Verona is a very cute little place. I'm not sure that I loved it as much as the Lonely Planet book told me I should. I really did love it, and it's not that there was really much wrong with it, just that it wasn't my favourite we saw on our trip. I enjoyed the sites more than I expected to though.
We read some reviews online before going that told us that Julliet's house was a waste of time. This made me sad. That (and the fact that we have a niece named Verona) was the main reason I wanted to go. I love Shakespeare, and while I think that Romeo and Julliet might be one of the sillier and less enjoyable of his plays, I still really wanted to see his inspiration for it. So we made the trip anyway, and I did not regret it. Some of the things in the reviews we read turned out to be true, but I loved it anyway. It was like Disney Land for me. I had so much fun seeing the costumes and bed from the movie (the old one, not that really random one with Leonardo), and reading the stories and letters, and all of that stuff. I was disappointed to see that the wall no longer has letters stuck on it, as it's portrayed in the movie Letters to Juilliet, and how it used to be. It is actually just a wall completely full of graffiti. Cute graffiti, as far as I can see; but just so much of it that it's a little overwhelming. I still enjoyed writing my own tiny contribution on it though. And Eric did too.
Even though it's become completely commercialized and bombarded with tourists, I still managed to think some romantic thoughts, and enjoy the atmosphere. I felt a little goofy getting so wrapped up in the idea, but hey that's what love does to you sometimes.
e:
It’s
outstanding how connected all of the countries are by rail. Since Katherine and
I got Eurail passes, giving us unlimited access to all regional trains in
Europe (except for England) for two months, we are becoming rather familiar
with these chew chew train. At times,
however, mastering transportation on tracks is a challenge rivaling the hunt of
finding solutions to global warming. Starting our stay in Verona was less than
romantic or inspiring. We got to the station that we needed to get to and then
we had no idea how to get to our hotel. We have a map and direction
complementary of Google maps, but we lost it when we tried to zoom in. It was
the start of a long a hopeless search for our hotel.
I
tried asking for direction from some two locals. I’d bet they gave near perfect
direction in Italian. I almost understood with the amount of hand gestures
these strangers gave. I’m a man and thought that I could figure it out, but my eager
search was more like wandering in an intentional direction. Eventually I was
had to resort to another attempt at translating hand gestures and I asked a
couple in a car if they knew where our hotel was. Again they knew no English.
As I struggled to communicate, a man walked by who knew English. He stopped and
then offered to drive us to the hotel. What a good guy. At one point we were
eyeing comfy spots on the street and the next we were rolling right up to the
hotel’s front door.
The rest of Verona was a piece of cake… or a
scoop of gelato. I thoroughly enjoyed Verona. I think the highlight was the
winding stone roads, and their mini version of the Roman’s Colosseum.
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