ITALY

"Juliet's Balcony" in Verona, from which she pined over Romeo (a city's gotta make a Euro somehow)

Stephen poses with the DeLorean from "Back to the Future" at Movieland

Walking down Mazzini Street, Verona's version of the Magnificent (quarter) Mile

Gondolas, Grace, and Gloria in Venice

The cheesy guy at Magic Wood who did the one-man farting elephant play

The Grand Canal in Venice

They still use this 2,000-year-old Roman arena in Verona for operas and concerts

It rained the day we went to the zoo

Waiting for the train to Venice

Gelato!

We were only in Italy 11 days, too short a time to explore and enjoy this beautiful country. From Pisa, we took the train to Florence, then spent 6 days in Verona in a flat loaned to us by two of the nicest people we've met, Efrem and Luciana. We enjoyed a concert and gelato with them one evening and Efrem was kind enough to drive us around to the zoo and the train station, so we didn't have to rent a car. We went to Movieland one day, on Lake Garda, a movie-themed amusement park. After church in Verona on Sunday, we went to a toy museum and a cheesy "Magic Wood", where we watched a little children's play in Italian. We presume it was about an elephant who had a huge flatulence problem. Another day, we visited Juliet's house and stood under her balcony sighing "Romeo, Romeo . . ." We rode the train to Venice one hot day and wished we could jump in the liquid streets. I read three books. We ate gelato every day. We took a day off and rested in the flat; this is a very active piece of our trip and we get tired. Italy deserves more time than we were able to give it this time around. But there's always next time!

Here are some random shots of the Garfields in Italy.