Northern Italy -
Our first European trip together
Our first European trip together
Day 1 – Munich to Merano
Chris can’t sleep on airplanes. Absolutely can’t. So he is never especially
sharp at the beginning of a trip that involves an overnight flight. And due to
a lack of funds and an inability to drive Marisa’s stick-shift Honda, Chris
hadn’t driven a car in a few years prior to this trip. Yet, despite these built-in
difficulties, Chris was doing 130 kph behind the wheel of a VW Jetta on the
legendary Autobahn through the Brenner Pass just an hour or two after
landing in Munich (while Marisa caught a few Z’s).
The scenery in southern Bavaria, Austria and the Tyrol region of northern
Italy was beautiful, but we were catching our second wind and making time
heading into our first planned stop: Merano. For months leading up to this
trip, we had studied up and learned a little conversational Italian, and kept
our handy Italian phrase-book within easy reach at all times. When we
finally arrived in Merano after a four-hour drive, we parked the car in a
municipal lot and asked the attendant, in our best broken Italian, whether
we could park there for the rest of the day. He shrugged his shoulders and
said, in German, something that could only have meant “I don’t speak
Italian.”
“Inglese?” I asked, hopefully. “Nein” he replied, regrettably.
After pantomiming the car staying put in the lot while the sun completed its
rotation around the earth and shrugging a great deal, we at least got him to
nod his head a little. That was good enough for us, so we walked away
and looked around Merano (or “Meran,” as 90% of the locals call it, even
though the map doesn’t). We refreshed ourselves with some cappuccinos
at a local café, and then set off to find a place to stay for the night.
If you throw a rock in the air, you’ll hit more than one 4-star hotel in Merano.
They are everywhere. So we walked into the first one we came across, the
Meranerhoff located right in the center of town on the river, and inquired
about their rates. Turns out they were fairly reasonable, so we grabbed our
bags, went up to our room and made ourselves comfortable.
Marisa was feeling less than 100% with a possible cold coming on, so we
took a little nap to help ward it off. We spent the rest of that day wandering
the streets of this pretty Tyrolean town, looking for a place to eat that
evening. We finally settled on one that served a decent spaghetti carbonara
while German folk music played in the background. Then we turned in for
the evening, with Marisa sleeping well and Chris tossing and turning all
night on the very-firm mattress.
Day 2 – Merano to Verona
Our first full day in Italy started out sunny and crisp. After breakfast, we
wandered some more through delightful Merano and took plenty of
pictures. Marisa, by now, had an actual, full-fledged head cold…which
slowed her down a bit over the next few days, but she soldiered on
admirably.
It was our intention to spend that night in one of the resort towns on the
shores of Lake Garda, so we climbed into our VW and took off. As a side
note, it should be stated that no one should attempt this type of “fast and
loose” trip without the help of a really good map. We definitely got our
money’s worth from our Michelin map of North Italy on this trip. It is also
worth noting that this is the only such trip we’ve taken together…we plan
everything a lot more these days, and always book much fewer overnight
destinations.
When we got to the western shore of Lake Garda, we observed two
important phenomena. One was a thick layer of fog that assembled in the
midday sun and obscured the view of the lake. The other was a series of
large, bold signs outside of every hotel, motel, B&B and
guesthouse…advertising that they had something called “CHIUSO” there.
It took us a long time to figure out what chiuso means in English. We
figured it must be a local delicacy of some sort. It wasn’t.
Once we figured out that all of the “Chiuso” signs (and the fog) did not
bode well for our stay there, we decided to keep on driving to a much larger
town that would surely have loads of available accommodation: Verona.
The wonderful Italian motorways allowed us to reach Verona by mid-
afternoon. En route to Verona, we broke out our principle guidebook for this
trip, the Hachette Italy guide. We also brought along the Michelin Green
Guide, but the Hachette proved invaluable for the task of finding places to
stay and eat. We used it to find a nice, reasonably priced 3-star Best
Western just outside the old city walls. That would be our home for the next
two days/nights. We explored a bit, and turned in early to get a fast start the
next day.
Our car was outfitted with a radio/cassette player. After our first full day on
the road in Italy, we noticed that radio stations are almost unlistenable in
this area because of the terrain, and because of the lousy programming.
Fortunately, next door to the hotel was a record store. Unfortunately, they
had exactly three cassette tapes in English to choose from, all priced
extortionately. We selected the Soul Cages tape from the British artist,
Sting. It is not really a great album, but to this day it remains the soundtrack
to all of our travels. We probably played it 20 times during the trip.
Day 3 - Verona
Verona is a great city to explore, which is what we did the next day. It is old,
picturesque, and loaded with narrow streets, trendy shops and pedestrian-
only zones.
A Roman-era amphitheater dominates the center of town, and much of it is
preserved just as it was in ancient times. Beside the coliseum is a large
piazza with several fine dining establishments and cafes.
On the other side of the city center, we found a large, bustling outdoor
market in another large piazza which was ringed with old, crumbling
frescoes adorning the surrounding buildings. In between, a river bisects
the old city and an old fortified bridge offers stunning views of both sides.
We steered clear of obvious tourist traps such as Juliet’s balcony (Romeo
& Juliet was set in Verona), and walked mile after mile of scenic city
splendor.
It bears repeating: Verona is a great city to explore!
That night, after a light dinner of pizza and wine, we enjoyed drinks in a
German-style biergarten not far from our hotel. It was mostly populated
with (you guessed it) Germans who were having a clamorous good time
drinking, storytelling, laughing, etc.
