Diary
Dates: 5-8 April
Visa Process: None – EU
Visit Purpose: Surprise friends and go to wine festival, Vinitaly
Fun Facts
Home to Vatican City, the smallest country in the world.
Capital: Rome
Population: 59 million in Italy | 257k in Verona
Land area: 301k km2
GDP (PPP): 3.79 Trillion USD
Per capita (PPP): 63k USD
Note: PPP is adjusted GDP to make comparisons easier (difference in cost of living etc)
Even just looking back at photos it fills me with such good memories, and emotions. We went there on a spur of a moment idea after some friends said they were going and that’d it’d be great if we were there too. So we slyly looked and zam! We had two tickets for Verona leaving in two days.
Turns out Vinitaly, the wine festival, is a bit of a big deal and there’s no hotels and no AirBnBs left either. We looked at the main train lines and figured out where might be possible. One looked like a good hope – seaside, picturesque and only 15 minutes away called Peschiera del Garda. Hotels? No. AirBnB? A couple!
The Italians take their coffee so seriously they invented a vending machine that gives you a barrista coffee with a window to see the beans being crushed, and the coffee being made.
We made it to Peschiera del Garda in good time, found the AirBnB and settled in a bit. We spent most of the days in Verona, but we made time in the morning, or in the evening, to enjoy the area where we were staying. It really was very nice and very homely. 3 Days was definitely enough to get around most everything, so it worked out just the right amount of time too.
What a view in Peschiera del Garda!
One of the nicest things around these areas was the amount of shops that are geared towards men! Good quality and well priced clothes aren’t easy to find – normally – but here they were in abundance. I was open to the idea of getting a suit, and the thought of an Italian suit was even better. We stumbled upon a few different shops and noted them for later. Ultimately, the first shop I tried some suits on, I fell in love. It was really on a whim that I tried my first ever double breasted suit but when I put it on… Wow! I hesitantly came out of the dressing cubical and asked my girlfriend to be honest. A reaction on ‘Wow!’ is usually a sign of my bipolar being a little out of balance and can lead to major spending sprees.
In this case, my girlfriend’s reaction was ‘wow!’ too, which is a good sign. Then I looked at the price tag 👀 ‘wow!’ – I’ve just found the perfect suit for around £100. It’s going to cost almost as much as that just to get the legs and arms tapered in!
A few weeks later and the new double-breasted suited and booted James (Bond) Markey is on show at the House of Lords
Shopping done, it was then time to surprise our friends. Sitting opposite the colleseum with some aperol spritz to hand we video called them and they couldn’t believe we were there. Jonathan gave us some free passes (woop!) to the wine festival and we headed on our way to meet them. They very kindly and discreetly helped me remain hydrated due to my medication – maybe not the best time to be starting wine school!
We visited so many stands, and this was just within the Sardinia building! I don’t know how anyone gets round all the halls, there must be around 10 different halls jam-packed with winemakers.
No better photo to show off Vinitaly in action with Jonathan ‘The Nose’
Photo Album
