Verona

Juliet’s balcony

When we started our overseas trip in 2008 and I said ‘What if we we get a taste for this?’ Michael said something like ‘ Oh, I don’t think that’s likely’! It was with a similar assurance that he said  that since Juliet’s balcony in Verona was entirely contrived we wouldn’t want to see it. But you can’t go to Verona and not at least walk by it, can you?

The balcony itself is completely unassuming.

IMG_6474

Down below is an absolute phenomenon. The saying is that if you rub the right breast of the statue of Juliet beneath the balcony, you will find a new lover. (I teased Michael that that is why he didn’t want me to go). So everyone mills around waiting their turn or cheering on and photographing friends doing it.

IMG_6492

And on every available surface there are love messages on chewing gum, paper, post-its and locks, or written straight onto bricks, pipes, branches and railings.

IMG_6476

IMG_6484

IMG_6487

The shop in the courtyard is well stocked with a good range of locks from tiny pink hearts to huge rectangular clunkers. The two sides of the entrance archway from the street are a mass of millions of love heart messages, too, and again people pose to have their photos taken in front of it.

IMG_6500

This amused me:

IMG_6502

There was also a brisk trade in machine embroidering items with love messages. This is another of those looping videos of one of the machinists doing a love heart for a young woman.

An aside…

IMG_6577

When I saw this logo on the floor of the lift of the hotel we stayed in in Verona – the Firenze – I was joking around about how funny it was to have a kind of blobby lobster as one’s logo. It still took a while when I saw the ‘floral lobsters’ below for the the penny to drop! Of course, it was the emblem of Firenze! I guess someone was paid a lot to modify it just a little so that it suggested both the city and florentine paper, not to mention a lobster, without outright copying it. I don’t know why I notice these things and think about them, but I do!

I always associate Florentine paper with my maternal grandmother. I think she loved it on stationary; I do too, though I have little use for stationary these days. It was also the favoured stationary for ‘the fairies’ who sent messages to my kids when they were little, concerning the availability and delivery of magic wallets. The fairies wrote in very small squiggly writing on Florentine labels that were left under pillows…

IMG_6668

More theatricals in Verona

IMG_6433

There were so many buskers in Verona!  Mostly of the standard statue variety, but there were a few new ideas. I thought this Tutankhamen was quite clever, since it did a lot with just a mask and shroud of shiny lycra. I always worry about the statue people who use a lot of paint since reading that metallic paint might have been implicated in the death of the Silver Man in Canberra, and this seemed much better from that point of view, and perhaps cooler (temperature-wise) than some, too.

Here you can see the back of Tutankhamen – very simple in terms of getting into, too. Behind him is a kind of Pinocchio little person and a Statue of Liberty. I was amused to see the Pinocchio standing tall outside the box later on. I wonder if an act like that would be too politically incorrect to stand in Australia?

IMG_6463

The following buskers were the best of the statues. I think I know how it’s done, and that they were probably quite comfortable apart from the sun. All of these buskers are there for full days, just changing personel every so often.

IMG_6470

I did like this silly baby in a pram! Puppets that have small bodies and real adult heads just are always funny. This is a looping video if you click the picture, and you can turn sound on in the top left corner. The noise would drive you nuts pretty quickly! I felt for the other statues nearby who couldn’t move on like the rest of the crowd.

There were also some unintentionally lame buskers – the plump middle aged Michael Jackson wasn’t doing too well. And some that were just a bit puzzling:

IMG_6469

Numerous centurions were doing a brisk trade outside the arena. This one was obligingly allowing his clients to set him up in an unlikely losing scenario.

IMG_6623

The Arena in Verona

IMG_6422

Here are some images of the Arena in Verona, which dates from about AD30, and is made of huge blocks of rather lovely pink and white limestone. The tall outer ring was was destroyed by an earthquake in 1117, and only the small section you can see in the photo below survived.

IMG_6425

Bikes parked on railings outside the Arena at night.

IMG_6430

Around the outside of the Arena, the half that doesn’t face Piazza Bra is boarded off and chock-a-block with props for the opera! The Opera season is in summer and it appeared that preparations were well under way for the opening. There were cranes out the back moving things around, crew preparing the stage area inside, whole facades complete with cherubs lying in the sun and an enclosure with of every kind of spear, axe and prong coralled inside it. We were told that when an opera was on all the hotels booked out well in advance. It is obviously a major driver of the city’s economy, but one young waiter was telling us that there was some anxiety that it wasn’t drawing as many people as before, and that new attractions were needed.

Two giant gladiators frozen in combat out the back of the Arena.

IMG_6439

Some nice sphinx-y creatures.

IMG_6450

When we went inside we could go up close to the outer wall…

IMG_6606

… and look down at the piazza.

IMG_6611

Various views of the Arena inside.

IMG_6580

Michael in the balcony box area above the main entrance, which is about half way up the overall height.

IMG_6587

You can see that balcony box on the left in this photo.

IMG_6596 IMG_6599

The blocks of stone were enormous! In the corridors underneath all the seating I was interested in the wedge construction with such huge blocks. In some lintels the blocks were actually even longer and went straight across.

IMG_6617