Shakespeare e Svizzera

Updated with better photos!

This Satuday, Liz, Sarah, Gina and I planned on spending the day in Florence.  I was looking forward to see the tons of great art that supposedly causes this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome and to celebrating the changing season with the purchase of a new leather jacket.  We decided it would be worth having to wake up early for, and so at 9:30 am made our way to the train station.

Turns out, trains here actually sell out, even if you're willing to stand.  As there wasn't another train to Florence until noon, we walked over to the bus station to find out if there was another way of getting there.  We took a number, deli-style, but by the time the one bus to Florence was about to leave, the window was still about ten numbers behind.  While we waited, we met an older woman from California who's spending the month taking courses in Italy, just like us.  Liz thinks that she might have been her third-grade teacher, but she was too embarrassed to ask.  Anyway, we decided to just buy our tickets on the bus, but for some reason the bus to Florence was the only one on the departures board without a gate number.  We found the capostazione, who informed us that we had been waiting at the wrong window.  The right window, which of course had no line, was where we found out that our bus was still en route from France, and that there was no telling when it would get here.  Knowing Italy as well as we do by now, we understood that we would not be taking a bus to Florence that day.

So, we returned to the train station, but by this point the noon train to Florence had also sold out.  But, there was a train to Verona that would be leaving in a few minutes!  Since we haven't been to many places in Italy and didn't want to return to Forni in defeat, we quickly bought the tickets, validated them, and sprinted to track #3.  Unfortunately, the track was leaving from #3 West, which was nowhere near regular #3, and we missed that train, too.  According to the posted schedule, there wouldn't be another train to Verona for hours.  We went over to customer service to try and exchange our tickets (we would have been able to save them for another day if we hadn't already validated them), where we were informed that there actually would be another train in an hour.  So, we picnicked at the station instead of in a Florence garden, as we had planned, and, two and a half hours later, made it to what was basically Shakespeare Disneyland.

Seriously, Verona owes Shakespeare for all the publicity; their entire tourist industry is based off of his fictional star-crossed lovers.

"Romeo and Juliet's Kisses" were the specialty at this cafè

For ten euros (which we'll get reimbursed for from our program, since Verona's sights count as "cultural activities") we each purchased a "Verona Pass," which granted us admission to almost all of the city's attractions--just like Disney!  There were the standard churches and stadiums, but the main attraction was La Casa di Giulietta, the house of Juliet Capulet.

You're probably thinking: "Wait.  Juliet is a fictional character.  Why would anyone pay a 6 euros admission fee to see what, in that case, is just a house?" Well, admission was included on our Verona Cards, and it did seem like a very nice house.  Plus, a helpful sign informed us that, "While no documentation exists proving that Juliet Capulet actually existed and lived in this house, no documentation exists to disprove it, either." There's also no existing proof that rubbing the right breast of the Juliet statue in the courtyard won't bring you good fortune in love, but you'd better believe we decided to go along with that as well.

Firm!

Juliet's a bit like Santa Claus, in that people like to write her letters

Juliet's balcony

We didn't make it to Juliet's tomb (also fake, of course) before it closed, but we did find the time to experience some actual history.  My favorite part of the day was climbing the bell tower in the middle of the city.

The view from the top was incredible.

Being directly under the bells at the strike of the hour was not so incredible.

There were some really amazing churches

Throughout the day, we started to suspect more and more that something unusual was happening in Verona.

The Swiss flags were our first clue.

This, too, aroused our suspicions.

Turns out, the Swiss had invaded, and were holding some sort of expo.

The costumed participants wandering around made the similarities to Disney even stronger, and they certainly added a fun element to all of the tourist sites.

Sarah had gone back early because she had plans with her roommate, but Liz, Gina and I stayed long enough to grab dinner in town.  We sat down to eat two hours before our train back to Bologna was supposed to leave, and figured that we'd have plenty of time.  Turns out, we'd become more accustomed to the Italian lifestyle than we'd thought, and as we finally left the restaurant to make our way over to the train station, we realized that it was 8:45...and our train was leaving at 9:06.  We sprinted, tried in vain to hail a cab, sprinted some more, hopped on a bus, validated our tickets, and sprinted to our train (which was leaving, of course, from the furthest track), and missed it.  The next one didn't leave until 11:35.  We considered ordering martinis at the station's McDonald's, decided that would be too pathetic, and instead headed back into town to try and kill two hours.  By this time, Verona no longer held any charm for us.  Liz elegantly summed up our feelings as thus: "It's no wonder Romeo and Juliet killed themselves."

We were extra-careful to arrive very early for the next train, since that was our last chance to get home for the night.  We were exhausted, but afraid to fall asleep, since the train's final destination was Lecce, and the last thing we wanted to do was end up back there.  We ended up chatting the entire time with the other people in our compartment: a married couple that had just dropped their 20-year-old son off at college and an older woman who told us all about how, instead of going to college, she had worked in a factory.  She taught us a new hand gesture (hand gestures are an integral part of the Italian language) in which you indicate the different sizes of your fingers to signify that not everyone is equal, and reminded us to thank our parents for paying for us to be in Italy (thanks, guys!).  She also pointed out that, despite having spent three weeks at the beach, we were all bianca come una mozzarella (as white as mozzarella)- a very typical Italian expression that I'd heard of, but was excited to hear actually used in conversation.

Long story short: We made it back safe and sound, slept very late Sunday morning, and are going to spend a lot more time planning the next time we try for Florence.