Verona, Venice & Lake Garda, Italy, 2008

Heey! It's awesome sunny weather outside that looks like it's spring already, so my today's post will be full of many sunny spring photos. And the country this week is Italy! ^^

We went there after seeing Brno and Austria (next post will be about Austria), and first city we arrived to was Verona. You know that this little city is famous because of Romeo & Juliet :)

Statue of Dante Alighieri & streets of Verona.

Of course, we had to see the most famous buildings in Verona. One of them was Verona Arena - a Roman amphitheatre which is almost similar to that one in Rome. Nowadays you can see popular operas and some concerts there. We didn't come in, just looked at this building from outside - looks really great.

Verona Arena

And another one was house of Juliet. There is the famous balcony (you can climb up there, but before us there was a large group of Chinese tourists, so we didn't wait that long), a small courtyard and the statue of Juliet. We also didn't take photos of ourselves near the statue, as the same Chinese group was there :D

Some building & Statue of Juliet.

Another day we wanted to visit Venice. First of all, we tried to get there by train, but didn't know how to buy tickets in that weird ticket machine, so we went there by cars.

Train station in Verona

We got to some parking place near Verona, and then by boat we got almost to the centre of the city. The most fascinating thing about Venice is the number of those little canals and gondolas there ^^ Many people love Venice for that. But for me it seems that there is too cold, wet and dirty, and it looks good only on photos :D

City canals.

First we went to see the famous St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). But there were so many people that it was even impossible to take normal photos. And there were also lots of pigeons - it's even possible to buy food for them everywhere and feed them.

At St. Mark's Square

Then we went to see some bridges across the Grand Canal. There are four of them now (fourth was opened in September 2008). First we went to see Rialto Bridge, which is the oldest bridge across the Canal. Another bridge we saw was Ponte dell'Accademia. The third one is Ponte degli Scalzi, but we didn't see it.

View from Rialto Bridge

Masks (you know that Venice is the City of Masks) and view from Rialto Bridge again.

We walked everywhere almost every day, so I have many photos with those canals. Tried some ice-cream, Italian pizza (which was so thin that there was a hole in it :D) and so on.

Some more canals.

One of buildings at St. Mark's Square and a little quiet courtyard ^^

And another day we went to see Lake Garda. It's the largest lake in Italy, surrounded by mountains, and streams that flow in mountains flow into it, so the water is really clean. To be honest, that lake was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life!

Lake Garda

It was also warm and sunny spring day, so our walk near the lake was really awesome. We visited Sirmione - a little municipality at the shore of the lake (by the way, enter `Sirmione` in google maps and see how Sirmio peninsula looks ^^). 

Mountains behind Lake Garda

In Sirmione we got into the Scaglier Castle. It was built in 13th century, and from the castle you can see the lake, houses, mountains around - the view is simply awesome!

Scaglier Castle

View from the Scaglier Castle.

Sirmione is a perfect place, if you like quiet streets and relaxing. There are many tourists, but they somehow don't make much noise (as everywhere else), and the atmosphere is so cozy. It's even hard to describe it, you simply must visit this place to feel it.

View from the Scaglier Castle

And, I guess, that's all for today.

By the way, writing these posts is a great opportunity to visit these places once more, this time virtually. It was some time ago, but I still remember all places & feeling I had visiting them. Sirmione is the place I really want to see once again, even though I don't like hot weather, and countries in Southern Europe don't seem so nice to me as those ones in North ^^

Have a nice and sunny day, my dear readers!