Sitting in bed after another delicious breakfast and a shower, looking out over hillsides of vineyards, the sound of church bells in the distance; trying to squeeze every last minute of bliss out of this place before we pack up and point our car in the direction of Lake Garda for the next leg of our journey.
If you had asked me what my perfect Italian experience would be, I wouldn't have been able to come up with anything nearly as beautiful as this. After a quick internet search at a cafe under an umbrella in Verona trying to hide from the rain, we found this place on booking.com and crossed our fingers. We drove the 30 minutes out of town and turned off on a country road, I said to Bill that this was what I was hoping for. We pulled in to where the GPS pointed us and thought it was strange that there was no sign, but we both got out in the torrential rain and scurried under our one tiny umbrella to the open front door where we were met with a very large, angry looking man with his shirt off. This seemed odd, for sure, but maybe they do things differently in the country. "Um," I started smiling, "are we in the right place?" He scowled and shook his head very slowly. "Oh, sorry, does this happen all the time," I said, still smiling. More scowling and Bill and I got it. Back in the car, out the narrow driveway, grateful he didn't do more than scowl at us, we followed the road less than a minute more and found the sign pointing up another long, narrow driveway. As soon as we pulled in, we knew this was perfect. Our hosts, Donatella and Corrado met us with warm smiles and showed us to our charming, spacious room.
We had a rest and a shower and then took Donatella's advice and went for a late dinner at a local place up in the hills that she recommended. We drove in the dark up a tiny winding road and, again, found it odd that there was no sign, but maybe that's how these country folk do things... A very nice lady came out of her gate and walked us next door to the restaurant (with a sign) and wished us well in Italian. The restaurant was on the ground floor of what appeared to be a private home. There were two other couples dining in the restaurant and two little girls playing in the front room. Everything was draped in red and green, and hearts were hanging in the archways as if there were a Valentine's celebration or maybe a Christmas wedding. I was in heaven. Our host was charming and we managed to order by pointing and smiling and enjoyed a perfect evening of the best hand made pasta we have tried yet (pumpkin ravioli, radicchio tortellini, and beet stuffed in something delicious), dripping in olive oil or butter, we couldn't tell. Oh my god, so good. We had intended on sharing one plate, but that got lost in translation, so we each ate a full plate of pasta, followed by scaloppine al fungi and the richest, smoothest house red. Full and happy, we made our way back to what I like to call home. And asked Corrado if we could please stay another night.
More on Verona and food later, I've got to pack and accept that we cannot live here forever.
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