8th June
So let me describe how this little day trip came about.
Thursday night last week I decided to visit my old campsite Mediterrano and
join my old tent mate, Wafa, on a night out. Drinking games in the tent,
tequila shots in Taitoo (onsite ‘Nightclub’) and a bike ride later I found
myself dancing in ‘Sound Beach’ (an actual club, on the beach). I think it is
safe to say I was a little drunk. Thankfully sound Beach is so expensive I had
already planned on not drinking once I had actually got out. Wafa and I had
made arrangements to do something on the Friday to make the most of our days
off. During our night a decision had
been made, we were going to Verona!
Fast forward to the end of the night, 3am pedalling home and
I think, there is no way Wafa will be at my site bright and early as promised.
The morning arrives too quickly and whilst I role over for another hour in bed I
have a faint hope that maybe Wafa will surprise me by turning up, a sausage
butty in hand and oozing motivation, because I had none. Nope, this doesn’t
happen! Instead I decide to work and
when I begin to clean a caravan; and who should appear around the corner, but
Wafa. Four hours late but still a
perfect excuse not to clean for the day. Like I need much encouragement. Within
10 minutes I was changed, packed and we were on our way to the bus station to
start our Journey to Verona.
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| On us way |
The journey involved a 30 minute cycle to the bus station,
an hour on the bus to Mestre Railway station and then finally an hour and 15
minute train ride to Verona. It does sound like a lot of faffing when I
describe it like that; thankfully it didn’t feel like that on the way there.
Coach journey to Mestre completed we bought some snacks for the journey and
went in search of our platform. Who should we see on the platform? Only 2 other
couriers from Mediterrano on their way to Lake Garda for a few nights. Alright
for some : -) We boarded the train, chatted a little, ate our snacks, power
napped, posed for pictures and read up on what we would be seeing in Verona.
Nothing bar the balcony of Juliet and the graffiti on the walls outside of ‘Casa
di Guilette’ (Juliet’s Gaff in Italiano). stood out to me. I’m guessing that everyone
knows that Shakespeare based ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in Verona and you can visit the
home of the plays leading lady.
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| Ooooh look at that Train, where's my log book? |
Arriving at Verona train station we had the obvious pictures
one must take when they arrive at a new railway station, and we began our walk
down to the old city. Before we had had 5 minutes of walking, we stumble across
a Moroccan supermarket. Wafa’s mother being Moroccan we had to go and look
inside. I looked at the herbs I thought Italy had never known whilst Wafa used
her best Arabic to get us 2 free cans of coke and a discount on us shopping. I
bought some chilly oil type thing, and some herbs. I have no idea what they are
but they’re bound to be a change from oregano. Continuing our little stroll
towards Casa di Guilette we find a Chinese supermarket! Did I mention I love
Verona? I bought some decent rice, oyster sauce and pickled ginger, I could
have gone back to my camp site then but Wafa said she wanted to see some statue
and touch its boob, but I’ll talk more about that later.
Out of character for me, I know, but we were trying to be as cheap as possible.
But walking seemed to be taking a little bit too long so we decided we would
try and use the tourist bus to save our legs. The lady on the bus was very nice
and invited us onboard. Her hospitality ended quickly though. Asking us if we
had tickets we obviously replied no. After our success with our free cans of
coke we clearly had an unrealistic view of the world and hoped she would let us
ride for free, she had no other customers to complain. But alas no she didn’t instead
she offered us the opportunity to buy tickets at 18 Euros per person; I almost
fell off the bus. I double checked she didn’t mean 8 Euros, and it turns out
she DIDN’T! As you can probably tell, we walked the rest of the way.
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| Maybe now we'll get om for free! |
It turned out that walking was better anyway. We saw some
little streets which looked pretty and I slowly began to fall even more in love
with Verona. The town is set at the bottom of a hill so it’s almost like the
town is being hugged by this hill (you might even say the hill really ‘embraces’
Verona). It feels very reassuring after spending 3 months in an area where
hills don’t exist. After not much time at all we reached the Ponte Pietra (some
bridge) and crossed over to have a look in some shops and to find Juliet’s gaff.
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| Some Bridge |
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| Again but on a funny angle |
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| Where are we going? |
The old town is old, but you can tell someone’s looked after
it. The crowds had disappeared as we had arrived during siesta and it felt as
though we were one of the few people still alive in the city. A quick look in
shops and market stalls and we realised our train was leaving in less than an
hour, oops, where had the time gone? I’m guessing the amount of time we spent
in foreign supermarkets might have eaten up more of our time than we had
originally thought.
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| Walking is far better! |
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| My new Gaff |
Asking anyone we could find for directions, we realised we
were very close to the ‘Casa Di Guilette’ This is what the Italians call the
place where Juliet stood on the balcony and was courted by Romeo (I can’t
really remember what happened). Even though people say that the story isn’t
real and the only reason people focus on this balcony is because it is pretty
the place was full of tourists. We didn’t care. The setting is very pretty and
so secluded you could easily walk past it and miss it, we nearly did.
To get there you go off of one of the main pedestrian
streets through a little tunnel and then there is this little courtyard with a
balcony. Tourism is obviously raking in as much as possible with the gift shop
(not sure that was there when Juliet lived here) selling the film/book in every
language from Arabic to Zulu directly off the courtyard. The balcony is
beautiful and had there not been another 50 tourists here (where did they all
come from) it might have felt very romantic. Under the balcony is a statue of Juliet
in all of her glory.
Wafa told me a story about what visitors are supposed to do
when they visit this court yard. Apparently folk law states that in order to
receive good look visitors to Juliet’s house must touch the statue of her, in
her yard. But you cannot just touch her anywhere, no no no you have to touch her
breast. I’m not sure if it’s her left breast or her right breast you’re
supposed to touch but whichever one it is meant to be, I chose the right one
because ............ erm.............well...........erm............. Well the
crowds on that side were smaller.
Once pictures had been taken we went back the way we had
came and looked at the graffiti on the walls of the tunnel. If we had had more
time I would be able to give you some quotes but we were rushing so I can’t
(sorry). The basic gist is that lovers leave a message here and that has grown
to the masses of graffiti that are now present throughout the tunnel. Very
Impressive. Better than the balcony in my opinion.
Deciding it was too far a walk for us to be able to walk for
the train we jumped on a bus, which typically took a VERY long time to reach the
train station. Probably because the driver decided to stop for a fag and a rest
break, he clearly didn’t understand our urgency. If we missed this train then
we would miss our last bus from Mestre and end up having to find someplace to
stay in Mestre over night. During this little rest break I was met with an
unhappy revelation. My camera screen had been used so much that day that it
couldn’t take the excitement and had only gone and cracked itself. Unimpressed I
sat down and wondered how many more electrical devices I would be replacing before
this trip was over. So far I’m on internet dongle number 2, telephone number 4 (with
one more on the way) and light bulb number 5 in 5 weeks, ok maybe I’m being a
little dramatic.
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| Working her corner :-) |
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| Shortly after discovering broken camera |
My heart ache didn’t last long, but guess whose now going
camera shopping after payday. After all I still had all the pictures from
Verona, and I could still take pictures with it, I just can’t see the picture
on the screen. I like to think of it as going back to the olden days, you know
when cameras had films in them and you never knew how they’d turn out until
they had been developed. We made our train and due to our good luck we had
chosen the regional stopping service to Mestre. This took over 2 hours and then
we had the wait for our coach back to Jesolo and then the bike ride home.
Finally collapsing into bed at midnight, I was knackered, completely and
totally, but I did love Verona!
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