Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Fact:
By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

I'm not a Shakespeare fan.

There. I said it.

Now, hate me if you must. I understand it's important, great literature, yadda yadda. I was forced to read it multiple times throughout my high school career, each time thinking I'd magically become one of those people who adores Shakespeare and I'd maybe even read it for fun, or to voluntarily expand my literary knowledge. That never happened. It was all I could do to suffer through those English classes, the ones where we'd each pick a part and together we'd read the play outloud. I didn't mind reading outloud. But when it was Shakespeare, I honestly had no clue what I was reading. I don't understand the language. I don't even think it sounds pretty. If I ever have to read Shakespeare again, I'm going to rip my hair out; it's that bad. (I'd rank it right up there with the Odyssey on the Literature-I-Can't-Stand list. Luckily it's still very possible to get A's in every English class without truly appreciating what we read.)

That being said, I like the idea of Shakespeare. I like the idea of romantic love stories and violent tragedies and dramatic hullabaloo. And I like the story of Romeo and Juliet, but not the way it's written. So as much as I despise sorting through the dialogue, I was excited to visit the hometown of Romeo and Juliet and see Juliet's house and tomb. Even though it can't really be the hometown or the house or the tomb, because Romeo and Juliet weren't real, which leads me to question my sanity when I consider going all the way there for some fictional characters I don't even care that much about. Oh well.

And so it was that Meghan and I woke up at 4am, just when most people our age studying here in Italy are crawling into bed, and we got ready for a very long day. We left the apartment at 5:15, walked to the train station, and bought our tickets from Florence to Prato, and Prato to Bologna. (The reason we had to leave so early is entirely our thriftiness. There are plenty of much faster trains at a reasonable hour and with fewer connections, but they cost three times as much.) Our first train left at 5:41. We barely caught the second one in Prato. In Bologna, we had plenty of time. We enjoyed chocolate-filled pastries and cappuccinos before the third train, and we arrived in Verona before 10am.

Instead of buying bus tickets to take us from the train station to the city center (again, saving money here), we walked. It was only a 15 minute walk and the weather was very nice: warm when we were in the sun, cool when we were in the shade. We purchased Verona Cards from the Tourist Info place when we got into town. These cards get you into all the main Verona attractions, and they're a really good deal if you're planning on going to at least a few different things.

First, we went to the Roman Arena. It's the third largest ampitheater in the Roman world, dating from the first century AD. It can hold 25,000 people, and was the sight of Roman gladiator battles and medieval executions. We climbed to the top for a good view.

It was huge!

After a walk through the town, we found the house of Juliet. The main attraction is the courtyard. It's small and crowded with tourists. There's a balcony and a statue of Juliet. It's a tradition to rub the breast of Juliet's statue to help you find a lover. We took pictures doing that. (We had to wait for an enormous group of high school boys to finish their Juliet Breast Pictures- geez, how many do you really need?) Then we went into the museum. It's not very exciting; we only went because it was included in the pass, but we got to stand on the balcony!

Lunch time. We headed to Pizzeria Du de Cope, because Rick Steves said the locals consider it to have the best pizza in town. Except, I didn't get pizza. I wanted a huge salad: lettuce, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, olives, capers, tuna, and anchovies (which I picked right off). It also came with some delicious, warm pieces of bread. Dressed with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, it was just what I was craving.

Lunch

After lunch, Meghan and I went to the Church of Sant'Anastasia. Inside, it's amazing.

Gorgeous

We walked to the river and crossed the bridge and found the Roman Theater.

Roman Theater

Then we went back across and visited the duomo.

Duomo

Our next stop was the Torre dei Lamberti (a tower). We went to the top. Since we were trying to hurry, we took the elevator up the first 245 steps. There were still about a hundred more steps after that, though. The view was nice, but not as impressive as Siena's tower view.

There was a huge bakery we had passed in the morning. We had no choice but to go back for an afternoon snack, since we were passing by again anyway on our way to Castelvecchio. I got some strudel. Meghan got a fruit-tart thing, but then she saw what I had and got some strudel, too. (I'm a great influence on people.) We walked back to the first square and sat on a bench by a fountain while we enjoyed our treat. I thought it was just apples inside. But it was apples, and white raisins, and pine nuts, and it was sweet but not overly sweet. It was just perfect. I want to make something like it sometime.

The Top

The. . . corner

The Side

Please don't question whether it's necessary that I show you 3 different views of my pastry.

It is.

Our last stops were a castle (which was cool, but not as cool as I was expecting, so it was a bit disappointing) and Juliet's tomb.

Tomb of a Fictional Character

Juliet's tomb is pretty far from everything else. We walked there as fast as we could, took some pictures, and then tried to make it to the train station as fast as possible. It worked out perfectly. We ran to the 4:26 train, walked as fast as possible to our second train in Prato, and happened to make a train to Florence right away, because it was running late. We got home before 8. My feet felt like they were going to fall off, they hurt so bad from walking so much all day.

There was a lot more to do in Verona than we thought. We only got to about half of the things covered on the Verona Card. It was a full, but very fun day.

Me and Meghan by the river!