Cerro Veronese

Here is Lake Garda, near Verona.

We arrived in Italy in late May after a short stop to visit family in Paris, France. The original plan had been to rent a cottage on the Lago di Garda (Lake Garda) for the summer and then look for an apartment in Verona in the Fall. I was told the weather would be warm and sunny, so I packed summer clothes with a couple of sweaters for the kids and myself. The rest of our clothes, furniture, household effects etc. were in a storage crate deep in the bowels of an ocean freighter making its way across the Atlantic. It would take 3 or 4 months to reach Italy.  But Instead of a house on the lake, my husband's colleague suggested renting a cottage in Cerro Veronese, a village in the pre-alps, in the Lessine hills above Verona.

The village of Cerro Veronese.

The village of Cerro was perched on one hill and we lived across from it on another.  When the weather was clear we had a wonderful view of the mountains in the distance.  The cottage was built on a slope.  It was constructed of cement blocks, stone and stucco.  Downstairs was a garage, a bedroom and a bath.  A staircase led up to a balcony across the front of the building. There was a small kitchen with the basics, a large room with a table and six straight-backed chairs, a sofa, a cupboard for dishes and a TV with "rabbit ears" that worked rarely.  The reception in the hills was not good.  

In the back there were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom.  The three children were in one room with 2 single beds, a crib and an armoire.  The other room contained a double bed and another armoire.  The floor was tile, the walls white-washed.  There was no heating.  In May there was a chill in the air and I realized that we would need coats and some thick blankets. 

This is the another postcard view of our hill from the village of Cerro .

Our house in Cerro Veronese.

The landlord, Signor C.,his wife and daughter were there to greet us when we arrived.  They were lovely, generous people who would serve as surrogate grandparents in the years to come. But more about that later. 

 

Mr. C. was quite well-off.  At the end of WWII, as a young man, he managed to obtain an old bus.  He repaired it and bartered for some tires.  He began a bus service around Verona and into the hills.  Little by little he was able to buy more busses and by the 1970’s he was the prosperous owner of a thriving bus company.

Me, the children, Signor C.,wife and daughter.