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Hello all again -
Sorry its taken me so long to continue my story of our last trip - I've been super busy on all of the trips we've been going on now! We spent the weekend exploring Ticino, the Italian region of Switzerland. We saw some cool Botta houses and my new favorite castle, which had an intervention by Swiss architect Galfetti. Good times. But, before I get ahead of myself, back to Verona!

Verona -
We arrived in Verona early in the morning from Milano as a small group of seven, all of us needing a place to stay for the night. Heading straight for the info booth, we were able to not only find a place for our group to stay the night, but it was cheap, beautiful, and right in the center of town less than a block from the grand piazza. Awesome! Its was definitely our easiest and best Ostello story. After getting to the apartment, dropping our stuff off, and paying up, we grabbed a bit to eat at the near by pizzeria. I had the best pizza with anchovies and capers. Perfecto!
But the pizza didn't even compare to where we went next - Castelvecchio. Only one of the holyest meccas for modern archtiects, this masterpiece was my first Scarpa. Carlo Scarpa, for those of you non-architecture nerds, is one of the greatest designers to live in the 20th century. His total design approach creates spaces that are hand crafted down to the smallest details, like a doorhandle, with each turn opening up to a different, unique glimpse of something beautiful and spectacular. What makes Castelvecchio so amazing is that it is a intervention of a 14th century (or before) castle. By carefully and delicately placing a new architectural language through the castle, the lines between old and new, modern and classical, detailed and master-planned, become skewed, creating a total experience that both accents the castle, the art it contains, and the intervention that facilitates its uses. Just jaw-dropping. One life tip - go see Castelvecchio. Its well worth it.
Hell, just go to Verona! Its an amazing town. After seeing Castelvecchio, we broke down the big group into smaller groups, generally based on which hostel each group was staying in. However, this breaking of the group lead to chaos. One of our professors, Enrico Como, wanted to take us to another Scarpa Project, Banque Populare, but my friend Kyle and I were behind the group and managed to walk all around Verona without finding the group or the bank. We did manage to find Juliette's house (from Romeo and Juliette), but of course it was closed by the time we got there. After walking the senic route back to our Ostello, we realized that we would need to hurry to get into the long line to pick up tickets for the opera that night. Quickly racing back to our Ostello, we bumped into a few other companions who teamed up with us in our quest to get tickets before it was too late.
We managed to get our tickets with little problem, but the next challenge was to find dinner that would be fast enough to still give us time to get to the performance. With only 45 minutes remaining, we were cutting it pretty short (remember, Italians don't eat fast, or cook fast for that matter). We managed to find not only our professors at a local bar, but also the bank we had missed before. After a few minutes of gawking, we ordered some pasta, ate, and left just as swiftly as we had arrived.
Let me describe Verona and the Opera a little before I go on. Verona is a fairly small town that was originally surrounded by walls and though most of the wall is gone, the city still fits primarily within its boundaries. The small town is centered around a grand piazza and the giant opera stadium contained within it. An old colosseum, the Opera is a stunning piece of architecture as well as an amazing venue for the opera. On the opposite end of the piazza, a large row of restaurants open out into the public space, behind which shops and gelatorias flourish. Our Ostello was along one of the smaller roads branching off from the piazza, only a two minute walk from the center of the action.
The Opera we witnessed was Aida, a tragic lovestory between an ethopian slave princess and an egyptian commander. But the story was not really my reason for being in the opera. The space itself was. Between the shifting weather around and the people watching, I was more entertained by what was going around the stage than on it. As the last rays of light drained from the sky, the opera proceeded into a full cast number, which suddenly caused the audience to become a sea of flashing lights as cameras went off with great gusto. It was quite a sight to see. However, it didn't last long, because before the lead got even half way through her next solo, rain halted the entire show as the orchestra ran indoors before their precious instruments got wet. Another interesting people watch experience as the entire crowd rose in a loud grumble and began flushing out of the oval space. Hope was not completely crushed, however, as a voice came over the loud speaker, saying that weather reports we being analyzed as a break in rain would mean the continuation of the show.