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I have always had a rule about not visiting romantic Italian cities alone, so when the opportunity to spend a weekend in Verona with my friend Valeria presented itself, I excitedly took it! Now I’ve never been the biggest fan of Shakespeare, least of all Romeo and Juliet (two preteens who know each other for a few days and kill themselves because they can’t be together…not having it), but I was excited to visit the beautiful medieval town that inspired not only Romeo and Juliet but also the Two Gentlemen of Verona. And after spending the weekend there, I am happy to say that its beauty did not disappoint. So the two of us took the train early Saturday morning from the nearest train station to us in Crevolcore for eight euros and within an hour we arrived. Our first stop was to check into our place for the night, which was thankfully right in the centre. Now the two of us paid seventy euros each, mind you we booked it only a week beforehand, so I would suggest booking a few weeks in advance if you don’t want to pay nearly as much. After we checked in our first stop was…you guessed it, Casa di Guilietta (Juliets House)!
The house itself is so beautiful, despite the crowds, with vines spiralling up the sides of the brick wall and thousands of love notes gracing the entry way. Even a romantic cynic can’t help but smile at all the couples taking a moment to show their love for one another. You can go up to her balcony for only a mere six euros, which will allow you access to the house once. The inside is rather empty but does contain the bed and costumes that were featured in Franco Zeffirellis’ 1968 version of the movie "Romeo and Juliet". Now if you are going there and have the expectation that the house will be anything like it is in the movie “Letters to Juliet” you will be slightly disappointed. No its’ never empty enough for you to sit alone and write in a journal or be surrounded by peace and quiet, but it is beautiful and one of the main highlights of Verona.
Afterwards we stopped by a shop a few doors down to pick up a popular treat in Verona, strawberries in a cup! I recommend the shop Gelato & Cioccolato close to Juliets’ balcony for strawberries, chocolate, and whip cream, worth the six euros! We ate our strawberries and walked around the centre for the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully the town is small enough that all of the main highlights are attainable by walking. So after hours walking around, taking photographs, and absorbing in all of the beauty Verona has to offer, we rested up in our hotel before finding a place for dinner.
A big reason we wanted to stay overnight in Verona, though we were told we could “see it all in a day”, was so that we could go to a club Saturday night. Luckily my friend knew someone in the city who offered to get us free drinks at a popular nightclub. So of course that was enough for us to know! Even with the promise of free drinks we did want to have some wine beforehand and since you can get a relatively decent bottle for one a few euros in the supermarkets here we decided to find one after dinner. However, as the hours of operation are vastly different here than in Canada (and by that I mean the hours are never accurately presented), we were standing in front of a closed grocery store with no wine. So we did the only sensible thing we could think of, ask a complete stranger where we could get wine. As it turned out he was a wine distributor for a bar which happened to be located a mere minute from where we were. We followed him to the bar where they sold us the wine!
After getting ready and drinking the wine we got from a guy in a van, we googled the bus route that would take us closest to the club Berfis. Now just a heads up, the club is located outside the centre surrounded by warehouses, so maybe take cabs to and from (we walked to it and it was rather creepy). Another heads up if you are planning to go to a club in Europe, since they are open till much later (some are open till five in the morning!), no one gets there till at least 11:30pm, so if you'd rather not stand in a bar across from the club for a solid hour waiting till it's busy enough to go in, don't leave before midnight. The club is like many of the big ones I've been to in Italy, different rooms have different themes and generally a different clientele. We stayed in the room featuring house music since it had more of our age group in it. If you're wondering, the guy did live up to his promise and we were treated to all the free drinks we wanted. Safe to say we did not wake up early to do more sightseeing the next day.
So we checked out of the hotel and walked along the centre of the city to find a place for our morning coffee and pastry. We stumbled upon Pasticceria Flego, a beautifully decorated, Parisian style cafe, and even though it looked as though it was packed full, it seemingly never ended. It was the perfect way to end the trip. Although we were told by everyone that you could “see Verona in a day”, we opted for two days and it was worth it!
The house itself is so beautiful, despite the crowds, with vines spiralling up the sides of the brick wall and thousands of love notes gracing the entry way. Even a romantic cynic can’t help but smile at all the couples taking a moment to show their love for one another. You can go up to her balcony for only a mere six euros, which will allow you access to the house once. The inside is rather empty but does contain the bed and costumes that were featured in Franco Zeffirellis’ 1968 version of the movie "Romeo and Juliet". Now if you are going there and have the expectation that the house will be anything like it is in the movie “Letters to Juliet” you will be slightly disappointed. No its’ never empty enough for you to sit alone and write in a journal or be surrounded by peace and quiet, but it is beautiful and one of the main highlights of Verona.
Afterwards we stopped by a shop a few doors down to pick up a popular treat in Verona, strawberries in a cup! I recommend the shop Gelato & Cioccolato close to Juliets’ balcony for strawberries, chocolate, and whip cream, worth the six euros! We ate our strawberries and walked around the centre for the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully the town is small enough that all of the main highlights are attainable by walking. So after hours walking around, taking photographs, and absorbing in all of the beauty Verona has to offer, we rested up in our hotel before finding a place for dinner.
One of my favourite things to do when visiting a new place, is researching what type of food it is known for, in Verona one of the most popular dishes is amarone risotto (risotto made with amarone wine). So when deciding where to have dinner that night we had two requirements; that it be decently priced and that it had risotto. We settled on ZOO’e, who have that dish and it is so delicious! You have to have a minimum of two people to order it but it is so worth it!
A big reason we wanted to stay overnight in Verona, though we were told we could “see it all in a day”, was so that we could go to a club Saturday night. Luckily my friend knew someone in the city who offered to get us free drinks at a popular nightclub. So of course that was enough for us to know! Even with the promise of free drinks we did want to have some wine beforehand and since you can get a relatively decent bottle for one a few euros in the supermarkets here we decided to find one after dinner. However, as the hours of operation are vastly different here than in Canada (and by that I mean the hours are never accurately presented), we were standing in front of a closed grocery store with no wine. So we did the only sensible thing we could think of, ask a complete stranger where we could get wine. As it turned out he was a wine distributor for a bar which happened to be located a mere minute from where we were. We followed him to the bar where they sold us the wine!
After getting ready and drinking the wine we got from a guy in a van, we googled the bus route that would take us closest to the club Berfis. Now just a heads up, the club is located outside the centre surrounded by warehouses, so maybe take cabs to and from (we walked to it and it was rather creepy). Another heads up if you are planning to go to a club in Europe, since they are open till much later (some are open till five in the morning!), no one gets there till at least 11:30pm, so if you'd rather not stand in a bar across from the club for a solid hour waiting till it's busy enough to go in, don't leave before midnight. The club is like many of the big ones I've been to in Italy, different rooms have different themes and generally a different clientele. We stayed in the room featuring house music since it had more of our age group in it. If you're wondering, the guy did live up to his promise and we were treated to all the free drinks we wanted. Safe to say we did not wake up early to do more sightseeing the next day.
So we checked out of the hotel and walked along the centre of the city to find a place for our morning coffee and pastry. We stumbled upon Pasticceria Flego, a beautifully decorated, Parisian style cafe, and even though it looked as though it was packed full, it seemingly never ended. It was the perfect way to end the trip. Although we were told by everyone that you could “see Verona in a day”, we opted for two days and it was worth it!
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| Interior of Pasticceria Flego |
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So glad you are taking the time to visit so many historic sites
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