Love is in the air (or in the wine): Verona

Foreboding clouds over Verona 

Valentine's Day is upon us. Hurrah, another holiday to encourage another sugar binge (maybe they just melt all the Halloween leftovers into tiny little hearts). So Happy Valentines Day everyone.  This got me to thinking about Verona IT - where a story based on two lovers took place. I am referring ofcourse to THE Verona in THE Romeo and Juliet. And for all its worth, Verona is a beautifully sad city - city partly because it was rainy the entire time I was there (giving everything a grey-ish tinge) and someone stole my umbrella. No I haven't gotten over that. Who steals an umbrella. That's Made in China.

Marbled street. Try walking on that during the rain.

I left Padua for Verona by train which isn't so far away via the cheaper Regionale trains (website is all Italian). I stayed in central Verona and so enjoyed the luxuries that the small vendor streets, cafes, and high-end boutiques had to offer. There is Juliet's Balcony. No its nothing like in Letters to Juliet. I cannot think of a time when the entrance to Juliet's is ever not clogged with tourists. The walls on the tunnel that leads into the courtyard is also full of messages from lovers. Enter the courtyard and its a floating mass of people eager to touch Juliet's boobs - and yes I DID and both but I forgot what luck its supposed to bring you. But like everything else Italian I wouldn't expect the luck to pass for atleast a few more weeks after.  There is also Romeo's 'residence' which was thankfully less frequented.

Locks of love awwww....

The markets are wonderful public spaces for wandering, gawking, shopping and just general loitering.  Thanks to my host, I enjoyed a nice aperatif made of Aperol, wine, and sparkling water to help me cool down on one of the more unusually warm days (I tried reproducing the same once but I've since learned to leave that to the professionals).  This is not to be mistaken with APERATIVO which is like the Italian equivalent of Happy Hour except with finger foods already included. This will generally be in the late afternoon to evening hours at a bar and patrons will pay a bit more for their alcoholic beverage whilst the finger foods are included in a buffet style display along the front of the bar.  I have eaten my share of bit sized cheese pizzas and more during such happy occasions.

Verona from above the castle

How Italians can manage to cross those all marble sidewalks and piazzas on their lovely leather loafers or stiletto heels is beyond me.  I managed well enough in my not so lovely and beaten down leather (-ish?) walking shoes.  Its a whole new ball game when the marble is wet with rain. Instead of running away into subterranean sewers, the water just pools up in small indentations in the marble sidewalk (although I think the idea is for the water to drain to the middle of the sidewalk and eventually follow the slope of the path away from the city centre).  I had much time to ponder this under a big yawning infront of Sephora (I had just recently lost my umbrella) waiting with a bunch of other rather loud HK tourists - lucky for the rain which dissipated some of the noise off the marble otherwise I'm sure the decibel levels coming from the group would have been less bearable.

Verona is like a city steeped in sepia tone. The buildings are a nice reddish-brown topped with roof tiles that are slightly rust red. Which is a lovely contrast as soon as the sky clears up and reveals a brilliant sky blue.  Everywhere I go there is love-themed graffiti proclaiming ''Ti amo'' to someone or other.  But for me, and maybe I wasn't looking, I didn't see many lovelorn couples moping around. Maybe a few errant tourists and their families though. For me, by the second day it was 'Ciao ciao' and off to the next extraordinary town.