With Valentine's Day soon approaching, I can't help but get nostalgic over our honeymoon in Italy last year. Italy was by far one of the most romantic countries that I had visited and Verona - a quaint little city in Northern Italy, was like the icing on our perfect little cake of a trip. Going to Verona was like taking a plunge into the old world charm of the medieval and renaissance era. As Shakespear's famous verses in Romeo and Juliet go… There is no world without Verona walls, But purogatory, torture, hell itself. This surprisingly, was the first impression we got when we got out of our train and entered the walled city.
Verona was; I guess, the only city on our honeymoon for which I didn't have a looong and extensive list of "must visit" places and things to do. My limited knowledge of the city only included that it was here where the tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet was based and the house that Juliet grew up in still existed here. After checking into our hotel we decided to explore the city by ourselves on foot.
We walked towards the city centre and our first stop was at the Arena - the third largest amphitheatre in Italy. It is a magnificent piece of architecture that can hold around 15,000 spectators and is still used as an Opera House in summer. Around the Arena were various out-door cafes and restaurants where one could sit and watch the world go by. However, I was restless to get to Juliet's house. We continued wandering through the tiny (designer shop lined) streets that led towards her house. There was no need for us to stop and ask for directions as hordes of tourists and lovers alike were leading the way for us.
As we entered Juliet's 12th century house on 27 Via Capello, I couldn't contain my excitement. A bronze statue of Juliet stood proudly in the court yard oblivious to all the hustle and bustle around her. If you notice the picture that I have posted below carefully her right breast is super shiny as compared to the left one. This is from years of gentle rubbing and polishing which it receives from thousands of visitors everyday. Apparently, legend goes that rubbing Juliet's right breast brings good fortune to lovers.
We entered the house and eagerly paid our entry fee to go up to the balcony of love - the balcony where Juliet stood every night waiting for her lover Romeo. As I looked down from the balcony, I couldn't see my Romeo (he was down there somewhere trying to get a good picture of me) but instead saw hordes of noisy tourists below! And yet I couldn't contain my joy for having stood in the same balcony where the most famous lovers in history secretly rendezvous-ed. After having my hubby Bhavin take almost a dozen pictures of me standing there in the balcony, we finally toured the rest of the house which contained 16th and 17th century furniture and frescoes all related to the Romeo and Juliet love saga.
At the end of our tour we somehow managed to wriggle out from the now packed house. Towards the exit we saw two walls opposite one another inscribed all over with love notes and messages from visitors. It was a tradition of sorts to write a note of love for your loved one, and always up for keeping up with good ol' traditions, we gladly obliged.
We shopped our way back to Piazza Delle Erbe and decided to plonk at one of the many cafes in front of the Arena. Everywhere around us we saw a lot of people with bright orange drinks in their hands. Upon asking our friendly waiter, we found out that these fizzy pop like coolers were Italian apertifs and were called Aperols.
There we sat, at the cafe talking about ironical facts like how the Capulet house had not even been built when Shakespeare's play was written and how had never visited Verona in his entire life and still how Juliet's balcony in the managed to attract millions of hopeless romantics every year to visit these "supposedly" historical site. We talked about couples willing to shell out hundreds of Euros just to stand in Juliet's balcony and take their wedding vows!
And then, as the sun set, both of us stopped talking. We sat there in silence, people watching and gazing at the Arena a washed in warm golden lights. Whilst we marvelled at this beautiful city, we instinctively realized that certain trivial facts were best left for historians. And for commoners like us - Verona would always symbolize old world romance and an Until death do us apart kind of love.
{All photographs in this post are my own and not available for any type of personal or professional use.}
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