Verona with Professor Aunt Penny

After getting a good full night sleep, we were ready to take on our first day of site seeing. Sticking with our laid back, casual tourist attitude we spent most of the morning at Aunt Penny’s apartment and finally ventured out to the city around noon. With Professor Aunt Penny as our tour guide we spent our morning session around Piazza Arsenale and Piazza delle Erbe. We did our best to impress upon the girls the history, age and grandeur of everything we saw. Their attention was best held as we walked over the fortified bridge and around the 14^th century castle. Seeing the thickness of the wall, the moat, the draw bridge and the tall towers helped us all understand how impressive this fortress was for the Lords of Verona.

In the afternoon, we made it to an even older bridge that was built before Jesus was born! The Ponte Pietra was built by the Romans in 100 B.C. To get the girls to realize how old that was we told them to think of the oldest person they knew and imagine them living 30 times that long. We won’t be sharing their answers here and that process still didn’t translate with them as to just how long ago everything was built. After a pick me up at a gelato shop and a little hide and seek in the park, we walked back to the car and on the way saw a Roman road, the Palazzo della Ragione and plenty of gorgeous buildings that many people still get to call home.

Again the girls did a great job with only a few minor melt downs. Reese enjoyed taking pictures with her camera and Kendall was most excited about the market, the toys and trinkets for sale.

Overall it was a great day and will end up being our most history focused day of the trip. Officially Professor Aunt Penny was free, but after mistakenly exchanging dollars to Euros with a local exchange company we realized we paid more fees and commission than you do when buying a house and our free tour around Verona now had a price tag. We would have been better served to find a mafia member and do business with him.