My Hen Night!

Before I married Dh I had a strong group of girl friends, all either divorced or widowed. I still have them; some of us had holidays together, which I looked forward to every year.  One year I sent cards inviting them to join me for my Hen night. I had phone calls in response, all asking the same things...it was before mobile phones played such a big part of our lives,

Who is he? Where did you meet? When is the wedding?  I had to tell them, I hadn't met anyone, but incase I did, this was what I wanted for a Hen night, a visit to the open air opera in Verona.  Ros my church friend said she'd love to come.  

We stayed in a small town on the Italian lakes, very comfortable and the most beautiful scenery and by the lakes so not too hot. I had booked the two operas, Verdi's Aida and Puccini's La Boheme.

We had seats booked for Aida and not knowing what to expect added to the excitement. Ros had never been to Italy before so was thrilled by the sights, the buildings and the atmosphere. We were taken by coach to Verona late morning to give us some time to explore. It was very  hot, so we didn't do a lot of sight seeing, but found a lovely café on the cool side of a small street and sat under the awning with long fruity drinks, at a long table with other tourists. Lunch was pasta for me, and me being me, I had to have  ice cream, which was so delicious. We has several cool drinks till it was time to go. We were given a gate number with our tickets and so we queued with hundreds of other opera lovers, as you can see you needed a gate number.

I should say that Ros had never been to an opera before, so I was a bit nervous as to whether she'd like it, because the cost of the seats was a hefty amount. She like me was thrilled. It was amazing, we'd been given little candles and and when the stage lights dipped, we all had to light them. Wow what a sight!

I don't know how I slept that night, but I was so tired I did. 

La Boheme was our next opera and this time I hadn't booked us seats, we were to sit on the stone steps, we took cushions! Ros and I are 'shorties' so we needed help to get up to a seating row; there were plenty of young Italian men helping, we were hauled up and we settled ourselves on our cushions! At dusk, our candles were lit and the opera started. I don't know how I was able to keep breathing, the music, the singing, the atmosphere was over whelming, a-maz-ing!!

We hadn't realized till the interval that the row, where we were sitting was the cross row where people tripped along to get to both sides. In the interval there were lithe young Italians men in very short shorts with their backs to us, to balance on the step, crossing in front of us, each selling food, snacks and drinks. That was an experience in itself, I had some sort of meat in rustic pastry covering and a long drink. Ros nibbled a biscuit! What an experience, we were flabbergasted, there we were two middle aged ladies and these young scantily dressed Italians practically dancing back and fro in front of us! The opera was fantastic, Puccini is my favourite of all composers and the music makes my heart weep in sheer enjoyment.

I'll never go again, but that trip has lasted me all my life, I can still feel the excitement each time I hear 'Your tiny hand is Frozen.'

It was the trip of a life time.

Chrisxx