Well, it has been in the corner of my outlook task list to catch up with the remainder notes of our Italy trip. Actually the best pieces are yet to be told about the great time we had last September, first in Portugal and then in Italy and I wrote till Sirmione, the medieval town built on a narrow peninsula south of lake Garda, Northern Italy...and now the next step...
The little hotel in Sirmione was a kind of place where every inch of land was used for something. The owner was a young man with an unusual appearance; a white pair of trousers with black strips like rock singers of 70s, high hill mini boots like a Spanish tap dancer and an earing like...(I should stop pretending that I know cloth :). His little management office was more like a football poster exhibit and you could tell by hearing the stadium crowed from his TV most of the time.
We left Sirmione in a very rainy morning while it was literally pouring rain. The plan was to pass through Verona and get to Venice by the evening. It was a perfect plan..I did my homework before and could locate the arena of Verona perfectly on Google Earth and the coordinates lead us straight to it where we had to park our car and walk the rest into the heart of Verona.
We were lucky that the rain had already left the place and there we were, walking on the wet stone pavement of a big square where the focus of attention was the Roman amphitheater or The Arena. A purple and milky limestone monument with walls as high as a three story building. We soon discovered that the place was still being used for plays when we noticed a sign in front of the ticket booth: "The play will be here tonight even if it rains". After walking the spiral of stone seats in the arena, we headed for the next big attraction we came for and that was the House of the Juliet, a presumed house that is thought to be the impression for creation of the "Romeo and Juliet Tragedy". It was in the corner of Piazza Erbe, a rectangle shaped square with high houses on sides covered with ancient paintings, mystical statues and beautiful flowers hanging from the open windows. The entrance of the Juliet house did not look so romantic, black bulky stones almost entirely painted by drawings, signatures and names of tourists mostly with an arrow piercing a heart! That lead to a small yard from which a little balcony was the focus of all the eyes. This is where the story of Romeo climbing the ladder and meeting Juliet part happened. There was a bronze statue of Juliet below the balcony where all the tourists were lining up to take their picture with. We had a better idea: we went to the gift shop and bought two Romeo and Juliet T-Shirts. A white and blue for me and a little all red one for Mrs. Behi. We put the shirts on and took a picture of ourselves with the balcony. So cool it was...just behind us was the poor statue and the line of tourists but luckily the angle and timing of the shot was so perfect as if we were alone in that little yard :)
We finished with Verona with lunch in front of the Arena, rested our feet and got ready for the next big destination...The famous lagoon where we met Venice....(To be continued)
