From Milan Katrina and I ventured off to Verona. Which was a few hours train away. We had seats this time unlike our experiences from Madrid to Cadiz. So it was another well deserved rejuvenation in the train.
After a short bus ride from the main station and walking through the streets to find our Bed & Breakfast, Verona was quite a nice little town. Cobble brick roads, although they add to the attraction of a traditional authentic European city begin to become a nightmare when you're wheeling a suitcase around. Especially when temperatures begin to increase to 30 Degress upwards.
In the little romantic town of Verona, Katrina and I began to hit the typical tourist sites Paparazzi style. Our first site was the Grand Gladiator Colosseum well the 'Wannabe' version the Rome counterpart. Was still quite exciting to see particularly knowing that you're walking through the cellars where Gladiators once stood. The stadium is still used in concerts today and while we were there they were actually making a stadium for a large Romeo and Juliette theatrical experience.
Using our 'What to See' guides that come in every hostel or bed and breakfast we continued on with our site seeing tour... we got lost and lost again. But eventually found our way. After seeing more sites, Verona was soon to become one of my favoured Italian cities. It was the first time in long time where I actually felt safe and comfortable walking through the town without feeling the threat of being pick pocketed or scammed. If you've ever been in Europe you know that's rare in Italy.
One of the fascinating things that I didn't know about Verona until I arrived here was that this is the birth place of Romeo and Juliette's timeless tale. We even had the privilege of visiting Juliette's house which is one of the primary highlights of the town. The entrance to the house is draped in poetic love notes, quotes, and devotion to each other written by other people. There are so many notes written on the wall that you there's no room to see the paint at all. Including the roof and floor of the entrance. Begins to look quite artistic after a while.
Juliette's house was quite exciting to experience as they showcased costumes used in films, written quotations, the families history all over the household. There's a tribute scultpure in the courtyard that also houses an interesting tradition whereby if you hold Juliette's boob on the scultpure supposedly it brings good luck. I think a male must have thought about that one. If it were a real boob then that would have brought much more good luck.
After seeing Juliette's house Katrina and I were extremely interested to see Romeo's house... which was nothing. A plaque on the wall that was it.
Again one of the highlights of a European city is a castle/museum, which Katrina and I went to see. By the end of the day we were actually too tired to even care what was in the castle and kind of walked through it. One of the things that did interest me on the way was the fast river that ripped through the city with bright aqua green colour. The colour of this river was breathtaking and I couldn't understand where the water was going to so fast and where it all came from.
The city of Verona was very nice as we spent the night there. I wasn't quite interested in staying here originally but after Katrina insisted I'm very glad we did as it was one of the better experienes we had in Italy. The night was even capped off with Euro 2008. Can't remember who played but I did remember standing outside of a bar for 30min watching it on the wide screen. I didn't want to sit inside the bar as we would of had to pay. For some reason all Italian restaurants and bars charge for people to sit down. Not sure what it is but I found that in Italy they try to get as much money out of you as they can. Don't know if its a greed thing or what but restaurants and bards should be glad that people are actually coming to their place to eat and drink not charging them for every cent that they're worth.
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