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18 Days Through Europe In An Audi
Verona
Our exit from
Venice was surprisingly easy and we traveled the road about an hour and a
half to Verona The Arena di
Verona was easy to find. It was just down the street from where all the
tour buses were dropping off passengers. There are four original arches on
the outside and the inner oval is still intact. We climbed the huge stones
levels for seating and looked down to the arena floor imagining a
Christians vs. Lions event. What an awful thing that must have been. On
the lighter side, we did the "wave" and admired the huge staging area for
The other amazing feature of the arena was all the intricate ramps and walkways that were built into the underside of the arena. I was intrigued with the idea of first century architects and engineers designing the whole thing and not having it cave in for 20 centuries. We walked a ways
into the city and found a sidewalk cafe. This was the first place we ran
into street beggars. A short distance
from the cafe was Juliet's courtyard. Through an arched doorway
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without
any problem. Verona is the fictional home of Romeo and Juliet. We weren't
sure what we would find there but it was large enough to at least hold a
good place for lunch. Polly paged through the Rick Steves book and found
a first century arena in Verona that deserved a look.
the opera season that was about to begin. They say the acoustics are
perfect in there and no microphones are needed.
A little boy was working the tables until he was
chased by the waiter. Later we saw him with his mother (or maybe his
sister) and a baby she was nursing. It was a "baby with a baby". She
couldn't have been more than 15 or 16.
you enter
a small courtyard bordered by a building that has an overhanging balcony
much like you would envision Juliet's balcony in Shakespeare's story. The
walls of the courtyard are covered with love notes and love wishes in
every language you could imagine. Just
below the balcony is a bronze statue of Juliet, breast exposed. The statue
is weathered except for the breast which is kept polished by many hands
posed there for pictures. We took Bob and Dick by the hands and led them
out so we could continue on our way to Milan.