After some
research, we decided to visit a little town in northern Italy called Verona for
a day on our slow journey back to Munich. Verona is the little Italian town
where Shakespear set his play Romeo and Juliette. Verona has a number of other
unique attractions but their biggest drawcard for tourism appears to be Romeo
and Juliette.
Strangely
enough, this isn't what drew us to Verona, we were much more interested in the
Verona Arena. The Verona Arena is very similar to The Colosseum in Rome, just
on a much smaller scale and in much better condition. The people of Verona have
kept the Arena in very good condition and it is still used today for Operas and
Stage Plays. It was built at about the same time as the Colosseum so it's
almost 2000 years old as well. Although much smaller than the Colosseum it is
quite a bit more plush as all the marble in the building has not been pillaged,
unlike the Colosseum where almost all the marble was taken and used in other
buildings. I would imagine the Colosseum would have looked much more like the
Verona Arena in it's heyday, just on a much grander scale.
The other
major draw card for us at Verona was the Lamberti Tower. This is an enormous
bell tower in the middle of the old part of town. After jumping in an elevator
and heading up about a hundred meters you have a perfect 360 degree view of
Verona. Even Mariya with her extreme fear of heights was keen to head up the
tower and check out Verona from the air. Once up there though, it was different
matter, it's very high when you're up there! We got a stack of great photos and
the view is amazing, with a view of the skyline adorned with old buildings,
churches, bell towers and castles. Make sure you check out the photos on
Mariyas Facebook.
One of the
best things we stumbled on to in Verona was their Italian food markets! Now
this is the Italian food they should be advertising! There were hundreds of
food stalls with so much awesome food. Arancini, Cannoli, cheeses, sausages of
all types, wines, risottos, seafood, donuts and pastries, the list just goes on
and on. We wanted to taste it all and the selection was mind boggling. Between
us we tried arancini, candied lemon peel, bratwurst and cannoli. The food at
the Markets is amazing and this is the produce that the Italians should be
advertising to the world!
Verona is
disturbingly attached to Romeo and Juliette. With so many other amazing
drawcards, I'm not sure why they're drawn so vehemently to Romeo and Juliette
as their premier attraction, but they really are. Romeo and Juliette is
everywhere you look; cafes, restaurants, signposts, tourist paraphernalia,
anything you can put a name to probably has a Romeo and Juliette added to the
name somewhere. It's a bit overboard but clearly they're big fans. Needless to
say, there are various "attractions" in Verona like Juliette's
Balcony, Romeo's house, Juliette's tomb, and the list goes on. We had no
problems finding the Juliette attractions, they're very well signed and big
signposts lead you to their destinations. Poor Romeo, on the other hand,
doesn't get anywhere near as much love. There were no directions to any of
Romeo's attractions and after looking for awhile for Romeo's house we
eventually gave up. Mariya and I initially thought that maybe Romeo and
Juliette was based on real people due to the Verona people and their piety to
story with monuments and attractions aplenty. Turns out it's not and the
Verona-ians (that's a word right?) are just disturbingly attached to this
fictional story.
With all of
the sights and sounds of Verona seen in the afternoon of the day we arrived, we
decided to head back to the hotel and organise our next, small, pre-Munich trip
to a tiny little hamlet town in southern Bavaria (called Bayern in German)
called Garmisch-Partenkirchen. What treasures would we find in the far south of
Germany for a day or two before heading on to Munich to complete our Amazing
European Adventure? You'll have to find out in the next blog post my avid blog
digesters! Seeya then!
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