A night at the Verona Opera - Arena di Verona

When we went to Italy a few years back, I researched places and events near our main cities to see if anything peaked our interest. I found out that in fair Verona (yes, of Romeo and Juliet!) the Verona Arena is internationally known for it's large-scale opera performances. We found out there were performances while we were over there, so routed our trip to Verona for a few nights!

The arena is something else. We have never been to Rome (one day), so this was our first Roman arena in person. It is so big and is really the center of the town. It was built in 30 AD. Yes, THIRTY. It's located in the Piazza Bra and is surrounded by restaurants and shops. Such a neat city.

If I didn't say it -- this is also our first opera! CARMEN!! We didn't know what to expect, but the doors opened at 7:30 PM, so we finished our daily gelato and headed to the arena. It is made entirely of marble and stone, and we headed through the tunnel (feeling a little like we were about to enter the movie Gladiator!). Our seats were in the "general admission" area which meant they were ON the marble steps. (We'll come back to this fact later in the four hour opera.) The stage was huge -- it stretched from one side of the arena to the other. The show didn't start until 9:00 PM, so we had plenty of time to people watch and watch the sun starting to set behind the arena walls.

We even saw a bride and groom heading to the show! It is the place to be! 

Finally the show is about to begin. The orchestra comes in, and they line the stage with beautiful colored curtains!

The lady in the picture above came out to introduce each act. She would ring her gong. She was fabulous. The production was in French, and we bought a book that had it translated in many different languages. In the first act, the orchestra did a prelude/overture, then they rolled back the curtains for Act II. The sheer number of people involved in the production was mind boggling. They were hundreds on stage at a time -- the choreography had to be timed perfectly!

 

OK...so, neither of us realized how LONG this opera was. As a reminder, we are seating on concrete. Roman concrete. Each act was about one hour long, and there were FOUR acts. Also as a reminder, it started at 9:00. We were in it for the long haul. :-)  With that said -- the music was simply beautiful and breath-taking. We were surprised at how many songs we recognized. 

 ACT 3

A little stand-up stretch between the final acts!

ACT 4

 

BRAVO - BRAVO!

As we were leaving the arena, many people were headed to the cafes in the piazza for dinner and drinks (it's after 1:00 AM, now mind you!). We had to catch a train the next morning, so said good-bye to the square and all it's nighttime magic. It truly was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience. The venue, the atmosphere, the music...a night of memories. Next time, we might just opt for a cushion to sit on.  ;-) 

 

XO,

A day in Tuscany

When we went to Italy we knew we had to go on a wine tour. One of our favorite movies is Under the Tuscan Sun, and we just knew we were going to recreate it, buy a villa, and live happily ever after in Tuscany.  :-)  OK....maybe not, but it was still a must-do. I never knew Tuscany was a region in Italy. I always thought it was a city of its own, but it is actually 9000 square miles of history, landscapes, and the best smelling earth I've ever smelled.  The capital of the Tuscany region is Florence and that was our home base for our trip.

We chose to go on the Chianti Classico Wine tour with Florencetown Tours. With most tours, especially wine tours, it's always nice to have someone else do the driving! We met at the tour office, and we hopped onto a mini-bus with ten of our new friends for our day in the countryside. The scenery was breath-taking -- rolling hills, villas, Italian cypress tress, rows of grapes and olive trees. Our first stop was the Principe Corsini winery.

We toured the cellar and our guide took us "on the land" to see the grapes. Another fact I didn't know, is that what makes the different types of wines is the length of time the grapes age. The longer and more complex the process, the higher quality of wine.

 

 

We ended this visit with an appetizer of cheese, bread, honey, and three different tastes of their wonderful wine. 

 

Heading on to our next stop, we drove through the beautiful countryside. We drove about 25 minutes to the town of Montespertoli. It's a very small town surrounded by vineyards, olive groves, old villas, and castles! 

 

At our next stop, our guide wanted to show us a "quick thing" and he took us to this building and up the stairs to this loft that was used for various things for producing wine. (Not sure we were supposed to be up there or not!). He opened a side door that led to a porch where the views were incredible! On one side you had the rolling hills and vineyards; and on the other, a view of the little town -- the picture you have in mind when you envision Italy.

Our last top was at Castello Sonnino. It's a historic wine estate that overlooks the Chianti Hills. They are one of the leading producers of Chianti Montespertoli D.O.C.G. and the highest quality of olive oil. Lucky for us -- this stop was for another tasting and a light meal! We went down to the dining area, the table was set and the doors were open and the breeze and smells and view was perfection.This picture below is looking into where we dined and had a marvelous time!

 We started with bruschetta and meats, and cheeses, and peppers & onions and a few types of wine.

After the antipasti, we had a pasta course -- simple penne with tomatoes. So FRESH.

