“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
There we were, standing in front of Juliet's balcony, imagining ourselves as Romeo, luring Juliet to descent from the balcony and run away to somewhere nobody can find us... *back to reality*
In Verona, a 14th century house named Casa di Giulietta is said to be the balcony where Juliet was standing at in the story of Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately this is not true as the story of Romeo & Juliet is just a fiction. The owner of this mansion made this up and in the end it becomes a tourist attraction!
The place was super crowded with tourists. Since Italy has high pickpocket cases rate, we were very cautious about our surrounding and stayed close to each other. Below the balcony got a statue of Juliet, where it was so hard to capture a photo of it without any tourist touching her boobs! Nope they were not horny, just it is said that touching her boobs will bring us luck!
Tourists attach their locks at the gate and fences around Casa di Giulietta, believing that doing so will secure their love with their love ones eternally. Look how high up this tourist went to prevent people from removing his lock!
The wall of love...
With just a cone of gelato, I felt so blessed and loved! 2 Euros for one! The taste was not bad and Verona (as well as other cities in Italy) has streets filled with gelato stores! So it's hard to know which is better because there were just so many stores!
 |
| "Must try!!" or "Beware!!"? |
Having a gelato in front of Verona Arena! Looks like a mini Colosseum, and now it's a venue for concerts!
On the next day, we have a whole day to explore Venice to our heart's desire. Venice is a city separated in 118 small islands, also known as City of Bridges and also City of Canals. Frankly, Venice is a highly anticipated destination by many of us, due to its critically acclaimed scenery, it's like a place where can only be found in a fairytale. However, it was not as pretty as many of us had expected.
 |
| On the motorboat to Venice from mainland! |
Our motorboat dropped us at the bottom of the city, where it is nearer to the renowned places such as Piazza San Marco, Bridge of Sigh and Rialto Bridge. The city has beautiful buildings, uniquely styled.
A stunning looking bride (or was she a model?) with the Bridge of Sighs in the background. It's called the Bridge of Sighs because the bridge was the last place where the prisoners can see the outside world before they were locked up in the prison.
Walked further down and we passed by Piazza San Marco, a square in Venice. Many platforms were on standby just in case Venice is flooded, as Venice frequently faces Acqua Alta, a dangerous high tide above normal height. An interesting fact: Venice is actually gradually sinking at the rate of 2mm every year! Luckily it didn't flood at the time we were there. So people, you better visit Venice before it becomes the next Lost World of Atlantis.
A must-do activity in Venice is have a ride in a gondola. It's expensive though, averaging more than 20 Euros per person per ride. Our gondolier was a little cool, certainly not as friendly as our punter in Cambridge, UK. The gondolier didn't spoke a sentence, maybe except the word 'sit down' when we got too excited in taking photos!
After a tour around Venice on the gondola, we explored Venice further by exploring alleys. According to the Internet, one of the must-do in Venice is getting lost on the streets of Venice! Thankfully we were not lost entirely while doing the exploration. After few turns and bridges, we reached Rialto Bridge. It links the district of San Marco and San Polo which are divided by the Grand Canal. Around here got many restaurants and cafes, we were searching for the McD store but I guess it's closed...
The view of the Grand Canal from Rialto Bridge.
So we headed to a nearby restaurant, ordered pizza since pizza is originated from Italy! Some of my friends went for black squid ink pasta, which is also a famous dish in Venice. However, the name of the dish irks me... Back to the pizza. The cheese pizza tasted ordinary, nothing particular special about it though, a let down. I don't seems to get to eat nice food in Italy... (More on this in next post)
After filling our stomach partially, we moved on and returned back to Piazza San Marco. It was noon by then and more packed than it was in the morning when we first got there.
Other than the increasing number of visitors, pigeons were spotted in abundance too! Be careful not to be conned by some con men who offers you some food for pigeon feeding, and then he can charge you a outrageous amount of fee for the food!
It was time to return back to the mainland as the sun sets. Call me a superstar. Peace!
Next - Florence, Italy & Vatican City!
No comments:
Post a Comment