A night at the opera in Verona!

A few years ago, I went on a girl’s short break to Verona. We had a fabulous time and I fell in love with this amazing Italian city. At the time we toured the glorious Arena di Verona and discovered it was holding a rock concert in the coming days, which alas we couldn’t make due to flying home the next day (and not knowing the foggiest about Italian rock!).

Fast forward three years and I was surprised this year with tickets to see Carmen at the very same amphitheatre. Seeing the opera in an open-air venue had been on my bucket list for a while so the husband did well with this surprise, and I was also delighted to know I’d be watching it in this beautiful location.

Verona is only a 1 hour 40-minute flight away and crazy as one night away to see the opera may sound, it was actually really easy and the perfect getaway. Keeping with the opera theme, we stayed at Hotel Academia, a gorgeous hotel situated in an 18th century building, owned by descendants of Giovanni Zenatello, the world-renowned tenor of the end of 20th century, who launched and sponsored the Arena Opera Festival. The hotel even gave us a room frequented by Maria Callas, an opera singer from the same era!

Food in Verona is sublime. There are so many restaurants to choose from and most have plenty of scope for people watching while enjoying delicious pasta and wines. However, a little warning to horse lovers, this meat does appear to be a speciality of the region and features on most menus in various guises. I stuck to the fish!

I cannot express how amazing the opera was. Sat in the roman amphitheatre, the acoustics were fabulous and the show spectacular. Carmen was everything I had expected from the opera with quite a few familiar songs and subtitles which made it easy to follow. The atmosphere is like nothing I have experienced before, and I can highly recommend it to opera buffs and opera novices like me!