ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701250005
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VERONA
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN/STAFF WRITER
Sometimes everything goes right on a vacation. Even the risks you take turn out better than you could ever have hoped - the unknown little hotel where no one speaks English, the restaurant tucked back on a sidestreet, the tickets you've gambled on finding.
Verona is one of those Italian cities where chance becomes luck, where reality lives up to your daydreams.
From its wide piazzas to its elegantly patterned gardens, Verona is a gem that can be savored slowly, without overwhelming the senses or your feet.
Smaller than its more famous neighbors of Venice and Milan, Verona is a romantic melange of Roman ruins, medieval walls and Renaissance buildings and piazzas, all bleached by time to shades of burnt-umber and pastel.
Many American tourists come only to make the required pilgrimage to the small balcony where Juliet was supposedly wooed by her Romeo. But each summer, the small city bursts at the seams when it hosts a world famous opera festival in its Roman coliseum.
Seated among the Germans, Austrians and Italians who come 22,000 strong most nights to hear "Aida" or "Carmen," are a regular contingent of opera lovers from Western Virginia led by faculty from Radford University's Music Department.
At night, thousands throng the town's central piazza, dining in its outdoor cafes, strolling its wide flagstones, waiting for the gates to open for the night's musical extravaganza.
Walking into the coliseum, even for the unimaginative, is a gigantic step back in time. The huge arching stone passageway that resounds with the hurrying footsteps of tourists once echoed with the steps of gladiators on their way to hand-to-hand combat. Inside, 44 stone tiers provide seating little changed over 2,000 years. Equally amazing is the sound. A soprano's aria can be heard unamplified - a tribute to the marvelous acoustics of stone and Roman design.
Even if you are not an opera lover, a night at Verona's festival is memorable. On a warm night, you can settle into your seat early, marvel at the crowd that ranges from shorts-clad tourists to wealthy Europeans in designer dresses, and watch the evening darken. Just before the opera begins, hundreds of people in the audience spontaneously light candles that shimmer for moments in the dark - one more tradition in this ancient city.
Then a theatrical extravaganza unfolds. The cast ranges from divas to ducks. The stage's stone backdrop, transformed by inventive directors such as Franco Zepherelli, becomes a Spanish market town or a whimsical Italian neighborhood. As memorable as the voices and the staging is the amazing sight surrounding you of 22,000 rapt faces staring at the stage.
The opera may be the climactic high point of the day, but it's only one of the pleasures of this lovely and ancient city. Verona has enough picturesque piazzas, medieval churches and art to entertain visitors, but is small enough not to exhaust them.
The architectural marvels of this city also include more important Roman ruins than any other Italian city than Rome. In addition to the coliseum that dominates the downtown piazza, the city still has Roman walls, a Roman theater (famous for its productions of Shakespeare, would you believe) and other major ruins.
The best part of visiting this city, though, is that you can relax and enjoy it at a true vacation pace. A visitor can spend days in the city's famous churches, admiring frescoes and elaborate altars.
Yet the most serene experience is a morning spent in the Giusti Gardens. The green patterned walkways of this small 16th-century palace garden create a world of natural order and elegance. From any vantage point, you can sit and soak in the silence and beauty of rows of formal boxwoods and ancient fountains or climb up the terraced slopes for a hillside view that overlooks the red tiled roofs in the city center.
Verona charms in little ways, too.
All the shops and businesses close in midafternoon. There's little to do but relax. These can be the best moments of the day. Time to stretch out in your room and savor all the things you saw that day while the warm afternoon area drifts in through the huge windows in the little hotel in which I stayed. Without air conditioning, it saw few American tourists, but it offered a local charm more intriguing than the Americanized atmosphere of hotels near the city center.
For those who are romantics, you can visit several sites supposedly tied to the lovers in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," including the famed balcony and even Juliet's "tomba."
Food is also a pleasure - even if you are on a bargain budget. Little sidewalk cafes along the downtown streets serve paper-thin pizzas and fresh salads. For variety, you can finish your dinner at one restaurant and walk to the cafe next door that specializes in Italian ice cream to finish off your meal.
For well-heeled travelers, Verona also boasts several famous restaurants, including 12 Apostoli and Nuovo Marconi, both described as world-class restaurants in food and travel guides.
No one thing will lure you back to Verona. Rather, it is the total spell that this city casts that will slip into your daydreams and make you yearn to return to this quintessential Italian experience.
Every summer, Radford University's music department leads a tour to Verona for the opera festival.
The 1997 trip is already booked, but the music department will take reservations for its 1998 trip. The trip is expected to run the last 12 days of July 1998 and cost approximately $2,100. The tour will fly out of Roanoke to Charlotte to London's Gatwick Airport and then directly to Verona. A deposit will not be due until Dec 1. Anyone interested, can call Eugene Fellin at 831-5177; or write to the Department of Music, Box 6968, Radford University, Radford, Va. 24142. E-mail is efellin@runet.edu
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Elizabeth Obenshain. 1. Tourists (above) stroll theby CNBbroad walkway of the Piazza Bra, Verona's largest square. 2. The
scenery and props (right) for the opera "Aida" give an Egyptian
flavor to the city square just outside Verona's Roman arena. 3. An
island of serenity in the heart of Verona, the Giusti Gardens'
brilliant green hedges (left) date from the 16th century. 4. Verona
(above) as seen from one of the ancient bridges over the Fiume
Adige. 5. A formal walkway through the Giusti Gardens. 6. The Roman
arena where the city stages its international opera festival each
summer was built in the first century A.D. Its archways and 44 tiers
of stone steps are virtually unchanged from the days gladiators
strode through its portals. color.