Wednesday

After lunch I passed on the talk by the ‘art historian’ . The talk I listened to 2 weeks ago was interesting, but a lot of time was spent standing around. I have felt like I wanted some exercise for several days so this afternoon I set off in a NW direction along the road that follows the river Adige ( the river that runs through Verona). I walked briskly the 7 1/2 kilometres to a little town called Parona. It was a pleasant walk – first through the city then rural things – vineyards, large market gardens, small factories, fancy agritourismo places. Only trouble was the heat. I try and ignore the weather when I am away, but today I was definitely hot. On the bus back into town ( I had picked a route and destination to walk to that I could return easily from by a fairly regularly running bus) I saw a sign that said 32 degrees. Apparently this is the hottest September on record.

When I get a coffee I often ask for a glass of tap water, but today for the first time I asked for a refill. I have never seen a local do this. But I did not see anyone else out walking this afternoon either.

I went into Santo Stefano, one of the city’s oldest churches. It was light with lots of old frescoes. There was a stone bishop’s seat with only a very thin cushion. After sitting on the stone seats in the Arena to watch the operas, I feel sorry for the bishops. There was an interesting gallery behind the apse – apparently a Byzantine feature. I donot recall seeing anything like it before.

San Giorgio in Braida had some good paintings. There was lots of information about St George and several paintings depicting parts of his life. It is a rare example of a domed Renaissance church built in 1477.

I walked back to my room, via a bar where I had a spritz and more water ( I did carry some, but not enough) and read (sort of) one of the daily sport newspapers. The Italians have a curious habit of putting the ages into the description of people. Maybe the ages of the sporting stars is OK, but who wants to know if a particular team’s manager , e.g, is 40,45 or 48?