Montova, the poor man's Florence

9-13-2008 

Today I, along with seven others, woke up at 5:30 and left at 6:00 for an hour and a half walk to the Verona bus station. Our intent was a catch a train to Florence to take in the sights there. However, the astronomical cost of about  €120 round trip was going to break our banks. So after a quick look in a travel guide book, we decided a €6 round trip ticket to Montova would be a better decision, and it certainly was.

Since day one, we’ve been seeing some amazing sights. However, many of them tourist destinations. Montova was just a town. The most touristie thing we did was visit the cathedral, La Catterdrale – Duomo, and the archeological museum. We stopped at an courtyard/park in which the only sign told you the many things you could not do. From the sign we gathered all you could do is sit and watch the grass grow and throw your liter in a trash can.

 Other than that we sat down at a café, had lunch with a few bottles of wine, and watched an intense storm roll in. The plaza where this café was located just so happen to be the location of Montova’s volunteer fair. The entertainment was a 12 piece orchestra. They accompanied the storm’s decent into Montova.

We shopped at some sweet little stores, until they all closed for lunch.

We chilled for a few hours waiting out the storm and by 13:00, we decided it was time to grab a train back to Verona. Our morning journey was just the chill time we all needed, and we got to take on a new city in Italy.

The rest of my day consisted of a nap, dinner, and hanging out with a huge group of Italian students and volunteers who were having their annual convention at our hotel. Many of us ended up hanging out with them for the majority of the night. I even got dragged into a crazy ice-breaker game some of them were playing.

It was called Maifesto: some people are the manifestation others are the police. The manifest peeps all jump into a pile on the floor and grab on to each others’ limbs, torsos, hair, pants, whatever you can get your hands on. The police then come in and try to break up the manifestation via pulling, twisting, tickling, just about anything, excluding a crowbar.

 After that ridiculously awkward game, many of us spent the rest of the night on the lawn in front of the hotel with these students from around the world, just drinking, playing guitar, hanging out, and finding out just how similar we all are….