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Tuesday 17^th May: "You call this wine? Thou hast better try again.”

Two Gentlemen of Verona 3.i

In a sign that I’m becoming too acclimatised here, I’m taking rather too well to the apéritifs. Normally I settle quite happily for a gin and tonic pre-dinner or maybe just crack open the wine I’ll be drinking with dinner, but a couple of years ago I was introduced to the negroni, and my, it’s been growing on me ever since. For those new to the drink, it’s like a gin and tonic but without the tonic and lemon/lime, but with vermouth and campari instead. No mixers. Well, unless you count the vermouth (coming in at 17%), campari (a teasingly potent 25%) or even the slice of orange that’s used as garnish.

Its etymology lies something akin to the sandwich, in as much as it was named after someone who wanted it but didn’t create it – in the early 20^th century the Count Negroni (looks like a sly drinker, don't you think?) was said to have asked a bar tender for a cocktail, but something stronger than an Americano, and so the bar tender popped gin in the drink instead of soda water and gave birth to the negroni. Turns out the Negroni family started a distillery in Treviso, where I started on this tour. Makes me feel all the better for having them. Being so potent, one of these mixes gets you pleasantly oiled up before dinner and if you get through two, well, it’s pretty much a case of ‘good night Vienna’. Or even 'good night Verona' in this case.

And what of Verona itself. Well, as mentioned in the last blog, it is a very pretty place with lots of jolly nice architecture. There are castles and churches, towers and piazzas and just an abundance of frescos daubed on buildings hither and thither. As well as this, there’s also the literary connection. As we know, every word Shakespeare penned was about a real life event (!) and so it’s fortunate that after all this time the ‘real life’ balcony Juliet called Romeo from is still here, and probably one of the most photographed pictures in all of Christendom and maybe further. I helped add to the total. You’ll also see a bronze statue of Juliet – it’s said it’s lucky if you rub her right breast (many people get their picture doing such a thing), but then some might suggest that you'd be lucky to do this kind of thing in most situations...

But where you find tragedy of the heart

you’ll also find tragedy of other kinds and so we manage to draw a link to the Napoleonic rule of the 18th century. Napoleon was here as a ‘neutral’, although not really because lots of nobles were killed and their properties looted. It all got a bit much for the locals and so in 1797 (the year when the immortal memory, Horatio Nelson, distinguished himself while commanding HMS Captain as Commodore at the Battle of Cape St Vincent against the combined French and Spanish forces) they revolted against the evil French tyrants and rose to expel them from the city. This they managed for eight days, before 15,000 Frenchies came back and took revenge on the city by killing a few more nobles and looting what they hadn’t already looted in previous lootings.

The uprising, however, is still commemorated/celebrated today by the people of Verona during the ‘Veronese Easters’ with a re-enactment of costumed soldiers firing rifles and canon at various points of uprising around the city, as you see in the pictures taken outside the old council building (conveniently celebrated on Sunday evening). For further historical information, the yellow-blue uniforms are of the Veronese noble guard; the blue of the officials of Serenissima; the brown-white of the Austrian imperialists.

You can imagine the atmosphere outside the Napoleonic-era city hall with two-dozen rifles being fired followed up by 3 canon fired twice (charges only and no shot). The sound echoing off the cobbles, reverberating off the marble and sandstone walls with burning wads flying trough the smoke from the canon barrels was quite a treat. However, if the time it took them to re-load the canon was also a re-enactment of the original uprising and fighting, it's no wonder they were repeatedly over-run by those pernicious Frenchies. Just as I was leaving (when the speeches were starting), a small group of youths quickly scampered by, quietly humming 'la Marseillaise'. I couldn't help but laugh.

Right, quite enough historical information for one blog. Some pictures of castles, cakes and terraces in the next one.