Another frustrating day trying to ship my art. Call Leonardo, P.'s friend of the Verona Questura, to see what he suggests. He is on a train back from Torino where the 2006 Winter Olympics ended the night before. A pleasant fellow to talk with, but he does not have any specific advice, except that I should visit the Verona dogana at the Aeroporto and ask them.

We drive out there later in the day, speak with two officials, a man and a woman, who have no idea what we're talking about but are very nice. The man is a classic office nerd who is just loving this exchange and subsequently provides too much information in barely comprehensible Veronese dialect. We are directed to the CSA, an air shipment outfit where a pleasant young Italian named Marco tells us we need a Certificato from the offices of the Verona Belli Arti Society. This will show the dogana that I am not stealing some Italian masterpiece, but rather shipping my humble dog drawings. Marco gives me an address on Corso Porta Borsari near the two thousand year old Roman wall, just a five minute walk from Nino Bixio. I am getting closer!

www.famigliaspera.it

So now that my last name is associated with the poster family of the Center Left, do I have to worry if Berlusconi is re-elected?

The pun: "The family hopes."

On the way out Corso Venezia, we decide to get lost a bit. There's a dormant volcano between Verona and Piazzola sul Brenta with a bunch of secluded farming towns clinging to the slopes. We enter a national park with high winding roads. Views would have been stunning but for the sea of thick fog obscuring all the valleys.

We drive by a big old "haunted" chiesa, from when I can't tell, now totally stripped and in ruin, attended only by the pigeons. I climb the fence and take pictures in the vast, abandoned space with the digital camera. We end up winding through the mountains almost two hours. On a high spur of rock, what's left of a castle looms over a cluster of stone farmhouses. The clouds add a moody flavor to the scenery.

The flea market is cool, 800 stalls in the "front yard" of an 18th century villa. We buy an old hanging rack, a cool yellow lamp and a metal ruler for Mr. Spera, eat delicious salsicce sandwiches with vino caldo. Afterwards, we hit the Padova IKEA for more curtains, an office chair for L., pillows and bedsheets. On the list of my top five favorite comfort foods, IKEA meatballs with lingonberry jelly ranks third.

photo by Steve "Atget" Ingham

Milk on tap.

Palazzo Ducale

The evening stroll.

Back from Mantova, L. and I drive to a trattoria/albergo high in the hills outside Verona, overlooking Lake Garda. The place is called "Dalla Rosa Alda," L. read about it in her Northern Italy Food Guidebook. The town is straight out of a movie, perched amongst the rocks, all stone buildings, tiny switchback roads, and postcard chiesas.

The meal is good, but we don't order well, so our secondi are weird. Still, it's a lovely place. At some point, a woman and two men enter, ask for a table. We can tell right off they are American; their Italian is even worse than ours. We eavesdrop on their conversation and, can you believe it, they're from Charlottesville! We are actually sitting in a secluded trattoria, on top of a mountain in Northern Italy, and we have to hear someone talking about "Fellini's" and "Mem Gym." I am a bit annoyed. How can I be a stranger in a strange land with white people from Charlottesville chasing me up mountains?

L. wanted to say "hi," but due to my persistent xenophobia, we do not even speak to them on the way out. Their conversation was totally dull anyway.

We have the rental, but we're off to a slow start. The weather is so gloomy and depressing, we nearly chicken out and eschew a road expedition. We manage to rally, however, around 1300 hrs, hit the road to Mantova to visit the Palazzo Ducale.

Mantova is a town bumped on three sides by lakes. It was HQ to the powerful Gonzaga family from the 14th-18th centuries. Napoleon had it, also the Austrians. Italy is full of these palazzi, once grotesque living monuments to the triumph of the super-rich over everyone else.

In our time, there's a conscious karmic reversal as these places are put to use for public edification and for the placement of national art treasures. Very cool.

There is a real connection to Renaissance memory in the costumery of the paraders. Just as an American would have a visceral response to the sight of a tricorn or a Civil War uniform, the Italians truly "feel" the 16th century. This was the 476th running of the 'Venardi Gnocolar', a home-made parade, intimate and fun. We follow the revelers to Piazza San Zeno for vin brulé and gnocchi with horsemeat.

As we are leaving the food line, a rough-looking Veronese guy, two-thirds drunk and gesticulating wildly, knock L.'s plate of food to the ground. He is immediately apologetic and offers to pay for a new serving. L. says "non ti preoccupare" [don't worry] and I say "va bene" [it's ok]. The guy is a total gentleman, belying his tough demeanor, and insists on paying. As he hands me the new plate, he says "per tua amorosa."

P. left for USA via Paris early a.m.

On Saturday night, he related to us a saying about the people of the Veneto:

Veneziani tutti gentili
Padovani tutti professori
Vicentini mangi gatti …

Veronesi tutti matti!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Venetians are all gentlemen.
The Paduans are all professors.
The Vicenzans eat cats.

The Veronese are all crazy.

A rainy day for a parade.

The gang from our borgo …

Smoking butterfly.

*note the non-Medieval umbrellas.

We are up with terrible headaches – knew we’d regret that Grappa just like old Hemingway did. L. and I take Mary on a long, long hike to clear our skulls. Yesterday, a nice lady in the San Giorgio dog park told us of some runs above the Teatro Romano, all the way up the stairs which climb from the Ponte Pietra to the Museo Archeologico. After some searching, we find a small, secluded park at the top of the hill where a guard tower once stood. Here soldiers kept watch on the winding Adige and the round, cultivated hillsides. The tower was pushed over long ago, its toppled brick walls now overgrown with shrubs.

We follow the walls of Verona along the crest of the hill all the way to the ugly neon cross one sees lit up at nights, a three-storey ice-blue structure, garish and too modern against these stately hills. From there we descend easily to the streets around Giardino Giusti.

P. has issues with his train ticket and must spend one more night at Nino Bixio, leaves tomorrow crack of dawn.