Una historia di Romeo e Giulietta (Italy, Part II)

Lago di Garda and the Alps

Tuesday also began late. Beixi made a giant pot of tea (I mean a literal pot here) to wake us all from our groggy reveries so we could dress and head out for the day. We walked down to the bottom of the garden to look at Lago di Garda first. It really is huge – almost like a small sea –and the Alps surround the far side of the lake like a suspended blue backdrop, topped with snow. It was a breathtaking view, and I’d love to explore them more closely someday.

We drove into Desenzano in the morning, where they hold a market every Tuesday.  We had fun wandering through all the stalls of clothes, scarves, shoes, ceramics, cheeses and everything else you could imagine.  After half an hour or so, Fede and Ale led us to a small sandwich shop where we all ordered piadins – pizza bread folded over into the form of a sandwich with fillings, or so I understood.  We sat by the lake and enjoyed the peaceful view while we ate, before jumping back into the car for a road trip to the nearest city for the afternoon.

I knew I’d heard the name before, but I wasn’t quite sure why, though I thought it had something to do with Shakespeare.  Well, I was right.  Verona was the setting for Shakespeare’s eternally famous romance, Romeo and Juliet.  While I have to confess I find Romeo and Juliet more than a little pointless (I guess I don’t like tragedy), it was still exciting.  After some fun attempts at navigating our way there via iPhone map, we finally made it into the city centre and found a parking space, in the ‘whatever works’ way that seems to govern Italian driving.

Me and the city of Verona from the Castello

We found some steps and began the hike up to the level of the castle, Castello Sant’Angelo, I believe.  Despite everyone’s misgivings about my foot, for which they were very concerned when they learned of it, I made it up without incident (down was another matter – Silvio hanging on my right arm, Alessandra supporting my left).  The views really were lovely, and Silvio had good fun being tour guide by virtue of his recent visit to Verona.  After a few minutes we headed back down and crossed the river into the old city to begin exploring.

A coffee and chocolate stop was definitely necessary to recharge the batteries and rest my feet, so we stopped in at a little gelataria near the town square.  After a lazy half-hour, we were feeling better and ready to go to our next stop – Juliet’s house.

Padlocks at la Casa di Giulietta

The view from the balcony

Unlike the movie Letters to Juliet that Eric and I watched so many years ago, there was no wall full of love letters or broken-heart letters written to this canonical figure of romance, but there was a wall full of padlocks - padlocks on which had been written the names of two sweethearts who had sealed up the padlock and thrown away the key.  There was also a bronze statue of Juliet, and a balcony...I decided to pay to go in and explore Juliet's house, starting with several photos from the balcony.  The house was nothing particularly exciting, a small museum of the time period of the story with some souvenirs from one of the early movie adaptations, but it was more about what the house, the courtyard, the area represented, this ideal of romance, this perfect, true love that never occurred in this house or the story, but which has become its signature.

We walked to the Arena after that, a Colosseum-style Roman forum, but decided due to the late hour and the price not to go inside, as we could get a pretty good idea from the outside and the parking ticket was due to expire. Together we walked back to the car and piled inside for the drive back to Lago di Garda, wondering if it was really a good idea to let Silvio navigate.  Letting him make dinner wasn't a question - Silvio decided to make a risotto while the rest of us chopped vegetables and cleaned up.  

Me sucking at bowling

Silvio and Alessandra

Afterwards we headed to the nearby bowling alley for a couple of hilarious, disco-style games of bowling (in which Beixi and I both sucked miserably but I managed to round out the night with two consecutive strikes in the final few frames).  This of course ended in a loopy set of teenagers eating tea and biscuits, watching MTV and dancing to We No Speak Americano at 1 in the morning (and generally having a wonderful time).

Boarding the train to Milano

It wasn't so fun the next morning - we were up at 7: 30am to eat, pack our bags and clean the house in time to be at the station for the others to catch the 9:10 train to Milano.  I wasn't so lucky - my first connection for the next leg of my voyage was at 9:50am.  Desenzano del Garda to Verona, followed by Verona - Padova (though I think I hopped on the wrong train, 20 minutes early, but no-one commented or stopped me) and finally another train from Padova to Firenze, arriving  just after 1:30pm.  The next challenge was the worst part - Firenze S. M. Novella Station to Youth Hostel!  Due to my lack of knowledge of how to get there and the lack of outer Firenze on the map I bought, it was past 3pm before I finally made it onto the right bus, got off at the right stop (second time around) and found the right street.  But when I thought I was done - oh, no!  It was a 15-minute hike up the driveway of the hostel to the aptly-named VILLA Camerata.  I was tired enough and it was raining hard enough outside that I stayed in the hostel for the afternooon catching up on emails and a bit of homework, only venturing outside for a (long) trek to find dinner-food, before befriending an English-speaking Austrian-inhabiting French Sorbonne alumni in my dorm.  Part III of the Italy Adventures, featuring my first two days in Firenze, coming tomorrow!