In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.

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Verona, our first weekend trip of the semester, was incredible! We caught a 10:00 am train out of Venice and arrived in Verona a little after noon. It was our first train ride over here in Europe, and it actually went surprisingly well! Once in Verona, we grabbed some pizza (sadly, we were kind of craving true Italian food since mediocre cafeteria food is pretty much all we get) and set out to explore the city. The city is so beautiful and completely different than Venice. For one, it’s a more metropolitan city with a gorgeous, pedestrian only, historical center. It isn’t too touristy either, which is a complete 180 degree shift from living in Venice where tourists are more abundant than Venetians. The city is so romantic, with references to the Romeo and Juliet legend everywhere. We visited the House of Juliet first and stood on Juliet’s balcony, which is “supposedly” where she actually stood when Romeo courted her. There was a little museum with some Romeo and Juliet artworks and the bed and costumes used in the movie (unfortunately not the Leo version). The walls outside the house were decorated with love letters written by visitors, and they had books inside that served a dual function of guestbook/love letters. So now in the House of Juliet there is a Josh & Stephanie scribble.

Verona also has a beautiful Gothic church, The Church of Sant’Anastasia, which is one of the coolest churches I’ve seen on our trip so far (My #1 still has to be the Frari in Venice…one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.) After visiting the church, we climbed the highest tower in all of Verona (700+ stairs altogether!) to see an awesome view of the city, although we were sweating and exhausted by the time we arrived at the top! We ended our day with some gelato (naturally) and a visit to the Roman Arena, which I hear is nothing compared to the Colosseum in Rome (I’ll find out next month!)

Also on our trip, we started our beyond awesome, amazing, and crazy we didn’t think of it sooner shot glass collection! Some other people in our group are collecting them from all the places we visit, so naturally Elyse and I had to join in on the fun! So now we both have our first official European shot glasses!

Verona trip checklist:
New obsession (aka collecting shot glasses)
First European train ride
Chance to be a corny tourist again
Elyse’s first Italian scarf

Basically, Verona was awesome and I’m just so excited to see what the other weekends have in store! Check out the pictures from our trip, they really do say more than my ramblings!

This weekend- Milan! We have our own personal tour guide, an actual nightlife scene and legit accommodations…all ingredients for a great trip! More to come

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Comments

[Mom]

Another great blog!
Hi Steph! Wow! Verona looks like a beautiful town. It sounds like you all had a wonderful time. I really loooove all the pix. You looked just like Juliet on that balcony. :) Riding the train for the first time, standing on "Juliet's balcony", sightseeing like a real tourist....what fun! Thanks for taking us all along on the ride with you!! Love, Mom