Verona

I have about a million pictures from Italy so I decided to split it into two different posts, just so you guys wouldn't get too annoyed with me. Kevin and I went to Milan for several days, but we also decided to take a day trip one day to Verona, home of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. We hopped on the train in the morning and were home by about 10 at night. The ride was only about an hour and a half each way, and it cost us about 20 euro round trip, plus the city was amazing so it was definitely worth it! Check out the pics. 

The first thing we did actually wasn't Romeo and Juliet-related at all. We went to the city's castle, the Sforzesco Castle, which was built in the 1400's and is now a museum. This arc was outside. 

View of the castle's clock tower, and the time was actually correct! I wonder how that clock works, do you think it's electric?

Me hanging out on a castle balcony, where I belong!

This one room in the castle had amazing painted walls, you can see where the paint has chipped.

View of the Adige River from the top of the castle. 

Another river view.

The castle was especially amazing because they let you wander around on the ramparts. So cool, and such amazing views!

Inside the castle walls...

The courtyard, seen from above.

The castle's bridge.

A Verona street.

The city of Verona also has a Roman Arena. It was built in the year 30 AD and now they use the space to put on full-scale opera productions! Unfortunately we didn't get to see a show, but there were a bunch of guys outside dressed as gladiators to take pictures with the tourists. This guy was particularly entertaining, in my opinion.  

Close-up of the Arena walls. 

Next we visited the house that Juliet supposedly lived in! It was very unclear how much of Shakespeare's story was based on actual events in the city, although  the city of Verona of course hyped it up to increase tourism. One of the informational plaques in this museum said that Dante Alighieri made a reference in some of his writings to two feuding families in the city after passing through the area. Regardless, this is the balcony that Juliet theoretically could have stood on to talk to Romeo. 

Bottom view of the balcony.

If you rub the right boob of this Juliet statue it's supposed to give you luck in love. All it gave me was a lazy eye though, maybe I should've asked her to make me more attractive.

No idea what this even is, Kevin and I walked by and had to stop just to stare at it.

Check out these gorgeous houses sitting cheerfully along the river!

In addition to the arena, Verona also had its own Roman amphitheater for dramatic performances! We were amazed at the condition it was in, although it was hidden away from the center of the city and not nearly as well-trafficked as the Arena.

Church situated just behind the amphitheater - you can see the steps in the bottom half of the photo.

View of the city from the top of the theater's steps. 

Behind the theater there were these miscellaneous ruins. Again, you could tell this was a much lesser-known attraction because there was absolutely no documentation explaining what we were looking at.

There was also a graveyard of random old stone objects like this. We kept asking ourselves what we were looking at - is this from Roman times or not?? Either way, we decided to touch everything we could, just in case it belonged to Caesar or something. And because we could.

More miscellaneous ruins.

Random Roman sarcophagus - a plaque next to this explained that in the Middle Ages it was all the rage to steal old Roman sarcophagi and bury yourself in it. 

A gorgeous church that we happened to stumble upon. 

One of the old (original?) city gates - it was broken in two spots so modern traffic can fit through.

And that's all I have for Verona! The only rough part of the day was when we tried to head back to Milan and ended up sitting on a train for two hours waiting for it to leave. After a while we managed to find someone in our car who spoke English and could explain that there was a problem with the next stop on the line. When we went downstairs to ask the man at the Information Center if he spoke English and could help us, his answer was "I speak a little." Apparently "a little" was literally all he could speak, because the rest of his explanation was completely in Italian. Still, we took a chance on a train a few minutes later and it eventually got us to the right place. It was an adventure!  

I'll put up a bunch of Milan pics soon, and after that - Istanbul!