6/22 -- Drive to Verona and Explore

Verona is just over an hour away from Iseo, so we got an early-ish start and reached Verona in time for a two hour plus walking tour before lunch. Verona was established 2200 years ago and has the remains of Roman artifacts. Some of these were damaged by floods and WWII bombing, but some have been rebuilt using as much of the original materials as possible.

Officially considered the oldest bridge in Verona, originally
constructed in Roman times and blown up by the Nazis as
they left during WWII. Considered original because the
original materials were used in reconstruction.

The river has been tamed in modern times with embankments,
but was prone to flooding in the past.

These arches were part of a Roman attempt to control flooding.

A pianist was entertaining on the bridge.

There was a contest years ago to make the balconies more
decorative, hence all the growth. If you look at the wall
below, flood waters have come up as far as the black part.

Verona used to be known as a painted city due to all the
frescoes, but floods, time, and the elements have taken
their toll.

The windows here that look Moorish to us are considered
Gothic to the Italians.

This is known as a lasagna street because
of the long wide-ish strips of stone between
the cobbles, which looks sort of like strips
of lasagna.

 

Church of Santa Maria Antica where many
members of the prominent Della Scala family
are buried. Typically they designed tombs
well in advance of their deaths.

The one depicted here, however, died suddenly
on campaign at age 38. It was presumed to be
natural, but when his naturally mummified body
was studied fairly recently, they discovered  he
had been poisoned, presumably by his nephew
who succeeded him.

Verona is known for being the home of Romeo and Juliet, which may have been based on a true story about 2 warring families here. We walked past the house of the 'Montague' family (Shakespeare used a name similar to the original, but different), but learned that the Juliet balcony that everyone wants to see was installed on the 1930s and that the Italian word 'balcone' actually means window.

The "Montague" house is  on the left.

 We walked to two main squares, Piazza dei Signori, the center of power, and the larger Piazza Erbe, home of the rich merchants who had imported herbs and spices.

Entertainer in the square with fake shoes.

Piazza Erbe

Lamberti Tower

Dante, who wrote in Verona

When the Venetians conquered Verona,
they plastered their lions everywhere.

When Napolean conquered Verona, he had most of the
Venetian lions destroyed.

Frescos on this building imitate textured
building blocks.

We did learn about an interesting club. Apparently, people  have been writing to Juliet for love advice for a long time.  In the early 1900s, 2 gentlemen started to answer the letters, but eventually grew tired of the effort. In the 19702s, a Juliet Club was started to read and answer the Juliet letters. Everyone who participates is a volunteer, including our local tour guide! Letters come in from all over the world in various languages. Our guide knows Japanese and ended up exchanging letters with a Japanese woman over quite some time. We got to read some of the letters. The writers we read were both  hopeful for love and afraid of pain. It makes you wonder how things turned out for them. They got about 5,000 letters last year.

In addition to letters  mailed from all over,
these mail boxes are placed around the city.

Then it was on to discover more old stuff.

This statue lost its head and the one that
replaced the  lost one is from a completely
different time.

This was a stock, where bad guys would be
tied up for day before going to jail.  If it was
winter and you were really bad, you could
be doused with water and tied up overnight.
It would often save the cost of jailing.

Manuela advised against finding the "Juliet Balcony", but
we found this cab with a picture of it,

The Area -- most of the outer wall is  missing due to people
'borrowing' the stones for their  own building projects. It
has great acoustics and hosts a number of performances
each year. Tonight is the opera Aida.

Part of the original Roman wall.

Dedication to William Shakespeare

Egyptian statue outside the wall, possibly
to advertise Aida, which is in rotation this
summer with 2 other operas.

After lunch, we found our hotel and decided to regroup a bit. I uploaded pictures to complete yesterday's blog entry. We went out to explore the neighborhood, had gelato for dinner, and found a couple little shops that were useful. One appeared to focus on Asian food and was more a  general store than just groceries. I was shocked to see bottles of  Inka Cola, which have seen nowhere except in Peru until  today.