Verona's Adige River
Years ago now, Adam and I toured Northern Italy, and one of our favorite ports of call was Verona, the other Renaissance beauty of the Veneto.
This is the real-life setting of the fictional Romeo and Juliet, fair readers. We’re talking gilded churches, cobblestone lanes, secret gardens, a medieval castle, even a famous Roman arena.
In Verona you’d have to work extremely hard to miss out on romance…so why even fight it?
We drove to Verona straight from several dreamy days in Venice, and within minutes of our arrival had stumbled upon a 15th century garden behind an arched iron gate. Turns out the Giardino Giusti is actually a beloved local oasis, but at three in the afternoon we had it all to ourselves…save a fluffy black cat with golden eyes. Behind high stone walls, we wandered slowly, hand in hand, past neat lines of cypress and classical statues, through a labyrinth hedge, around trickling, circular fountains, and finally, into a series of softly echoing grottoes. We climbed the steep steps and looked down on all of fair Verona stretched out below.
Giardino Giusti
Sure, this treasure actually belongs to the palace of long-dead aristocrat Agostino Giusti, but in our solitude, I enjoyed calling Adam ‘”m’lord” and pretending this was our home. The cat, merely happy to have its ears scratched, had no opinion about this one way or the other.
In fact, our temporary home in Verona was the elegant Due Torri Hotel Baglioni. Set in a restored Renaissance villa, here amongst silk damask, dark wood, a large marble bath and a view of red-tiled rooftops, was the closest we could imagine to living like royalty.
The Due Torri is right next door to the Dominican Church of Sant’Anastasia, whose soaring, gilded and ornate ceiling made us feel we’d nestled inside an enormous Faberge egg.
Church of Sant' Anastasia
Steps away from the church is the city’s most-touted (and imaginary) attraction, Casa di Giulietta, a house and balcony said to belong to Shakespeare’s woeful heroine, Juliet Capulet. Here you pay for the privilege of approaching a bronze statue of Juliet and copping a feel for good luck; combine this sculptural violation with crowds and graffiti fit for a bathroom wall, and you have what we thought would be one of the least romantic spots in Europe.
Instead we chose to linger over espressos in the nearby Piazza delle Erbe, where outdoor cafes with umbrellas in red, white, and green and a lush, bursting flower market bustle beside the Romanesque fountain of Verona’s Madonna. Here, surrounded on all sides by 14th century buildings like the Gardello Tower and the octagonal Torre dei Lamberti, we squinted our eyes to try to see into the past.
We were only so successful, as the modern scene here is pretty distracting: Giggling children chased each other around a riot of sunflowers, suntanned dowagers with wide-brimmed hats and long, brown cigarettes blithely chatted in Italian, and a skinny teenage bicyclist whistled past with a basket full of fresh produce. Sit still long enough in this piazza, and an entire movie will unfold.
We chose to wander instead, to the Arena di Verona. Italy’s third largest Roman ampitheatre, the Arena is far from a dormant ruin; it’s one of Italy’s busiest philharmonic, ballet and opera stages. Each summer since 1913, there has been an opera festival here that includes performances of Tosca, Carmen, and Verona’s especially beloved Aida. (The 2009 opera festival runs from June 19-August 30.) Arriving in late September, we’d missed the festival, but took two of 15,000 seats on the ancient stone steps that have served as bleachers since 30 AD…and each wished for a pillow. Without suffering, after all, there is no art.
An arched view from the Arena di Verona
After climbing to the top of the medieval Castelvecchio to see its enormous, turreted bridge through iron bars, we strolled across the wide Adige River on the ancient Ponte di Pietra, the water below us deep, green and still.
The bridge to Verona's Castelvecchio
Turning off the long, paved riverwalk on the other side, we began to climb a curving stone road into the cypress-dotted hills. At the top, out of breath and dazzled by the endless sky, we paused by a crumbling stone house hung thickly with vines and turned around, marveling at the sprawling city just over there, at once alive and frozen in time.
[...] In Fair Verona [...]