In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

On a bit of a whim, I went to Verona (which is in Veneto) for the day with my flatmate Blair.  We'd heard it was a nice city and every girl is slightly intrigued by the idea of visiting Romeo and Juliet's city.  But we didn't have many expectations.

Verona Teatro

It turned out to be a much larger city than the small village we expected.  Once we got to the center of town, we saw the huge pink Colosseum!  The Verona Teatro seems perfectly preserved with all it's white and pink marble.  We were able to walk up and down the stairs, sit down, walk across the middle, and basically act like this was not an Ancient Roman ruin.  I liked it more than the one in Rome because I could really imagine what it would be like to watch a performance there.

Gladiators in Verona

Next we went to an incredible traditionally Venetian restaurant, the Osteria d'Ugo.  We had seen wonderful ratings online, so wondered down some adorable alleys to find it.  I had an amazing pasta with duck and truffle shavings.  No idea what the sauce was, but it was delectable.  For desert, we had a sort of blueberry pie with a sort of cinnamon graham cracker crust. Yum.

Christmas market

On our way to Romeo's house, we came across a huge Christmas market.  It had a lot of Austrian and German goods, beautiful handmade ornaments, and more Christmas knickknacks than could fit inside a house.  When we got to Romeo's "house" we were greeted by a nice Shakespearean quote, and nothing else.  Sometimes when you visit fictional characters, it's hard to get invited in for tea.
Hoping Juliet would be a bit more welcoming, we walked under a graffiti covered archway to a cute courtyard full of tourists.  The wall that people usually stick letters to Juliet was cleared, with a barrier explaining they wanted to preserve the wall.  The wall to a house of a made up person.  Ok.  The sign also tried to explain Juliet's family history as if she was a real person.  Someone had too much fun with the translation there.  There was Juliet's famous balcony, more eloquent than I imagined and a statue that everyone was taking pictures with.  It was a cute experience and I'm glad I did it, but I do have to laugh at myself a little bit.
Next we made our way to the beautiful pink Duomo.  The cathedral had the same marble as the Teatro; I guess it is from that area.  The church was beautiful inside; I'm beginning to think that Florence's churches are more conservative than others in Italy.
We went to the Verona Arena next, which was another sort of theater and museum of ruins.  It gave an excellent view of the city.  Verona's northern Italy location must be why I felt like we were in a different country.  It seems to have Austrian or German influences in the architecture.

View from Arena

Before heading home, we warmed up with hot chocolate.  Italian hot chocolate is basically like a cup of melted chocolate, so rich.
Our wonderful day had one downside, the ride home.  We paid extra so that it would only be about a two hour train ride.  Too bad the train sat idly at a station for 147 minutes.  There was a medical emergency, but it took an hour and a half for the stretcher to even arrive.  Since the announcements were in Italian, I misinterpreted one to mean that the train was going back to Verona and we would have a free ride in the morning.  Too bad all the Italians around me interpreted it this way too.  We all slightly panicked.  In reality, there would be another train to take people to Verona if they wanted to go back, we would just get to Florence really late.  Unfortunate situation, but once I got dinner at 11:30 and went straight to bed after, it didn't matter anymore, we had had a great day.