Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind, but in a good way. Royce and I woke up , checked out of the hotel while a group of traditional Austrian Alpine french horn players serenaded some hotel guest out in the lobby. It was cute, the players were dressed up in their forrest green cool lots, jackets, and the little hats with feathers in them. We said good bye to Bolzano and silently thanked the beautiful town for some much needed rest and relaxation. We hopped the train south to Verona and made a spontaneous stop in Trento, where we climbed a small mountain to some WWII memorial and had a supermarket lunch on a bench overlooking the entire city. The views were breathtaking.
Then we got back on the train to our final destination.
Verona was definitely a surprise. I had no idea it would be the prettiest city in Italy. We saw a great Roman ampitheater, in better shape than the colosseum. We also saw what is said to be "Juilet's balcony". The place where Juilet gave her significant, "Oh Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo" speech. Unfortunately, the scaffolding and construction made it a bit less romantic and tainted my photo. The small courtyard still made for a very beauitful and curious (and different type of) tourist spot. The courtyard was adorned with love notes and love graffit all over the place. It was very sweet.
We decided to stay the night in Verona. Another night train (into Rome) just didn't sound like a good idea. We found a cheap hotel and hunkered down for the night.

TODAY we took the eternal train ride into Rome. Something in the way of 7 hours. We booked into a hostel and made our way downstairs to the common area where Royce whipped out the guitar. He was an instant hit and ended up becoming the life of the party. It was fun and I really enjoyed hearing everyone's happy reactions... things like, "Yeah, this is what it's all about. Good people, good music, cheap wine." We had a blast.