Tour of Verona (Image Heavy!)

Ciao, everyone!

As most of you have seen or heard, I took a trip to Verona on Sunday, April 6^th and spent the entire day wandering the city and snapping pictures. (In fourteen hours I had taken three hundred and fifty-three pictures, which equates to about one picture every two and a half minutes.) Needless to say, I was wiped out when I got home and I’m still feeling the effects of the intense walking multiplied by the strong sun and long day. Is travel-hangover a thing?

Much to my glee, at about 7:30am I found out we were riding on double decker charter buses from Milan to Verona, so we were definitely rolling in style. I made sure to get a seat on the upper story, naturally. This greatly altered the usual perspective I would have had as we zoomed down the freeway.

During the two and a half hour trip (felt a lot longer somehow) I noted several things dealing with the landscape and its changes as we left Milan and neared Verona. There was a surprising amount of hollowed out buildings that really made me itch to explore them, one of them being what looked like an old school, perhaps middle or high by American standards. Accompanying that were several grand, refreshing stretches of green (Milan, as a city, lacks much greenery) with big factories dotting the fields, and this reminded me repeatedly of the long van rides I became accustomed to in Peru between home and the grocery store forty-five minutes away, except instead of greenery it was mountains of sand and billboards. One other random thing I realized was that people actually do ride their horses through the vineyards. I thought it was only a movie fictionalization that had caught on, but no, that’s just how they travel more efficiently from the front to the back of their vineyards (of which there were very, very many).

Upon arriving in Verona, the first stop was the massive Roman Arena from the 3rd century. It's been converted into a place that the Veronese hold concerts and operas in the summer when the nights are warm. The weird pink hue the whole arena has is due to the fact that it was built with white and pink limestone. 

 

 

The structure itself is beautiful, but the view out into the city from the topmost steps is noteworthy as well. 

After working out my knees on all the steps up and down the arena, we wandered the streets toward our next destination, which the city is very well known for: Juliet's house and balcony. The streets were narrow and cobblestoned, and did nothing to help the already forming ache in my feet, and tourists abounded. It was difficult to squeeze through some mobs of people even as a little individual like me and I saw numerous men and women powering strollers through the masses which must have been exceedingly frustrating. I could only attempt to strategically maneuver my way around people. Honestly I don’t think Juliet’s balcony was worth all the fuss of getting through the crowd (it was a very popular tourist attraction), but still, it was just one stop along the way.

To get to the famous balcony in the courtyard inside Juliet’s house, we had to walk through a long archway that had walls painted with white to resemble canvases. These were there for couples to write their names together on, I suppose to echo Romeo and Juliet's love (I'm not a huge fan of the play, but the idea is nice).

Another symbol that could be found around the city to signify the discovery of true love (again due to Romeo and Juliet) was to buy a padlock, lock it on a gate or chain, and throw the key away (generally into the river, just to add even more drama) to show that true love never dies, or something sappy like that. Made some neat pictures, at least. 

From there we broke for lunch, and the two girls I was with and I wandered away from the tourist food and found a nice place with outside seating. I had pizza of course, and the tomato sauce was so rich in taste I couldn’t help but eat the whole thing. I regret nothing.

Next on the agenda was climbing to the top of the Lambert Tower. It’s eighty-four meters high (two hundred and seventy-five feet) and was begun in 1172, but many restorations and enlargements happened in later years due to a lightning bolt strike as well as simple upkeep. The clock was added in 1779, so that was definitely not written in the original plan.

There are nearly four hundred steps to get to the bell hold, circling around and around, but thankfully there was an elevator. The view of the town from the top was breathtaking to say the least. 

 

Following this exciting excursion, we dragged ourselves to the Basilica Sant’Anastasia, which retains the same basic structure of many other basilicas and cathedrals I’ve visited. It was beautiful on the outside and incredible on the inside, everything so ornate and elegant, as the Italian churches are wont to be. The construction began in 1280 and finished in 1400 (and we think it takes modern construction workers forever to get anything done).

Once done there, we stumbled up several steep flights of stairs to the overview in front of Castel San Pietro which provided an impressive overlook of the city with the river flowing through it.

 

We were only able to rest for a few minutes before wandering back down the stairs to another cathedral called Duomo di Verona. A choral performance was going on when we got there and the singing was heavenly, made even better by the astounding acoustics of the Duomo so that anywhere you were in the cathedral, you could hear it. I think it’s nice that the Italians still utilize these churches not only as sorts of museums for us tourists to poke our noses in and sniff around but also as actual meeting places to worship and listen to sermons. They are fully functional, in that respect, but the wooden pews leave a lot to be desired.

Our last stop as the sun was descending and the minutes were ticking down to our departure was a castle called Castelvecchio, which means “castle old” when translated literally. It is the most important military construction of the Scaliger dynasty that ruled the city in the Middle Ages. Construction was carried out between 1354 and 1376, so says an online source. It was fairly large but compact and there was a lot to take in, though unfortunately we didn’t have the time for all of it. We kind of had to rush through the last half of it, and even lost our guide twice just trying to keep up.

We loaded back up into our buses and waved goodbye to Verona at around 6:30pm. My thighs screamed, my toenails hurt (is that even a thing?), and I was daydreaming about sleeping in my bed back in the apartment, but even with all these things floating around in my head, I still felt the day had been spent well. I was very satisfied with my time in Verona, who I spent it with, and the pictures I took. I can't imagine I’ll ever be back there, but it was definitely a good choice to go.

So thank you, Verona, for making my sixth of April memorable.

As for other general updates, this week I’ll be passing the halfway mark (I’ve been here nearly fifty days already!) and spring break is in a week and a half and stretches from the 17^th to the 27^th. I’m not quite sure what I’ll be doing over that time just yet, but there are some possible options on the horizon, so we’ll see. I’d rather not just be in Milan the entire time because I don’t have to worry about classes for such a long while I’d like to take advantage of that, but the main thing for me that’s hard is finding anyone to go places with me because most everyone I’ve spoken to has already been where I still want to go. I’ll figure it out.

In any case, I have a Venice trip this coming Saturday, which I am super pumped for, and I’m hoping to at least get Florence in before my time here is up. Rome would be fantastic, but I’m not sure how plausible it would be. Going to Rome around Easter time is probably one of the worst ideas. Well, we’ll see.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and I’ll definitely see you next week with a follow up on my Venice trip!

Until then, take care!

V