Bongiorno!
This year the Department of Tourism visited the beautiful Northern-Italy. The 4-day-trip was organised by – as usual – András Jancsik and more than 50 people were eager to see the area the program offered. We visited Verona, the area of Lake Garda and at last but not least the peculiar Venice.
The first day we headed to the romantic city of Verona and even though the faces were not as romantic (after the night spent on the bus) to fit the scenery, we were deeply engaged by the charm of the city. With the lead of the dean, who this time took the role of tour-guide, we saw the Arena of Verona, the thirds greatest amphitheatres of Italy, where famous operas are held yearly; we admired the lovely river surrounding Verona’s fortress and we also tried to figure out how Romeo climbed up to Julia, when visiting her balcony at the well known scene of Shakespeare’s world famous piece (we must admit, Romeo must have been a super guy, because we did not find any way to climb up on those walls!). After the sightseeing tour, everyone headed to one of the many pizzerias or ice cream bars, to get the first impression of the Italian gastronomy. This momentum lasted nearly during the whole trip as you could always see a few members of our group eating ice-cream at the free-time period.
Second day, we went to see the beautiful Lake Garda. Our first destination was Sirmione, where we visited the fortress of Sirmione, offering a beautiful view over the lake (which looks rather like a see). Along the road we stopped at many romantic towns like Salo, Riva del Garda, Malcesine. We took the direction towards the tunnels, which we observed cautiously: we just fit into it with our large double-decker bus. It was fun up until a truck appeared suddenly opposite us, approaching with fairly high speed. We stopped just on time and had to head backwards out of the tunnel as we proved to be too wide to pass. We ended up turning at the very narrow, tight serpentine path, while the whole bus was giving way to their despairs, whether our lives were going to end as catastrophe tourism or we would survive with the simple experience of adventure tourism. By the end of the trip, everyone developed tunnel phobia.
On the third day, we visited small towns in the Veneto region. We went to Cittadella, where we saw the remains of the wall built in the middle ages, the atmospherical Bassano del Grappa and lastly the citadel of renaissance, Vicenza.
The last day was what everyone waited the most: we visited Venice. The city of lagoon offered a great program: we sailed through the Canal Grande and we got off at St. Mark Square. In the one hour free time program we had time to see the St. Mark’s Basilica, some of us clambered up at the tower at St. Mark’s Square and others took a chance to feed the pigeons, which is cannot be missed, when you are in Venice!
With the lead of our tour-guide, we spent one hour with walking among the intimate, unique alleys of the city, always reaching beautiful buildings, temples and bridges hiding from the mass of tourists.
For one last time, everyone took their chance to taste the original Italian pizza: we flooded one of the many restaurants (yes, the waitress was shocked when we entered) and tried to enjoy their food till the very last bits. After “dinner”, everyone rushed away to see as much from Venice by night as possible.
We left Italy with many reminiscences and I am sure, everyone enjoyed the „taste” these four days left in us about Italy. Most of us said that they will definitely return to the country one day.