From Verona to the Beach

It has felt pretty strange that I haven't been blogging for the past 3 nights! My routine has been shaken up! Nat and I have been travelling around like pros, all over Northern Italy. We have covered a lot of ground and have had an awesome time together, laughing and sharing some great memories! Well, I don't even know where to begin but let's start with Verona on Saturday! Nat and I woke up early to get a head start on the day. I was pretty tired from the shenanigans the night before so packing and getting out the door at a decent time wasn't easy! We took our box of leftover pizza from Galium and were on the road headed for Verona. It was our first time using the Telepass system on the highway so we had to figure that out while we went. It is like a toll with a fee that you pay every time you drive past a certain checkpoint. It is a little expensive but it is worth it to not have to take the confusing back roads and faster. The 2 hour drive to Verona went smoothly and we found a place to park right next to the center of town. It was ridiculously hot on Saturday so we were trying to hurry through the sites but still take it all in. At this point, the pool and the beach were sounding pretty good! Our first stop in Verona was the Arena. I had been before when I went by myself but I wanted Nat to see it from the inside. Next, we went towards Casa de Giuliet where there is a lot of shopping to be had! I found an amazing grad school bag that I just had to have and new sunglasses because mine broke that morning. On the way, we found a good market in Piazze Erbe where we ate fresh fruit and found a lot of souvenirs. We found the house and Natalie loved it! We got to take our picture next to the statue of Giuliet, where if you rub her right breast, you will have good luck with love forever. We made sure to do that before we left! Next, we found the Tomb of Giuliet. Natalie went inside without me because I had been in before and didn't really want to pay again. It is a pretty disappointing museum and "tomb" but we were glad that we went to see it and didn't regret not going later on. The last stop on our list was Castelveccio. I told Nat that it was a must see and we should go inside to see the views from the top. Three floors up and the views over looking the river and all the sights were amazing! If it wasn't so hot up there on the roof, I think we would have stayed longer! So with Verona checked off our list, we headed towards our weekend destination, Lake Garda! Gianna had told us that we had to stop at some point in a town called Valeggio sul Mincio, where there was supposedly the BEST tortellini in the world. Well, that sounded too promising so on the way to the hotel, we thought we would go there for dinner. Turns out, it is a small town with no restaurants open until 7:00 or so because of pranzo. No one works or eats between 3:00 and 7:00 so we were out of luck. We couldn't find one restaurant that even looked like it opened soon! We assumed some would open up later but we didn't want to wait around for two hours when we could be in the pool at our hotel! We thought we could stop by on our way back home to see if we could find a restaurant open. So, we were off to find our hotel. We printed off mapquest directions that morning and we had a map of the lake so we were hopeful that we could find it without a problem. Most of the trouble was that there was a lot of traffic and there is only a two lane road around the lake and through all the towns. It is a congested place to try and travel through, especially after a long hot day in the sun. We had been so busy in Verona that we hadn't stopped for lunch anywhere so at this point, we just wanted to eat dinner! I pulled over to ask an information desk if we were even close to finding our hotel and she said it was only 800 meters down the road...we were so close! I just figured we past it because there are so many hotels on the beach. As I was attempting to park the car, we realized that the parking brake was no longer working on the car! There is no park option, even with an automatic car so having the parking break work is the only way to make sure your car is parked and not going to start rolling towards the lake...it was a problem. Somehow, the lady who works at the front desk of the hotel came out and told us to pull forward onto the flat part of the hotel parking. We tried to explain to her what the problem was but she didn't quite understand. We ended up parking the car in front of a tree so the worst thing that could happen overnight was that it bumped into it and hopefully stayed there. As we checked in, we realized this hotel might not be as amazingly nice as we thought. It was fine but a little worn down and dated. We found our room on the 3rd floor but couldn't get our room open with the key to save our lives. I had to go down to the front desk and have the lady come up and open it for us...she thought we were so ridiculous at this point. All we wanted when we walked in was the air conditioner to turn on...but we couldn't figure that out either for another 10 minutes. It was turning out to be quite the experience! Our room was really small with one bed and a very small shower that we had a hard time moving in! Although, it was nice to finally take a real shower this summer! I don't have a shower in my bathroom so I have become a pro at washing my hair in the bathtub. The real reason why the hotel was so expensive was because of the spectacular view...it was breathtaking. All the sailboats docked for the night, the pool right outside our patio, and the sunset was perfect over the mountains. We decided to eat dinner at the hotel because we definitely didn't want to move the car out of its spot. The front desk lady helped us to a table and read us the very small menu. It had no prices, which worried us, and you could choose a first course from three options and a second course from three options. When she was reading them to us, we had no idea what she was saying so when Natalie answered first, I just said that I would have the same as her. First up was something like a cannolli, only it tasted more like biscuits and gravy! It was a really strange texture but we ate it anyway. Next up was a piece of chicken (we think...) with ham and strange cheese on top. It sounds appetizing but it wasn't...it was not the best meal. It came with a salad bar that was good but not so filling. All in all, our dinner was a huge bust but we were looking forward to the pool! We were the only people there! After cooling off for a few, we decided to walk down to the beach and then come back and swim a little more. Right as we were getting out, the same front desk lady ran up to Natalie and said something like the pool was being washed and we couldn't swim...I guess that was why no one was in it? There wasn't a sign or anything and the gate was open! Anyway, this lady was really getting sick of us fast! We had only been there for two hours or so and we were already making her night difficult. We walked down to the beach and waded in the cold water. As cold as it was, it felt good after a long day. We had nice long showers and just hoped that tomorrow's breakfast would be amazing! This hotel needed to redeem itself a bit with a filling breakfast! But, then again, it always has the view!