Kelly Trips and Tours

This morning it was hot again and since we are next to the Mediterranean Sea it is also humid.  After our very good hotel breakfast, we set off to the train station to take a quick trip from Monterosso al Mare to Vernazza - the next city along the coast of Cinque Terra.  Beach from the Monterosso train station. Once we got to beautiful Vernazza, crowds had just began arriving and Karen decided a lemonade would be refreshing.   Looking for the lemonade stop. New shirt. We found a little place that sold lemonade but the Italian way of making it is a little different than we do.  They put water, lemon juice, ice, and a mint sprig in the glass and give it to you with a couple of packets of sugar and you are expected to sweeten it to your taste.  This method showed us just how much sugar is in American lemonade since it took about 3 packets of sugar to sweeten our drinks and they were not as sweet as American lemonade.  We walked our lemonade down to the ba...

This morning it was time to say goodbye to Verona.  The weather has remained beautiful so far and there has only been one day of rain (remember Bellagio when we were driving) since we left home.  We love the European train system, and we are doing great getting bags on and off without help.   On one of our trains, we met another senior citizen couple from the UK and the 4 of us were the only ones in the 1 st class carriage.  They were 80 yrs young and traveling for 3 weeks with only a nap sack (English for backpack).  We at least have a carry-on roller bag and a backpack! During our adventure we travelled on 8 electric trains as of today (now going 156MPH) and we will take 2 more trains before flying home on Friday, June 20 th .   This was the longest train ride in one day of travel but all went smoothly (10:30am - 3:30pm). Lots of mountains to go through. Working on the blog. We went through several long tunnels through the mountains to reach Monte...

This morning was as warm as yesterday.  We could do with a little bit cooler, but we started out after breakfast walking to the Corco Castelvecchio (Verona Castle) that sits along the river.  On our walk, we had to take a couple more street pictures. Once inside we saw an archeological dig where they have been spending the past 3 years excavating a medieval church.  Karen looking at the excavation. Leaving the hot outside air, we went inside to the Castel museum and enjoyed several well done sculptures.   Bill walked up several flights of stairs to some pictures for you.  Here they are: We intended to then go to the Verona Cathedral which was a little ways in the opposite direction but our old legs and the hot weather persuaded us to stop back at our room to rest and cool off.   Following our rest and cool off, it was time for lunch.  We had the name of a restaurant from the helpful people at the hotel which was along the way to the Cathedral...

Yesterday when we arrived in Verona we had our first hot day.  This morning was much the same, so we dressed light and enjoyed the hotel breakfast before going out to meet up with our tour guide, Morris.  Our tour meets here. First he took us into the Roman Verona Arena and gave us an overview of its history and construction - it is mostly made of marble which Verona is famous for, and it is the third largest Roman arena in Italy behind the colosseum in Rome and another arena in Naples. It  is the largest Roman amphitheater still in use (there is a performance in the arena tonight) and has 30,000 seats.  Morris gave us time to walk around and take pictures and Bill walked up to the top row of seats (101-feet up from the entry) and got some pictures for you to see.  Readied for tonight's opera. After leaving the arena we walked through the streets of Verona with Morris telling us about the architecture and history of each building.   He then took us to ...