AlbertBeale
Established Member
Yes indeed - and I've seen and enjoyed Aida in Verona and Simon Boccanegra in Naples, and listened to a lot of Rossini, Donizetti and Verdi operas in Italian.
But 19th century operatic phrases don't help much when you are trying to find out why the town bus outside Catania Centrale has failed to arrive.
It's as much about the information on offer (ie the local PIS) as the language.
Northern countries seem to have much better train/bus timetable and running information than Italy.
I share the frustration about frequently lacking bus information in Italy; however, I've generally found that however old and tattered a timetable on a bus stop is, if there is a timetable, then the buses normally run more or less as it says. Even in Sicily.
I was once trying to leave Chioggia, and found a bus stop by the quayside giving a timetable for journeys to Venice; I went to the booth and bought a ticket. A few minutes later, no bus, but a boat arrived alongside the stop. Turned out that the No 27 [or whatever it was] bus (as I assumed) to Venice was, initially, a boat; then it reaches an island where you transfer to a bus; then that bus, at the end of the island, itself drives onto a bigger boat to get to the next island, where the bus continues on. The end result is that, via such mixed modes of transport, you end up arriving on one of the islands on the seaward side of the Venice lagoon. All for the price of an inexpensive "bus" ticket.
Re opera performances in Italy - the only time I've been to one in that country was in the Verona arena ... quite an experience.
