Verona - day two

Here we are in the land of Romeo and Juliet and we forgot to wish Megan and Matt a huge happy anniversary yesterday. We remembered it was your special day, along with the memorial to the World Trade Center attack, yet we forgot to mention it in the blog. Apologies. We hope you had a wonderful time yesterday. We are very proud of you and your family, bragging to everyone about our grandchildren. Our love to you both.

Sharing a bathroom isn't too bad in most places. Picture this place. First of all, it is up four flights of stairs to the front door of the hotel, a big locked wooden door at the top of the two flights. Upon arriving, you ring the doorbell and the elderly Italian lady (I'm not kidding, Mom, she could be YOUR grandmother) answers the door. If you are one of the fortunate ones that called early enough to get a bathroom ensuite, you check in as best you can in Italian then you continue up the stairs to whatever heavenly rooms exist in the hotel. If you didn't get your own bathroom, you stay on the lobby floor with a bedroom opening up directly across from the check-in desk. There are two bathrooms down the hall, past the family kitchen and den where grandma and her children, the also elderly couple that speak some English spend most of their day. We share the bathroom with the family. Last night when Mike tried to use the bathroom and found them both locked, shortly thereafter, the English speaking old guy knocked on his door in his bathrobe to let Mike know it was available to him now. One of the bathrooms is a toilet and a shower. You get really wet when you wash your hands in that shower. The other bathroom is a shower, toilet and sink. It has a window that opens up into a closet that opens at the other end into the family's den. I am not making this up. They leave the bathroom window wide open, presumably because they enjoy bathroom music with their TV, which is playing at the volume suitable for people who lived through the bombing of WWII, maybe even WWI.

We started looking for rooms in Venice and my budget-managing husband is freaking out over the prices. I never would have believed he would do this at the start of our trip, but when he was doing the dialing for hotel rooms today to find an affordable Venice hotel he actually requested rooms WITHOUT a bathroom so that we could find something in the double digit price range. My how we have come down in expectations. When I finish the blog entry I am going on line to look for a room in Venice on Booking.com or Venere.com which Maryann has recommended to us. You'll find out in the next edition what happened.

Today was spent sightseeing Verona. We bought a tourist card which provided access to the sights then walked around checking them out. Sure wish I could share the photos, as we saw some awesome sights. The Roman arena dating from the frist century AD is still standing and is currently being set up for the production of Guillietta and Romeo that begins tomorrow. The basillica of St. Anastasia was beautiful and because it shared a name with Mike's mother, it was very special. The shopping street here is amazing. We are located right above it (noisy) but access to some of the most impressive designer stores is just four flights of stairs away. And, we have a wonderful gelateria right downstairs, with the best gelato we have tried in Italy so far. (We haven't stopped at every possible place that sells gelato but we sure have tried lots of it).

Wish me luck with reservations in Venice.....

Deanne