I'm a simple emigrant and I don't intend to bypass mountains

In Verona, the best parking turned out to be under the cemetery walls, about which Nadine hadn’t told me. But in the empty lot there was nothing but a flower stall, and I, aloud, wondered: what a strange choice of location. She confessed then, but there were no other options. Still, 40 meters away there was an excellent restaurant — Al Capitel. The best pizza, delicious desserts, inexpensive, Wi‑Fi, and the cherry on top: the waiter spoke Russian. Also in Verona is the famous Juliet’s Balcony, which inspired Shakespeare, and Romeo’s house, forgotten by everyone; I even felt bad for it—please go there too if you are visiting. At Juliet’s house there are souvenir shops, in one of them they embroidered names for free. A girl asked me where I was from, and embroidered my name in English, while for Nadine, for some reason, she decided to do it in Russian. We didn’t understand at first what she had written, and then laughed for a long time. We had the patch redone for her. Then we went to Venice. There wasn’t any bad smell there. It’s very beautiful everywhere, like in a fairy tale: waterways in the alleys, unique bridges, and small boats as public transport — so unusual. It’s also striking to see the city completely empty. In the most touristy spots there were about 20 people, and all the gondolas were closed. So you had to be incredibly determined and go through a whole quest to figure out how to buy a travel pass. And, of course, prices for everything are noticeably higher. But here you must definitely visit Taverna Fontana — their tomato sauce is simply divine. crossing the Alps of three countries: Germany, Austria and Italy, we decided on the way back to definitely spend a day in the mountains. Merano is an Italian town, with Austrian customs, traditional food is Austrian, and the language is German. Vineyards and mountains — you can tour the whole town in half a day, a wonderful place to spend your retirement there or to rest from the city bustle. Time to go home; we typed the home address into Google Maps, set it so the route would go only through toll-free roads, and headed out. And also, to save money, we planned to refuel in Austria, remember? At some point, we notice that the road goes only uphill. At first we didn’t give it much thought: a mountainous area. But after a while it became clear that there was absolutely no way for the road to go down. We, without a license, piloting this car for the second time in our lives, with the fuel gauge almost on empty, climb higher and higher and joke that “we’re not high, the clouds are high.” The altitude signs flash by one after another. If it weren’t for our sense of humor and the vast experience of joint adventure behind us, I think we would have panicked. Instead, we just hysterically giggled, and after every turn tried to sense whether we were already going down. And now, we drive into the clouds and see a reading of 2,094 meters. In addition, we see the treetops and other mountains at our level. Exhilaration and fear. Fortunately after this there was a descent, the fuel gauge showed a bit more, and we, alive and unscathed, were home about five hours later. #World_trips