A taste of Emilia-Romagna & Verona {Part 1}

Welcome back! Feel free to skip on over to the photos if I'm killing you with all this map business. No feelings hurt. haha. So the kids had a 3 days weekend recently and this region was on my list to explore. Unfortunately, dad had to work, so we were forced to eat his share of pizza for him. We bore the burden. :) Here's the area that I had in mind: Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy. Bologna is the capital (as in spaghetti bolognaise), and many other cities you might recognize: Parma, Modena (foodie HEAVEN), as well as the home of Ducati, Maserati, Ferrari, and Lamborghini. One of the world's smallest countries, San Marino, is here as well as Ravenna, which is home to some of the world's best Byzantine mosaics. I ventured out a little out of the region, north to Verona which technically is in Veneto, near Venice. I have a good friend who'd done a lot of this on a previous trip, so that helped too.. never underestimate the power of travel-talking with your friends!!