In fair Verona

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Verona, home to the bard's timeless tale Romeo and Juliet, and a city that has certainly prospered as a result of this claim to fame. There is some debate in the travel guides as to authenticity of the city's claim to house the true sites of Juliet's house and her tomb (major tourist attractions in Verona) but Adam and I chose to go along with it in any case...Much more fun to be swept up and romanced by the myth.

Our arrival in Verona was anything but romantic however. More tales from two hapless travellers where it took us 2 hours to locate our hotel due to our reliance upon a dodgy map, vague directions from the tourist office (whoever thought 1km could be so far?) and grunted responses from bus drivers who really couldn't have seem less interested if they'd tried. So yes, we were alittle exhausted and frustrated by the time we finally set our packs down in the hotel foyer. Think we might be far worse at this travel thing than either of us anticipated :-)

Nonetheless, we made the most of our one full day in Verona, visiting the aforementioned tourist sites as well as the historical Veronan Arena (dating back to 1st century and basically a much smaller version of Rome's Colloseum), Roman theatre and ruins, Duomo (yep another one) and museum Castle Vecchio (a huge castle fortress used for both military and residential purpose...very impressive).

I must confess, the visit to the Capulet house, with balcony and all, was really quite captivating and my favourite part of our day. Beyond many remnants of both the play and 1968 film version inside, there was also a very cute art exhibition being shown which was focused on two cartoon-ish characters in the throngs of love drawn in black and white in a huge array of settings...oh so cute (think I was more captivated than Adam of course).

On the downside, during our visit to this potentially very pretty city, we found ourselves visiting on a day where fog, or more likely smog, hung over the city skyline throughout the entire day. Later in the afternoon we passed a newsagency with headlines that were clear enough to intepret despite the language barrier...
'Verona, Italy's haziest city. How to solve the smog crisis?' This confirms what Adam and I had already suspected during our sojourn in Italy...the environment seems to be crazily low on the likely list of priorities in this beautiful country. Still though, it is an incredibly beautiful country with so much to offer. Our time in Italy is now at an end and without doubt, we have thoroughly enjoyed it. Next time though, Southern Italy will definitely be on our route map. Ciao Italia.

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