Juliet and I were married April 30,2009. At the time I was the owner of a travel company based in Southern Italy. My work really did not allow for us to marry as soon as we would have liked and in fact we had to return to Italy just after our wedding for work related trips and to meet friends whom we had planned to show Italy prior to finalizing our wedding date. In essence, May 2009 was technically our honeymoon but was much more like a working vacation with friends and family.

Two of our dearest friends joined us on our trip up to Verona and ultimately Alto Adige. On this little sojourn in Verona we had the pleasure to meet our now wonderful friend, Nicolas Emery. Nick lives in Verona year round and works as a trip designer and guide for the wildly successful Travel for Teens. If you have teenage children and would like them to experience travel in Italy or Europe at large, Travel for Teens is the top company operating trips of this nature today. Ned Clark is the VP of TFT and here is a link to how to find him. I have experienced first hand the level of service and safety these folks offer and it is exceptional. I wish they had been around when I was 16 :-)

Nick and I hit it off immediately as he is a talented photographer (here is his photo blog) and speaks flawless Italian. These are the kinds of allies I seek when I am abroad.

We return to Verona this year to run around the Veneto wine country with Nick and to finally meet his very lovely ragazza (girlfriend) Giulia. Both Juliet and Giulia have birthdays around this time so we will most definitely celebrate with this:

or this...

This is going to be a wonderful discovery time for Juliet and me. I hope you enjoy this little taste of Verona and there will be much more to come upon our return.