Such a busy day today, with another early start too! Woke up at 7:30 so I could grab some breakfast with Christine and catch the 9:00 train to Brescia. At Brescia I changed trains and was on my way to Verona.
I picked up a Verona Card that lets you into museums all over the town for 15 euros and headed into the center of town. My first stop was the Tomba de Giulietta. Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona so there are lots of references to them and museums in the city. Although they are not real people the Capulets and Montagues were; although, they’re called the Capellos and Montecchis in Italy. The museum itself had a lot of artwork and sculptures. At the end you go down into a dank cave like area and to Juliet’s tomb.
After the tomb, I made my way towards the Arena, which is like the coliseum, but smaller—still very impressive though. Also like the coliseum, there were street performers dressed as gladiators.
Parts of the inside have been retrofitted with stadium seating for performances. They were building a set with large picture frames. I’m not sure what the performance was going to be, but it looked pretty cool.
I left the Arena and headed towards the Casa di Giulietta. Once again, I found myself horribly lost. I also had a map this time so I was confused as well. I noticed that Verona has fewer signs pointing you towards the historic sites which makes it more difficult to find them. I knew I was in the right area and essentially circled the square just past where the house actually was.
It was around lunch time and it was starting to pour again so I stopped for lunch to try to figure out where I was. Pizza with a thin crust that doesn’t taste like cardboard is so awesome. It’s chewy and delicious with just enough crisp on the bottom. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch.
My mission to find Juliet’s house continued after lunch. It turns out I had walked right past it on a different street completely unaware. At any rate, I finally found it and saw the infamous balcony where Romeo and Juliet profess their love to each other.
The house has a ton of floors with various pieces of art and household items. In one of the rooms you can write a letter to Juliet on a crazy desk that was specially designed for the house. It is called “Juliet’s writing desk” and was styled by the artist to look old and fit the theme of the world Shakespeare created.
Across from the balcony there is a terrace that has something called the Love Stone Project. The floor is tiled and you can buy a tile to engrave with you and your loved one to be placed on the floor. I thought it was kind of a cool idea. Most of the floor is still available but here are some of the replaced tiles.
From Juliet’s house I walked past the Arche Scaligeri which are these crazy gothic funeral monuments. They were very elaborate. I think I might demand something like that to be put on top of my grave site.
The next stop on my journey was the Chiesa di Santa Anastasia, or Church of Saint Anastasia; another impressive church with a really pretty gilded organ and beautifully painted ceilings.
Then, on to the Duomo! I really liked the outside of this Duomo because it’s striped red and white. It’s so different than any that I’ve seen before.
Here’s a shot of the ceiling right above the altar.
To get to my next stop, the Teatro Romano e Museo Archeologico, I had to cross a bridge over the River Adige. The Roman Theatre is another carved amphitheater that has been partially retrofitted. There was a dance troupe rehearsing for a performance on stage. A lot of their music was Queen, which I thought was kind of interesting, but I didn’t know what the performance was. It kind of looked like a recital of different classes of students, but I couldn’t be sure. It was still fun to watch. (I don't know why this picture keeps loading sideways, but I'll try to get it fixed later.)
To get to the museum I had to climb a bunch of crumbling stone steps with pathways that twisted and turned. At the top though, I had a beautiful view of the city.
Inside the museum were a lot of excavated sculptures and even a sphinx statue that they believe lined the rows of the theatre. Only one had been restored, but pieces of at least six others have been found.
I climbed back down and in the direction of my next site, the Castelvecchio; another old castle with lots of paintings of Jesus, the Madonna, and many other saints.
At this castle, you are actually allowed to go up to the walkways and wander around.
From them, there is another great view of the river and the rest of the city.
After the Castelvecchio I was completely exhausted. My body is starting to fight back against being constantly on my feet all day. I walked back to the train station and headed to Vicenza, my next stop around the Venetian Arc.
In Vicenza, I met up with Maria, a very nice young woman who I’ll be staying with until Monday morning. She has a very nice little apartment with a futon for me. She loves Greenday, has posters of the Simpsons in her kitchen, and has pink toilet paper (I’ve never seen colored toilet paper so this was fascinating to me and she didn’t really understand why I thought it was so cool. We grabbed some dinner at Spaghetteria di Fiore and we each had gnocchi. We split two different types so I had asiago with speck and something else that I’m not quite sure what it was, but it was still tasty.
One of her friends, Marco, met up with us and we went into the center of town to find ice cream. Marco is very funny, he dreams of one day going to California. We wandered around Vicenza and stopped at a bridge with a pretty view of the river. Another one of Maria’s friends met up with us, Giorgio, and we continued walking around the city and talking.
It was getting late so we headed home and now it’s time for sleep!
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