A tour bus heading to or heading out of Venice will likely take the path across the top of the Italian boot and find itself right in Verona's path.
Verona is a great stopover for a long lunch. Aside from lots of lunch options under piazza awnings, there are two outstanding sights to see:
The Arena di Verona was the Roman Empire's third largest amphitheater, behind this one in Rome and this one in Capua. But if it's only No. 3 in size, it's No. 1 in its state of preservation and by far the tops in its longevity as a "living" structure: Opera-goers worldwide flock to the Arena every summer for big-name performances under the bright lights.
The other big Verona attraction is the Casa di Guilietta. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the heroine (Juliet Capulet) lives in Verona. In the first part of the 1900s, the city identified an old 13th century house in the city center that belonged to a family by the name of dell Capello (tantalizingly close to "Capulet" and conceivably Shakespeare's inspiration), and it was rebranded "Juliet's House" (Casa di Guilietta).
Of course, Juliet Capulet was a fictional character, so she never lived there nor pined away for Romeo from the house's stone balcony, but to skip visiting the house because it's not genuinely Juliet's misses the point. It's worth a visit just to see the enduring power that the concept of Romeo and Juliet continues to have on people everywhere, more than 400 years since the story was first told. Every day, visitors leave romantic notes and graffiti on the walls leading to the courtyard (which are regularly removed to make room for new ones) and line up to get a picture standing next to a statue of Juliet under the balcony.
And if they're humming a catchy new tune that's taken the world by storm, it's only further proof of Juliet's continued grip on the popular imagination. But no word yet on a Taylor Swift concert at the Arena.
EF Educational Tours has itineraries like this one that include an extended lunch stop in Verona.
Photo: Allie_Caulfield via Flickr (CC license)
