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Published: September 17th 2007
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After leaving Venice we were flying out of Bologna to take advantage of some cheap flights (did we pay for that - but more of that later). On the way we decided to stop for a night at Verona, whose main claim to fame is as the setting for Romeo and Juliet. It was a two hour train trip to Verona and we arrived just after 2pm. From the train station we made our way towards town stopping at a hotel about 400 metres from the station. After dumping our gear we headed out to explore and were very surprised to find a very pretty and clean city. There are several sites worth seeing including the old Roman Arena, which is still used today for concerts and other things, and Castlevecchio, an old castle that sits on the river. However with limited time we simply viewed these from the outside as we were keen to see the main sites relating to Romeo and Juliet,
The first stop was 'Casa di Giulietta' or Juliet's house. Now given that Romeo and Juliet is a work of fiction it is interesting to think that you can visit the house where Juliet lived but
Juliet's house
Tourists crowd into the small courtyard we did. They say the balcony of the house is the balcony where Juliet stood while Romeo was calling out to her. So of course we had to go and have a look - fiction or not. Anyone who thinks this would be a very romantic setting needs to think again. When we got there we found a small courtyard packed with the usual load of tourists like us. Still it was kind of cool. You can see the balcony and imagine Juliet standing there, and there is a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and apparently if you are in need of a new lover you can rub her right breast which will bring you good luck in love. They have turned the house into a small museum that shows what it was like to live in the time of Romeo and Juliet and we paid to go in, but thought it was a waste of money. Apart from being able to stand on the balcony there wasn't much else to see.
After Juliet's house it was off to 'Tomba di Giulietta' or Juliet's tomb. Now you really need a good imagine to fall for this. I mean
I can accept that the house that we saw was possibly the house that Shakespeare used as the setting for his play, but I find it hard to imagine how you can have a tomb for a fictional character. And they wanted us to pay to go into see it. I mean how gullible do they think we are (please see pictures - yes we paid to see an empty grave with a flower on it, but by this time we were a bit caught up in it all).
In summary however, despite the undoubted tackiness of parts of it, Verona was a lovely place and we strongly recommend a visit for anyone passing nearby.
From Verona it was another 2 hour train trip to Bologna (home of spaghetti bolognese). We went to Bologna mainly because we were able to find a cheap flight from there to Krakow, Poland where we were heading next. Bologna was interesting, but after Verona it seemed dirty and unattractive and there didn't appear a great deal to do. We walked around the University area and the main city centre and had a look at a couple of the main attractions, including the
Statue of Juliet
Rub her right breast for luck in finding a new love main Basilica, which is apparently the 5th largest in the world. Apart from the ridiculous security (we weren't allowed in with our tiny backpack, but others were allowed in with bags 2 or 3 times the size as long as they didn't hang on your back) the church was quite impressive. There are also two large towers, both with pronounced leans like the Leaning Tower of Pisa It was possible to climb 490 steps to the top of the taller one to get some views of the city but we declined this very kind offer as it was a hot day and we figured the view of the skyline from the top would probably not be worth the effort. On a more positive note the spaghetti bolognese was indeed very good but we're not sure that we would return to Bologna again especially for it.
The following morning we left the hotel at 8.30 am to head to the airport for our 11.25 am flight to Krakow. We didn't know we were going to spend the next 13 hours sitting in Bologna airport.
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