If my butt looks like the passenger seat of our Alfa Romeo then that's because we spent the better part of today driving and driving and driving.  We decided to take the 'hypotenuse' from Pisa to Verona which made a 3 hour drive take almost 6.  It was actually very beautiful and interesting (if not a little harrowing… narrow roads, crazy drivers - including my husband….)  The roads became higher altitude with very different vegetation and we had lunch in Abelone which is a ski town in the winter.  There were many people at the restaurant wearing hiking and biking clothes and the town had the typical Alpine/ski village feel to it; ski and snowboard shops and pointy wooden roofs.  I can only imagine how insane the roads are in the winter!  The drive was really long but the kids were amazing the entire time and we definitely saw things we wouldn't have if we would've stayed on the autostrada the whole time.  I'll admit though that it felt pretty good when we finally met up with it just outside of Verona and had the ability to (legally) go 130 km/hr instead of 50 km/hr!

Verona is really nice from what we've seen so far.  We met up with Marco who I rented the apartment from and he was very friendly and helpful.  The apartment is perfect aside from the heat… there is air conditioning in it but it's battling against really high outside temperatures (37C/100F) and the fact that we're on the 4th floor.  We also had the unfortunate conundrum that we desperately needed to do laundry but you can't run the A/C at the same time as the washer or you risk blowing a fuse.  We threw in a load while we went for dinner and then all had cool showers when we returned.

<-- Thermostat after A/C has been on for 2 hours!!

The Verona Arena is really beautiful - it's an amazing structure that is still in use for concerts and other shows - one of them being the Opera which we had the fortunate experience of actually hearing while we had dinner at a restaurant across the piazza.  Admittedly operas are not my thing but I can appreciate the talent that it takes and hearing it from outside the Arena was enough for me.

I am boiling hot and not really up to writing for a long time with a hot computer on my lap so I think I'll call it a day.  Hopefully the A/C takes it down a few degrees while we sleep because I fear we'll all turn into puddles in the night otherwise!