Regina and I woke up bright and early after 5 hours of sleep to go to Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet. We were very excited for our day, maybe a little too excited. We got to the city and immediately went to see Juliet’s house, after a stop at the Disney store. I had a lot of fun playing with the toys, looking at all the titles in Italian and was proud of myself for not buying gnomeo and guiletta.
Even though it’s nothing like Letters to Juliet, it’s still gorgeous. The balcony was so cool and I got to take a photo on it and we rubbed the statue of Juliet’s breast for good luck. I wrote Andrew’s and I’s initials on the wall, which is supposed to be good luck for the couples you write the names of on the graffiti wall.
The museum was amazing; I’m seriously in love with the house. It’s my absolute dream home. The lay out, the wooden staircases that remind me of the 15th and 16th century, the stones, the beautiful fireplaces, and everything else made me fall in love. I will figure out how to build a townhouse like hers someday. If only if it had the garden from Villa d’este, it would be my dream home. Before we left, we did mail our letters to Juliet and took a few pictures on the balcony.
As we explored we got to practice our Italian with a really nice woman from Milan who loved talking to us. This mildly awkward half Brazilian half Italian model who worked at the store we were in was very proud to tell us he had a shoot in Boston and asked if we knew any nice Italian me, When he said no, he asked if we liked Brazilian men, maybe guys are all just creepy here. We walked around the city, went to a pretty market, and saw a few churches (what else in Italy?). We did get to experience fall a little bit because the leaves were turning and we found a cool park with some interesting statues.
Bologna
We had it planned out to have dinner in Bologna, which is the city of amazing food. Literally it’s known for its tortellini and Bolognese meat sauce. Before we had dinner, we went to see a very beautiful church that has been unfinished for over 600 years. We also saw the place where criminals said their last rites, were hanged and the Neptune fountain. The leaning tower of Bologna was kind of hilarious because it’s literally coming out of the ground. We found a great place for dinner that had good food, nice people and a really cool atmosphere. The guys who were serving us were really nice and they asked all about us and didn’t just hit on us. Did tell me I was bella as we left, but it wasn’t in the usual creepy way. Before we left, I quickly wrote a postcard and finally found a place to mail it to the states. We accidently missed our stop for the train station on our bus but we made it to the train in time. We sat next to a really nice young woman from Rome who helped me practice my Italian. She tried to get Regina to practice, but we were so tired, it was probably hilarious. I still can’t say gli right, but I’ll keep trying.
Saturday
We woke up insanely early (and by early I mean 6:30) to go to Tivoli and to Villa Adriana, which was the country estate for the emperor Hadean, one of the great emperors of Rome. His estate was very pretty even though all in ruins. The gardens are the main focus of the area because unlike most people of the time he wanted to build a beautiful garden to be the focus about the area. The water features, statues and baths are all worth coming to visit, even at 9 am. We went to see his little median theater, which is a little house on an island with a moat that had baths, a bedroom, study and receiving area. He used it for him and his male lover to escape from his life. He died a year after the death of said lover from a broken heart, though we’re not sure how his wife felt about that.
We had lunch in the city of Tivoli and explored for half an hour after getting really good pizza. Next we went to Villa d’este, which is the summer home built by a cardinal in the 1500s. It’s beyond amazing. The house itself is typical of the wealth, time period and Mediterranean region but the gardens were breathtaking. My favorite place in the world was the governor’s garden in colonial Williamsburg, but I’m pretty sure this place wins. It was amazing; there were so many beautiful features. I can’t even explain how pretty it was. It wasn’t just pretty though, it was an engineering revolution and amazing. The garden is built on a cliff and has a thousand fountains, plants, pathways, verandas, caves and even a temple. I did not want to leave at all, and even gelato didn’t help once we left. It was just gorgeous.
Next we went to Palestrina, which was a temple to Fortuna. It was cool and we went in the museum. We did get to see some make up cases from 300 BC, a really cool mosaic of Alexandria in the 4th century BC and got to explore the sanctuary ruins. There is a story of the origins of the wishing well that was cool. This guy had a dream from the gods who told him to dig a large hole in the ground. He found these wooden rods with writing he couldn’t understand so he decided they had to be from the gods. Then people would come to the sanctuary, ask a priest question and the priest would tie up a young boy, who was pure and innocent, and send him down the well to pull out a rod, blindfolded, and then pull him back up. Then he would interpret the rod and give an answer. We’re not sure how the boy dealt with being tossed down a well with a probably flimsy rope or how the guy decided the rods were from the gods, but it makes a cool story.
All in all the day was great. We had a great experience in the last two days, even though not much sleep. We got to cross two more things off our Italy bucket list, Juliet’s house and eating in Bologna. I’ll never forget what I saw and I can’t wait for swimming off the coast of Capri, going to Pompeii and everything else we get to do next week on our trip. Just have to survive midterms first on Monday. Oh well, living in Italy, can’t get much better than this.
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