...In Fair Verona where we lay our scene

The next day it was on the road again to “fair Verona where we lay our scene.” Luckily for us Verona has settled down a fair bit since the days of family feuding on which Romeo and Juliet is based.

Shakespeare aside, Verona is a really lovely city filled with beautiful buildings and some pretty exciting sites to see. First stop was the Casa di Gulietta – Juliets House, complete with a balcony overlooking the tiny courtyard into which hundreds of tourists jam themselves.

Juliet's balcony

The walls leading into the courtyard

 The walls leading into the courtyard are covered in the graffiti of lovers pledging undying love to one another. In a case of “everyone else was doing it” we added a little heart of our own (on the right wall as you walk in from the street 1/2way along, just above the ledge/seat).

Our addition

We got some pics on and from the balcony and checked out what the house would have possibly been like back in the day.

Daveo, Daveo. Where fore art thou Daveo

Oh there he is...

We then moved on along into the Piazza del Erbe (the old Roman forum) now and market area surrounded by impressive buildings housing designer shops.

This continued up the Via Mazzini – Verona’s premier shopping street, a prime spot for spending big bucks – Hermes, Gucci, Channel anyone?

At the end of the Via we reached the Arena di Verona, the 3^rd largest amphitheatre (behind the Colosseum and one other) ever built by the Romans. Unlike the Colosseum however this one was in much better shape with a lot of the original structure still standing. They now use it as a summer opera house, currently they were preparing for... what else but Romeo and Juliet! Even though not nearly as big it was great to see an arena a lot closer to its former glory.

Dave at the outside of the Arena

The set for Romeo and Juliet

Inside seating

From Verona we continued to rack up the kilometres arriving early in the evening at Venice Camping Fusina. Another Contiki campsite. We joined in their beach party complete with sumo suit wrestling comps and wet t-shirt competitions. Dave loved the host and Italian guy with definite traits adopted from a careful study of Borat.