Vicenza and Verona, Italy

May 8th-13th 2011


Hi all!


So it wasn't exactly before the end of the weekend but this was a long one!!! Also, I forgot to mention one of the biggest parts of our train ride... We MIGHT have made a friend!!! LOL! Yes, we met a guy named Daniel on the train who is from Budapest, speaks English and offered to show us around the city. We haven't met up with him yet but I will keep you posted! :)


So after we got to our hotel in Vicenza we were beat! We immediately fell asleep for 6 hours... pretty much ruining our first day there! :( Once we finally got out of the hotel we realized what a cool city Vicenza is! Brian has been there a few times before but this was my first trip to Italy... ever! We decided to take the bus down to the center of the city. We wandered for a while before finding a great restaurant in an alley. It was called Ca' D' Oro and it was downstairs in what looked like a renovated basement/cellar! It was so cute! This is when I found out that they don't just serve you one meal after an appetizer. They have primi piatti, which is basically pasta and secondi piatti, which are the main courses. I ordered a pasta with peas and a green sauce which came out first, and Brian had a frutti di mare pizza. Check out the pictures for that one! It was delicious!!! After we finished dinner we were going to get gelato but at 11pm, everything was closed. :( Maybe another day.


On Monday, Brian had to go to work in Montecchio Maggiore (a city on the outskirts of Vicenza) and I decided to explore on my own! And by explore I mean SHOP!!! :) Vicenza has some fabulously expensive shops, but lucky for me they also had H&M! I limited myself because once I started converting the cost of things in Euros to U.S. dollars I realized it wasn't very cheap to shop in Italy! I did get myself some gelato though! I found a cute spot in the Piazza dei Signori to sit and eat my mango and papaya gelato... SUCCESS!!! Brian was given a car at work that day so he drove to meet me in the city. We again ate some wonderful food consisting of cream of asparagus soup and veal for me and rabbit meat balls for Brian. He's so adventurous! :) 


On Tuesday I decided to go running... with Candi. She's not exactly the type of dog you can run with because she's a little... spastic? Yup, that's a good way to describe it. She gets side-tracked and forgets that we are supposed to be running. Anyway, our run turned in to a walk after a little while and that suited her just fine. Brian got off work a little early that day and we drove to Verona!!! It was only about 40 minutes from Vicenza and what a pretty place! I was especially excited to see Juliet's balcony where our friends Nick and Ciara got engaged! Unfortunately it was closed but we took pictures in front of the gate! After that we decided to do what we do best in Italy and eat! We ate outside at a beautiful little restaurant overlooking the Piazza delle Erbe. The architecture in Italy is incredible! We were looking at these buildings that were built hundreds of years ago and realized that the oldest buildings in AZ are maybe 70 years old? Hahaha! What an amazing place. I can't wait to go back!


Wednesday was a nice relaxing day. I wandered around the city center taking in some of the beautiful architecture during the day and then we met up with Brian's friend, Silvia that night. She is a mutual friend of his and his friend Nick and they met back in 2005 when Brian and some of his best friends were backpacking through Europe. It was great to finally meet her because I had heard some wonderful things! We had such a good night! We ate at a place called "Papa Joe's" which had an interesting mix of non-italian food. They had everything from Mexican food to Indian food! We then went to get drinks at a little cafe where we met Silvia's friend and I tried a delicious drink made of wine, soda water and mango flavored syrup! MMMMMM!!!! We then went to the piazza to get drinks and just had a great time. Thank Silvia for showing us around Vicenza! It was awesome!!!


Thursday was a fun day for me! I went to the city center early because Silvia had told me about a flea market they were going to have! It was crazy! They were selling everything from men's dress shirts, to rugs, to socks!! Tables and tables full of socks! Haha! It was pretty amazing to see! After that I went to the Teatro Olimpico which is a beautiful theater that was constructed in the late 1500's! I was able to take an audio tour in English and it was soooooo interesting! The architect who designed it was named Andrea Palladio and he is considered one of the most influential people in the history of Western architecture! Unfortunately he died before the theater was completed but his design is incredible! Check out the pictures to see what I mean! The stage was one of the most interesting things about the theater! It was constructed for the first show which was Oedipus the King and was built to represent the ancient streets of Thebes. It's pretty incredible how they designed the streets to look so long and deep using optical illusions in 1585! Seriously, check out the pictures! After my tour I went across the street to the Palazzo Cheiricati where there was an art showing. Please look at these pictures too! Beautiful! Brian had to work late Thursday night so I got room service from the restaurant in our hotel which I was dying to try! I had pasta with mussels and fish eggs... yum...! :) 


Friday wasn't an extremely thrilling day because I spent it packing and getting ready to go to Venice!!!! Yay! I'll continue all about Venice in my next post which I promise will be shorter!!! Sorry for the long post and I hope I didn't bore you!


Thanks for reading!


<3 Steph