Next > Bergamo to Santa Margherita Ligure
See all of our trip photos on Webshots
our travels
home
contact us
Chris can’t sleep on airplanes. Absolutely can’t. So he is never especially
sharp at the beginning of a trip that involves an overnight flight. And due to
a lack of funds and an inability to drive Marisa’s stick-shift Honda, Chris
hadn’t driven a car in a few years prior to this trip. Yet, despite these built-in
difficulties, Chris was doing 130 kph behind the wheel of a VW Jetta on the
legendary Autobahn through the Brenner Pass just an hour or two after
landing in Munich (while Marisa caught a few Z’s).
The scenery in southern Bavaria, Austria and the Tyrol region of northern
Italy was beautiful, but we were catching our second wind and making time
heading into our first planned stop: Merano. For months leading up to this
trip, we had studied up and learned a little conversational Italian, and kept
our handy Italian phrase-book within easy reach at all times. When we
finally arrived in Merano after a four-hour drive, we parked the car in a
municipal lot and asked the attendant, in our best broken Italian, whether
we could park there for the rest of the day. He shrugged his shoulders and
said, in German, something that could only have meant “I don’t speak
Italian.”
“Inglese?” I asked, hopefully. “Nein” he replied, regrettably.
After pantomiming the car staying put in the lot while the sun completed its
rotation around the earth and shrugging a great deal, we at least got him to
nod his head a little. That was good enough for us, so we walked away
and looked around Merano (or “Meran,” as 90% of the locals call it, even
though the map doesn’t). We refreshed ourselves with some cappuccinos
at a local café, and then set off to find a place to stay for the night.
If you throw a rock in the air, you’ll hit more than one 4-star hotel in Merano.
They are everywhere. So we walked into the first one we came across, the
Meranerhoff located right in the center of town on the river, and inquired
about their rates. Turns out they were fairly reasonable, so we grabbed our
bags, went up to our room and made ourselves comfortable.
Marisa was feeling less than 100% with a possible cold coming on, so we
took a little nap to help ward it off. We spent the rest of that day wandering
the streets of this pretty Tyrolean town, looking for a place to eat that
evening. We finally settled on one that served a decent spaghetti carbonara
while German folk music played in the background. Then we turned in for
the evening, with Marisa sleeping well and Chris tossing and turning all
night on the very-firm mattress.
Day 2 – Merano to Verona
Our first full day in Italy started out sunny and crisp. After breakfast, we
wandered some more through delightful Merano and took plenty of
pictures. Marisa, by now, had an actual, full-fledged head cold…which
slowed her down a bit over the next few days, but she soldiered on
admirably.
It was our intention to spend that night in one of the resort towns on the
shores of Lake Garda, so we climbed into our VW and took off. As a side
note, it should be stated that no one should attempt this type of “fast and
loose” trip without the help of a really good map. We definitely got our
money’s worth from our Michelin map of North Italy on this trip. It is also
worth noting that this is the only such trip we’ve taken together…we plan
everything a lot more these days, and always book much fewer overnight
destinations.
When we got to the western shore of Lake Garda, we observed two
important phenomena. One was a thick layer of fog that assembled in the
midday sun and obscured the view of the lake. The other was a series of
large, bold signs outside of every hotel, motel, B&B and
guesthouse…advertising that they had something called “CHIUSO” there.
It took us a long time to figure out what chiuso means in English. We
figured it must be a local delicacy of some sort. It wasn’t.
Once we figured out that all of the “Chiuso” signs (and the fog) did not
bode well for our stay there, we decided to keep on driving to a much larger
town that would surely have loads of available accommodation: Verona.
The wonderful Italian motorways allowed us to reach Verona by mid-
afternoon. En route to Verona, we broke out our principle guidebook for this
trip, the Hachette Italy guide. We also brought along the Michelin Green
Guide, but the Hachette proved invaluable for the task of finding places to
stay and eat. We used it to find a nice, reasonably priced 3-star Best
Western just outside the old city walls. That would be our home for the next
two days/nights. We explored a bit, and turned in early to get a fast start the
next day.
Our car was outfitted with a radio/cassette player. After our first full day on
the road in Italy, we noticed that radio stations are almost unlistenable in
this area because of the terrain, and because of the lousy programming.
Fortunately, next door to the hotel was a record store. Unfortunately, they
had exactly three cassette tapes in English to choose from, all priced
extortionately. We selected the Soul Cages tape from the British artist,
Sting. It is not really a great album, but to this day it remains the soundtrack
to all of our travels. We probably played it 20 times during the trip.
Day 3 - Verona
Verona is a great city to explore, which is what we did the next day. It is old,
picturesque, and loaded with narrow streets, trendy shops and pedestrian-
only zones.
A Roman-era amphitheater dominates the center of town, and much of it is
preserved just as it was in ancient times. Beside the coliseum is a large
piazza with several fine dining establishments and cafes.
On the other side of the city center, we found a large, bustling outdoor
market in another large piazza which was ringed with old, crumbling
frescoes adorning the surrounding buildings. In between, a river bisects
the old city and an old fortified bridge offers stunning views of both sides.
We steered clear of obvious tourist traps such as Juliet’s balcony (Romeo
& Juliet was set in Verona), and walked mile after mile of scenic city
splendor.
It bears repeating: Verona is a great city to explore!
That night, after a light dinner of pizza and wine, we enjoyed drinks in a
German-style biergarten not far from our hotel. It was mostly populated
with (you guessed it) Germans who were having a clamorous good time
drinking, storytelling, laughing, etc.
Next > Bergamo to Santa Margherita Ligure
See all of our trip photos on Webshots
our travels
home
contact us
Merano
Merano
Verona
Verona, Piazza delle Erbe
Verona, Piazza Bra
Verona, Roman Arena
