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Another easy, hassle free trip. The hotel recommendation was just perfect for our needs. Thanks Eric and the DialAFlight team.
I am always pleased with the wonderful service
The whole trip went well - very happy with your work and organising
Tara was amazingly helpful all the way through. Great experience. So a big thank you to her.
Nicole is brilliant.
As always, a great service with competitive prices. Good customer service. Would not book on the net as DialAFlight took all the stress out and were cheaper!
Three different airports in one day was daunting but thanks to DialAFlight and Gino Lamonby it was painless. Very happy
Jarvis excellent as always.
We found Hotel Mascagni in Rome near the Rome Termini train station an excellent recommendation. Would stay there again
Thanks to you, our trip to Rome and Venice was memorable for all the right reasons. Rest assured, we have no intention to use any other company because you think of everything.
Orlando is a star.
Another well executed holiday ran smoothly.
Felt that we were really looked after by our rep. We had emails and a phone call checking we had successfully completed API and check-in.
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Very good communication. Have used DialAFlight before and will definitely use them again.
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Excellent service, and bacon butty on board was so good
Other than the initial glitch with the check in link everything worked wonderfully plus excellent communication.
Michelle Dooler continues to deliver our dream holidays, total legend
The past 3 years have been difficult but Brody at DialAFlight went above and beyond in helping us to get through an unusual time. We had 2 cancelled cruises, through no fault of our own but we managed to get a few days break in Rome and a hotel recommendation which was superb. I would highly recommend this company and particularly Brody (I am sure all your advisors are great) and we will certainly be back to book another holiday.
Everything ran smoothly. Sorrento was excellent but I wouldn't recommend Naples
You delivered again which is good to see.
Very helpful personalised service.
Amelia is fantastically helpful and most professional. She is one in a million
As always, great, friendly service. I always recommend you to friends.
Wonderful.
Very helpful nat all times - have always provided us with what we need for our trips
Absolutely brilliant selection of hotels selected by Trevor. Thank you.
An excellent holiday, with good liaison with Philippa. Lovely hotel in Florence in a super location. If hiring a car, please ask if we want automatic or manual. I was expecting an automatic!
My very first mistake is to arrive in Verona with two men. One is tall, dark and handsome.The other is fair, with mesmerising green eyes.
'Which will you choose?' winks a lady at the elegant Hotel Colomba D'Oro as we check in. I smile hopelessly at my two gentlemen of Verona, and in unison we declare that we are all just friends. They look rather too relieved for my liking.
By the time Lucy, the fourth member of our party, arrives, I have protested my singleness to half a dozen passers-by. One sends me straight to the House of Juliet, of Shakespeare fame. There is no Romeo waiting for me beneath the balcony (a delicious 20th-century addition to the medieval building), but there is a wall of love notes and romantic wishes.
To write or not to write? I opt instead to make for Juliet's statue. Rub her right breast, they say, and you will be lucky in love. Before I can reach her, I am shoved out of the way by a throng of wedding guests. A beaming bride and groom have appeared on the balcony overhead.
We leave the fray and head for dinner. Verona's specialities are donkey ragu and hearty horse stew. I order risotto. Across the square from our table at Antico Caffe Dante an orchestra plays on a loggia.
After a bottle of Valpolicella, we are glad we have travelled with an empty suitcase - and have space to take some supplies home. The next day, we stock up at a charming wine shop called Signorvino.
NEON LIGHTS
In the last of the evening light, the four of us head over to Piazza delle Erbe via the so-called 'Arch of the Rib'. You could easily miss it, but if you gaze skywards you will see a mighty whale rib dangling precariously above from the middle of the arch.
Legend has it that the bone will fall on the first honest person to pass beneath. Deciding that impalement is no reward for virtue, we are glad to be exposed as hucksters.
During the day, Piazza delle Erbe is Verona's main market square. Stalls selling watermelon and strawberries, sunflowers and Venetian masks stand in the shade of enormous cream parasols. At night, there is more room in which to appreciate the palaces which surround them.
Before the Venetians took over in 1405, the most prominent family in Verona had been the Scaliger. Many buildings were raised in their honour, then redecorated during the Renaissance.
The facade of one, Casa Mazzanti, is adorned with the kind of frescoes you'd sooner associate with a Renaissance interior. Statues of Roman gods, meanwhile, peer down from the gorgeous Palazzo Maffei at the piazza's north end.
In fact, it is hard to avoid the Romans in Verona. Mesmerised by its ancient gates, we venture the next morning to the Arena. It is even older than Rome's Colosseum.
We are too early for the opera, which is performed here in the summer months, but not in the sun. After a few minutes sitting here, we are already developing a Donald Trump glow.
CITY OF LOVE
Originally, I visited Verona to research a book on Catullus, the erotic Latin poet who grew up here. Verona's airport, Valerio Catullo, proudly bears his name. Juliet Capulet may be Verona's most famous star-crossed lover, but Catullus was its first.
Remembering how Catullus despaired in his relationships, 'I hate and I love', I reach the conclusion that Verona isn't a city of love at all. From my lonely seat in the Arena, I resolve to rechristen it the (exceedingly beautiful) city of heartbreak.
On our last night, I realise that I have lost my notebook. I run through all the places we have visited that day. Did I leave it in the hills beyond the River Adige, where we went for a thigh-bruising walk? Or at Museo di Castelvecchio, among all the paintings by Bellini and Pisanello?
Finally, I return to the bar where we had enjoyed our aperitivi: Aperol Spritz all round. Inside, I find the jolly, pot-bellied owner waving my battered book.
'I thought you would come back for it,' he says. 'You are a writer. And you are very beautiful.' He may be no Romeo Montague, but he's better than a whalebone through the heart.
*Daisy Dunn's book, Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet, is published by William Collins, £9.99.
First published in the Daily Mail - April 2017
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