10/15 Tuesday
Verona is a beautiful city. We are
sort of confused by the tour groups walking through town, since it just doesn’t
have a lot of big-ticket sites. Even the sites that are noteworthy are not
filled with tours. But it probably makes for a good afternoon stop on a
multi-city tour. We buy our Verona Card, so we have plenty of sites to check
out.
Our first stop is St. Anastasia, a
mostly 15th Century Gothic church. The exterior is brick, and looks
decidedly unfinished. Inside, however, the high vaulted arches are covered with
a delicate fresco that looks like tapestry. There’s a holy water font with a
sculpture of a hunchback holding it up, probably not meant to be as amusing as
it is.
The next church we visit, the Duomo,
is of a similar architectural style with the early Romanesque building expanded
into Gothic. It’s elegant and awesome, with elaborate sculptures in all the
chapels along the nave.
Back in the city center, there’s a
popular square with a canopied market. They’re selling knit shawls, sweaters,
scarves, wool caps, fake Murano glass, fake Burano lace, aprons with Limoncello
recipes on them, and all the usual tourist knick-knacks. It’s sad to see, but
most of the goods are RPC, or Made in China. They do sell very nice local
roasted chestnuts.
We climb up the Lombardi Tower for a
beautiful view of the city. The great bells chime just as we come up to the
platform with them. Ow!
Now, we head to one of the most, as
I would put it, bogus of attractions: Juliette’s House. There’s a real cottage
industry going on pretending that Juliette, of “Romeo and Juliette” lived here,
with a balcony out to the courtyard that serves as the sight of “Romeo, Romeo,
etc, etc.” The fact that this is fiction doesn’t seem to bother anybody. The
house and museum is an actual 12th century home belonging to the
family Dal Cappello, which is close enough to Capulet to satisfy the tourists.
The museum, which is of course empty, has the actual bed and costumes used in
the Franco Zeffirelli film. There’s also an email station where one can send a
message to Juliette. The action is in the courtyard, though, which on some days
is impassible with fans. There is a wall of love locks, a bronze statue of
Juliette with a shiny right boob in danger of going the way of St. Peter’s
flipper feet, and thousands of little notes to Juliette stuck to the walls with
chewing gum. A gift shop sells souvenirs, heart-shaped everything, and gum. A
guardian stands by with a bottle of cleaner, valiantly trying to keep the walls
of the home free from “Marcus + Andrea” and such. In the passageway to the courtyard,
there are huge white panels completely covered with such scribblings, along
with a big sign that says “Writing anywhere other than on the white wall will
result in a $500 fine.” Good luck with that.
1 Video Included
Verona Duomo and Tower
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