Verona

Saturday was fantastic because we went to Verona, just the ten of us. We caught the train from Venice to Verona, it was about a two hour tour ride, which is quicker than driving to Purdue, so that wasn’t bad. Public transportation in Italy interests me because unlike in America where we take our “space bubble” seriously, Italians, and Europeans in general, don’t seem as worried about being near strangers, as evidenced by the fact that on the train, people would just drop into any open seat, not seeming to mind that they did not know the other people seated there.

When we arrived in Verona, we were all starving, so we went to a pizzeria where the pizza was excellent. The restaurant was interestingly Americanized, but the food and service were good. Then, we split up into groups just depending on what people wanted to see and just wandered around the city. I spent most of the day with Audrey, Stephanie, Elyse, and Lizzie. We checked out a couple of shops and then went to Juliet’s house, because Verona is famous, of course, for being the city in which Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is set. Even though Romeo and Juliet were not real people, there are houses set up which are called their houses. It’s mostly a tourist thing, but it was still cool to go into Juliet’s house, because somebody had lived here and it was a really neat place. You could take a picture standing on “Juliet’s balcony” and also touch the statue of Juliet and take pictures with it, which exacerbated the tourist feel of the place because it reduced Shakespeare to something more ribald even than what he is, as people flocked to the statue and grabbed Juliet’s boob. At Juliet’s house, we also got the Verona Day Pass, which lets you get into certain museums and churches and places for a lot cheaper than paying individually at each place. It was a great deal because then we could just go down the list and go to places that were on our cards.

After Juliet’s house we decided to go to Chiesa di S. Anastasia, which is the Church of Saint Anastasia. It was incredible. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but the inside is literally breathtaking. Pictures don’t do it justice. I felt that the entire trip was worth it just to be inside that church, it was that beautiful. I did have some trouble deciding exactly what kind of style the church was in, though, because from the outside I would be tempted to say Gothic, but on the inside, what it really made me think of was Victorian, because of the painted ceiling. Whatever the style, in my opinion, it was the most beautiful church I have ever been inside.

Unfortunately, because we only had a few hours and a lot to do, we couldn’t stay long. We ran into the rest of the group who told us we should climb the Torre dei Lamberti, which is the tallest bell-tower in Verona. So we did. What the rest of the group forgot to mention to us is that there are 368 steps to climb. There is an elevator that will take you up for one euro but we decided to save the euro and climb, knowing that it was pretty high but not realizing that it was 368 steep steps worth of high. We managed to make it to the top, though, and the view was incredible. The entire city of Verona was spread out around the foot of the tower and after that were the hills of northern Italy, dotted here and there by little towns, farms, and churches perched on the tops of the hills.

After we made it down from the tower, we went to the Arena. This is a Roman amphitheatre which was built in 30 AD and is the third largest in Italy after the Colosseum and an arena at Capua (thank you, Wikipedia!). It was very cool, especially since it is actually still used for performances. It ruined the effect a little bit to have the modern seats in there that resembled seats at Great American Ball Park, but it was still a great place. Even though we were still worn out from climbing the stairs at the tower, we climbed the seats up to the top of the old original part and looked out over the top onto Verona again. There was also a great view of the Arena from the top looking down into it. It was probably my second favorite place that we went to, just for the history behind it and the fact that it is still used today for performances.

After the Arena, there was just time to stop for gelato before we had to meet up with the rest of the group. Then, back to the train station and on our way home to Venice. It was a truly enjoyable day though, and I’m so glad we got the chance to go.