 

Full and happy we left our Italian countryside and headed back into Florence. It was a wonderful day and a great way to experience the wine country and taste and sip some of the finest wines in the world. Definitely check out Florencetown tours to experience the best of the Tuscany region!

Ciao and Arrivederci till next time!

Venice - Dining and Shopping

If you ever get to visit Venice, I think you'll agree that an entire post devoted to food and shopping is appropriate. I can't remember where I read this, but I'm passing it on to you... Don't worry about a single calorie while you're visiting Italy. You will walk it off and then some, so take advantage of every pizza and gelato and wine tasting that you can!

Hotel Courtyard

We were lucky to start most of our days with a complimentary breakfast at our hotel. Most of the time, the spread was breads, butters, jams and coffee. In a couple of places we lucked into eggs and prosciutto, too. Usually there were some fruits and pastries thrown in, and that was plenty to fuel our morning adventures. Even if you don't stay in a place that offers a morning snack,

My My My Verona - Day Two

*NOTE: this is a throwback-post! Originally posted on my "wordpress" blog and now it's been transplanted to it's rightful place here on #sisadventures - hope you enjoy!*

We were very happy to see the sun as we started our second day in Verona. We headed back to the Piazza Bra – the heart of the Old City – and quickly realized that we would be competing with a number of other tourists at the main attractions. Luckily, since we’d spent the previous evening scoping out the city, we knew our map pretty well and were able to take a few alternate streets to get to one of the most popular places in the city – Casa di Giulieta – The house of Juliet.

Every day, all day long, tourists come and go to Verona to see the places of legend made famous by good old William Shakespeare. You can take a guided “Romeo and Juliet” tour, or you can grab a map from your hotel or gift shop and follow the signs posted all over the old city to find your way to that famous balcony.

Before pushing our way to the middle of the courtyard, we went in one of the shops next door. As it turned out, the shop had a 2nd floor, and we were able to look over into the courtyard and take this picture. So – you’re looking at a courtyard, a balcony, a gate full of padlocks (people purchase locks at the nearby shop and click their locks on the gate to symbolize their everlasting love), and a statue of Juliet. If you look closely, you’ll see that the tourist posing with the statue is grabbing Juliet’s right breast. It’s one of those traditions that everyone – young and old – male and female – do for luck. Pretty funny, and if you look at a picture of the statue sans tourists, you can see that, after being embraced by millions of strangers, her right breast is now super shiny.

When we finally made our way into the courtyard to catch a closer glimpse of the balcony, we noticed a bit of commotion… a hush fell over the crowd, and 2 figures appeared on the balcony. We quickly realized it was a German teacher and her student – and the rest of her class was in the courtyard with us. As we watched, they performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.  It was sweet and hilarious, because even though we couldn’t understand what they were saying, we were able to follow along with the famous lines… “Oh Romeo, Romeo, warum bist du Romeo?”

You may be wondering if all this can really be the REAL home of Juliet and Romeo… I know I was. Even though Shakespeare definitely set his famous love story in Verona, according to Rick Steves, Italian guide-book guru, most of these “landmarks” were created in the 1970’s to attract tourists. Still, it made for a fun afternoon, and we had a lot of fun exploring and seeing all of the Shakespearean souvenirs.

Finally, it was time for the main event… OUR main reason for coming to Verona… The OPERA! Neither of us had ever been to an opera, so we were very excited and not really sure what to expect. The show started at 8 pm, but we were sitting in the General Admission seats, so we were there when the gates opened at 6:30.

Did I mention that the opera series is held in the outdoor Ancient Roman Arena? As we walked through the tunnels, I got chills thinking about the number of people who’d passed through those walkways and stones.

As we waited for the show to start, the sunset put on a grand “first act.”  In these pictures, you can see the different levels of seating: General Admission (where we were), were seats directly on the marble/stone stairs at the top of the arena. You are allowed to bring cushions and stadium seats for those sections. In the lower sections of the sides of the arena, they’d installed theatre seating, and in the stadium level seating, they had regular chairs.

Finally, it was time for the show to start! We saw our first opera in Italy; it was “Carmen,” which is set in Spain, and it was performed in French.  We did buy a program that had the entire opera with English, German, Italian and French translations, so we were able to follow along.

The experience was once-in-a-lifetime stuff, y’all. At one point, there were over 300 performers on stage.  Each act was about 45 minutes long, and there was a 30 minute break between each of the FIVE ACTS so they could switch out the scenery….so you can do the math. The show started at 8, so the show went on until well after 1 AM! I was really surprised that so many people stayed until the end – but they did, and as we spilled out into the piazza from the Arena, most of them scattered to the cafes for one last gelato or cappuccino before calling it a night.

The Maddox girls decided to pass on the late-night activities since we had an early-morning train ride to Venice the next morning.  We grabbed one last nighttime photo of the Arena before heading back to the hotel to continue our adventures! Ciao, Verona!