VERONA - PICCOLA ROMA

Verona - the setting of Romeo and Juliet - true love that prefers death to living a lonely life.  Quite a tragic story..but a beautiful citta`! 
It took us about 4 hours to get there on the trains, since we took the Regionale slow trains and then managed to miss our train in Bologna as we sat happily eating our Lindt chocolate eggs while waiting at the wrong track.. Oh well.. It was a nice day, though and we finally saw some sun, though! - even if it was cold and overcast.  It has rained for like the past 40 days so it was nice to have a little break. 

Our day started off with some awesome music and singing by lots of random men wearing hats with feathers and medals and some really colorful vests in Piazza Bra. We figured out that it was some sort of Alpini gathering..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpini - Actually quite fascinating to read about since I never knew Italy had the oldest active mountain infantry.  Piazza Bra is the home to a Roman arena - very similar to the Colosseum but a little smaller. It's one of the reasons that Verona is called "Piccola Roma."

Verona has this amazing thing called a Verona Pass that lets you in the museums, arena, teatro, and the churches for only 10 euros.  So we made it our goal to see as many churches as possible.  I think we made it to at least 8.  They were all beautiful and my favorite in Italy so far.  The one on the left had an amazing color scheme of gold and light pink.  The humpback holding up the bowl is a sign of luck and good fortune if you rub his hump (which I did).

The church on the left had the most amazing ceiling made entirely of wood, with faces carved into the rafters.  We stopped by for part of mass in their duomo as well..
 
 

Enjoying our gelato in the sun (and being a perfect picture of exactly what it says not to do on the brochure we read later..)

We walked around pretty much the entire city.  Our next stop was the Teatro - an old Roman theatre that was quite amazing.  It also had an awesome museum with great artifacts and the cutest, tiny carved medallions.  We had a great view of the entire city from the collina. 

Views from the Tower... 

Our last stop - Juliet's house!  Of course, since Juliet is not a real person, it's kind of interesting to think that people pay 8 euros to go inside..but we got to stand on the fake balcony (altough I couldn't find Romeo at the bottom), leave love notes on the wall stuck with chewing gum, and get some luck from the statue of Juliet..

My roomate Grazia said I wasn't allowed to put the first picture on facebook - but since she doesn't know I have a blog...The second is Lita with both of her birthday cakes!

We barely caught the train home after a Very long day and nonstop walking for 5 hours..then managed to get lost, take the wrong bus, and walk forever to finally end up at my house for the birthday party of my awesome roommate Lita!  But we made it and ate way too much, as usual - a great way to end a great day!