy watching the orchestra. I listen to my favorite operas in the car and at home, and so I know when to expect the piccolo to chirp or the oboe to moan. Front row seats don't cost any more than fifth row seats, and you see so much more that it's worth the effort to be awake and ready when they go on sale in Italian time, 6 hours ahead of us.
After the show, around 12:30am, we had a fine dinner in the Piazza Bra. We talked about the performance while we let the adrenaline subside. It's a memorable experience, having dinner under the stars in the wee hours in a far-off city after spending three hours in Ancient Egypt!
Gradually the restaurants emptied We went back to the Relais Pensiero around 2:00am, through sleepy streets with shuttered shops. Between Venice and Verona I was certainly "getting my steps in", so much that one the walk back, the sole of my right shoe came loose! It was flapping about like a clown shoe and I looked quite absurd. I knew that we had an unexpected priority for the following day, but I had my dress shoes still so we'd stick to our plan and get out of Verona bright and early at noon.