After calling it an early night, we got up early for a packed road trip driving day.

Today, the goal was to get on the road in Rovererto where we could hit up the oldest coffee shop in the world. Bontadi Coffee Roasters was founded in 1790 and they have a whole coffee museum dedicated to it! We got in right before they were open, but they were kind enough to let us in.

After seeing the museum, of course we had to go get some coffee, so we wandered into the square to find some.

Then, because we had a packed schedule, it was onwards to Verona.

Verona is now in the Veneto region of Italy, and we could start to see the transition away from more German influences towards Roman and Italian. Verona is most famous for being the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There’s also a roman amphitheatre which I was eager to see, called the Verona Arena. Naturally, a question I had was what on earth is the difference between an arena, a colosseum, and an amphitheaters? I can’t say I really know, other than it seems like there is only one Colosseum — the one in Rome. Turns out the Verona Arena is older than the Colosseum, and was used as a practice ground. It was built in 30 AD and is one of the oldest structures remaining.

Since we were going to see the Colosseum later, we decided not to go in, but we did camp out across the Arena to enjoy some aperol spritzes.

After lunch, we went to look for La Casa di Giulietta, which is the home of Cappello family and the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet (hence Juliet’s balcony). It was pretty crowded and touristy so we didn’t spend so much time there, but had to see it.

Then it was back in the car towards Bologna!