Marty and David's Visit!

I am truly blessed to have such adventorus older brothers! This past Saturday, Marty and David arrived in Verona, Italy for their first trip to Europe. I was so excited to be able to share my abroad experience with them. It made for some unforgettable memories, that’s for sure!

Having been on a long and messy group of flights from the states, the boys were pretty jet lagged and tired. They both settled in and then we headed for dinner at L’orlogio. It was my first time going to this restaurant but it was recommended as an authentic pasta cuisine. We all tried different pasta dishes, so we could taste each others. We also got house red wine and it went very well with our meal. Afterwards we made our way back to my apartment but of course stopped to get gelato! We went to the best gelato place, La Romana. Our final choice in gelato flavors was biscotto, 150 years and strawberry, and just because we could, we got it in a box so we had even more gelato to split between the three of us (typical Ryans, always upgrading our food) and it was probably the best decision because we finished it all and then the boys were ready for a good nights sleep after a long trip across the pond.

The next day was a big sight seeing day in Verona. We first made our way over to San Zeno for mass. We were a bit late (my mistake on the times) but Marty and David really enjoyed going to an Italian mass. After, we walked around the church since it is one of the most beautiful ones in Verona.

On our way back to the apartment to get ready for sightseeing, we stopped at a piazza outside of San Zeno and got macchiato’s and crossiants. It was the perfect day: sunny and about 60 degrees. It was a bit foggy but that was nothing too extreme.

We packed up a lunch of prosciutto, parmesan cheese, and some Chardonnay to take with us for a picnic on the hill. On our way there we stopped at Piazza Bra to see the Arena. Then we headed towards the Roman ruins, Juliettes balcony and then Piazza Erbe. Then we made our way to Ponte Pietre and finally crossed over the bridge to the stairs that lead us up to the hill!

It was a beautiful sight and I could tell the boys really enjoyed the view of Verona from the hill. We found a spot to sit and had our bread, prosciutto, cheese and wine. Quite a typical Italian afternoon J

On our way down from the hill we stopped and took some cool pictures. Basically being our normal, model selves. Marty had some great candid shots from his usual goofing off. It was so refreshing to have a break from my normal routine and spend time with family and just relax. On our way back to the apartment, we all stopped at Piovo to get panzerotti, which is the best place to get them!

That night we headed to San Matteo Pizzeria. We were really hitting all the traditional Italian dishes for the short time we were in Italy. My roommate Lauren joined along with us and we each split a bottle of their house red sparkling wine. Marty got the San Matteo pizza, recommended by our waitrees. David got the Quattro salami pizza and I got the zucchini pizza. It was so delicious and we scarfed it down quickly.

For that nights dessert, I made the boys get hot chocolate from Café Teatro. They have the best hot chocolate, and if you haven’t had Italian hot chocolate, you should know that it is literally HOT chocolate. It’s super thick and creamy and very rich. I was sad to have to refrain from it but I was glad they enjoyed it! We headed right to bed since our next day was jam-packed with more traveling.

Our plans changed a bit since we originally planned to go to Florence for Monday, also St. Patricks day, but the train sold out so we rescheduled for Tuesday. We decided to go to Lake Garda in Peschiera that afternoon, but first we stopped to grab Cappuccino’s and some croissants from a nearby café. We all tried some very unique croissants with delicious fillings and then we tried a cannoli and then wafer pastry that was called Triangulo. Not our healthiest breakfast, but when in Italy..

We stopped at the supermarket to get some more food for lunch and dinner. We also picked up a lot of alcohol to celebrate as true Irishman. We got a pack of beers for our lunch at Lake Garda as well as Bailey’s for that nights festivities and them some more wine… just in case.

Lake Garda was a great afternoon spot. We walked down to the lake and skipped a few rocks, walked down the docks, saw snakes, hiked along the lake to a long dock where we stopped for our picnic lunch. We brought prochuitto and salami with mozzerlla cheese on nice sub sandwich bread. Then we sat back and cracked open our nice cold McFarland red beer, made in Ireland to get our St. Patricks day celebration on! The beer was awesome and really hit the spot while sitting on the dock.

We then started getting harassed by some hungry swans. It was actually really frightening because they were so close to us on the dock that their beaks were actually sitting on the edge of the dock! They were hissing at us and begging for food so we ran out of there before any of us got attacked!

We continued to hike down the river and passed some cool lake houses and even the amusement park, Gardaland. Everything was closed since it was Monday, so the town was nearly empty which made it seem like we had the whole lake to ourselves! Unfortunately, it was still foggy and we couldn’t see the mountains across the lake, but it was still a great afternoon.

Marty even fell in the water when he was walking along the shore! It was really slippery apparently but he was wearing shorts so it was just his shoes that got soaked.

We stopped at a few more docks to take pictures. Marty has a secret talent of being an acrobat. Pretty cool huh?

Afterwards, we laid on the dock and sunbathed for a bit, then headed into the city center to play Frisbee in the park. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

That night David made pasta at the apartment and had our red wine with dinner. We finished the mozzerlla balls topped with olive oil and oregano for an appetizer then Marty cooked sausages and I cooked artichoke to really complete the meal.  We were stuffed.

Later that night, I invited Mary and Lisa over to drink with us for St. Pattys day! The boys and I had our Baileys, Lauren had her white wine and Mary and Lisa had vodka mixed drinks. We played a ton of fun drinking games like thumper, cheers governor and circle of death. We had so much fun and drank our apartment dry of alcohol. Once it got to around 2am and there was nothing else to drink we called it a night and prepared for our day trip to Florence!