Beach dining and secluded private villa (Image: Sashi Rajamahendran)
That s amore
Famous as the setting for Shakespeare s 16th-century play Romeo and Juliet, love is always in the air in the captivating city of Verona.
This was proven when locals Michele D Alpaos and Paola Agnelli made the front pages when they fell for each other across their balconies in lockdown last September.
And if music be the food of love, the magnificent must-see Roman amphitheatre Arena di Verona plays host to the world-renowned summer Opera Festival.
After a moonlit stroll across the Adige River, over the Ponte Pietra, festooned with love locks, cosy up in the riverside Terrazza Bar al Ponte over a bottle of Valpolicella, produced from the region s fine vineyards.
It’s easy to look at the past year and only see the negative impacts of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, but 2020 has given us a lot to be thankful for too.
Here are a few stories that brought us tremendous joy this year and gave us hope when we needed it most!
1. “Principal mom’s” embarrassing online school announcements had thousands cracking up.
“Just a reminder: Lunch today is whatever you make yourself,” Deb Plafker, a mom from Danville, California, said into her home’s announcement system in the early days of her kids’ remote learning. While her teenage son wasn’t nuts about her new (self-imposed) role of “principal mom,” even he agreed that her morning announcements were too funny not to share!