Verona the beautiful

Thursday begins again, a tiny bit later than originally anticipated. Then, Navigon sends us to the wrong train station... it was a lovely side trip though! It was on this little detour that I got to see Vicenza for the first time and decided it was just lovely enough I'd need to investigate further. We make it to the Vicenza train station and the girls get their tickets to Florence, then we head on to Verona. The trip to Verona is much less eventful than the trip to Venice and we arrive pretty quickly with almost no trouble finding the parking garage we found online the night before.

Pretty nice parking garage, huh? If I had known this fountain was here, I would have brought spare clothes for Felix and let him cool off after walking all day. Good to know for next time! Off to enjoy the sights and sounds and smells of Verona. The sights are immediately present... walking out of the parking garage, the city is like all the other places I've seen here so far: a mixture of old and new with tons of color thrown in for good measure. Then you walk through a little archway and see what looks like a castle wall and you know you're in a place you'll love forever. It's beautiful. Of course, the weather cooperated so the positive demeanor of the people around us helped with the general happiness of being there, but it really is just a beautiful place to be. Almost immediately we are facing the Arena, which gets Felix all excited. We backtrack a bit looking for maps and find little one-page layouts in a hotel lobby. Excellent future scrapbooking material! We head back across toward the Arena and find an Egyptian display in the square. I go to take pictures and we find ourselves posing with Antony and Cleopatra in front of the Sphinx... es.

Then we attempt to determine our game plan for the city. Naturally, we want to do the whole Romeo and Juliet thing. There's also the Arena, which we know is a must for the munchkin and a basilica or two. Today turns out to be the separation day. We wind up several times missing people from the crew because of wandering while looking at things and not keeping a clear line of sight on one another. Fortunately, three of the five of us are familiar with their surroundings. Felix and I just had to be sure to stay in contact with one of the other three at all times! Our first priority, being that we got a late start, was food. We walked past many excellent (and expensive!) shopping opportunities, some interesting people who were pretending to be anything other than themselves and some of the most beautifully kept balconies I've ever seen. We stopped in a little market area where I picked up my souvenir shot glass and a sandwich for Felix. Around this time we got separated in the crowd and I started searching for people I knew. Fortunately, we all wound up in the same little sandwich shop and had lunch there (well, Felix had gelato...) then we headed on to Juliet's house.

If you don't know what you're looking for and it happens to be crowded, you will walk right past it. There is an arched entryway with a small sign above it announcing it as the house belonging to the Capulets from whom the famous Juliet came. It kinda looks a little trashy because of the graffiti on the walls. Not everyone who walks through it writes their name on it, but it is safe to say that a large percentage of them do! Then you walk into a small courtyard where the statue of Juliet is and people are lined up to take a picture with their hands on her heart. It's very calm and orderly and naturally, it's pretty. There are locks everywhere: on the gate behind the statue, on bars poking out from walls, even on a bridge we cross later in the day. Apparently, the idea is to lock your love in place and throw away the key. Knowing the value of a good lock, I cannot bring myself to do this little symbolic gesture and I make jokes about leaving a combination lock and coming back for it later. Above us is the balcony. Yes, it's smaller than one would expect (even being forewarned) but it's still nice to see it and take pictures, of course! Then there is the actual home to tour... so we do. It's a pretty big house. I certainly wouldn't mind having the square footage, but I think the stairs would quite literally kill me. There is art on display everywhere and they have stations set up to leave letters for Juliet (emails also!) so Felix sends her an email in addition to the letter he left in the basket behind the statue. The views of the city are progressively more breathtaking with each level climbed. I really like the architecture here, but that's probably just because I'm a sucker for old stuff... it kinda makes me feel like a part of history. From the highest level in the house, we have an excellent view of the castle I want to come back and visit. The landscaping is pretty cool (looks like that Walmart picture I have!) and appeals to me greatly. We spent more time than I expected inside, but when we left I knew I could have stayed there much longer. Across the courtyard are (of course!) gift shops... Felix wanted a couple items, so we got a castle and a snow globe. Then we went up to see the "Letters to Juliet" room. It's inside a little sports store and Felix was freaked out by the mannequins' eyes. We left our marks in a book for visitors, then moved on to see a couple basilicas... ok, I saw one and had to sit outside one because I didn't have appropriate sleeves. Whoops. Next time, for sure!! I took entirely too many pictures on this trip and I'm keeping all of them because I feel creativity pouring out of me here. This will be no mere photo album or even a traditional scrapbook. I only hope I can do this place justice!!

Everything seems to run together here and I think it's because of all the walking. Once you leave the car behind, you're just moving from place to place in a smoothly transitioning sort of way... it's not like getting in the car and driving to this place and taking pictures and getting back into the car and driving to the next place... doing it that way has definite breaks in the pattern so you can easily differentiate between points of interest. Walking the city means walking the city. You start at the parking garage and you end at the parking garage, but everything in between just kinda flows... from information desk to open square to admiring the Arena to walking the road full of shops to the little marketplace to the cafe to Juliet's house to the one little church to one massive church to one slightly less massive church then - oh yea! - we wound up on a bridge with excellent views of the castle (next visit I'll make sure to get the name right so I can blog it properly!) and more locks to make jokes about. 

We return to the square in front of the Arena and arrange our meeting point because the girls are not interested in the Arena again, but Felix will probably lose his ever-loving mind if I don't take him into it. We are not disappointed. It's big, and broken. Hahaha!! It's set up for a performance, I think. There are fake fruit trees in the main entryway and the stage has what looks like a hedge labyrinth with giant roses. When we walk in there are two tours happening: a German one on our left and a French one on our right. It's an interesting language mix to listen to and I was excited to understand a little from each side. Felix and I wander on our own through the one long hallway. Felix likes to run up and down the stairs leading into the theater and pretends to be participating in some kind of ancient Roman battle. He's also happy to realize that he can reach the ceiling on his way in... guess he's growing up after all! After exploring the Arena (where my camera dies), we meet up at the statue and head back home. I am quite happy to have visited Verona the Beautiful and can't wait to come back!