Venice - Day 4

Posted by Anura Samara, 9 September 2013

We thought we would try something a bit different and take a day trip to Verona by train.

On arriving in a new city, there’s always the fun of figuring out how to get around the city. Luckily, we ran into some Australians who reminded me that you buy bus tickets from the tabacci.

First stop was Piazza Bra where we had a morning coffee with a view of the Roman Arena. From the outside, the Roman Arena is really impressive – its a near-complete Roman arena in the oval-style of the Colosseum. The inside is less than impressive.

We joined the queue and paid to enter. It was pretty exciting to be able to enter a real Roman arena, but after climbing the stairs to emerge on one of the middle levels it’s pretty disappointing to see about half the area was closed off while workman were preparing the sets for a play and permanent seating was position in the lower rows of the rest. You just couldn’t get a sense of the history of the place with the modern world intruding so much. I guess it must be a great place to see a live show, but it does ruin the ancient ‘feel’ of the place.

We then sat in the Piazza Delle Erbe for a long-ish lunch. Immediately after lunch, we paid to go up the Torre dei Lamberti for a good 360 degree view of the city.

And then we went in search of the famous balcony from Romeo and Juliet. It was well signposted, but totally crowded with other tourists. Even worse, people could pay to go into the house and actually stand on the balcony. It made it really hard to get a clear photo of the famous spot,

After watching some street performers some more, we then went off to find Juliet’s tomb before heading back to the train station via Castelvecchio.

Venice

When we go back to Mestre, we decided we should head into Venice again for our last meal fo real, authentic Italian pasta – I was really hanging out for some ‘spag bol’.

Categories: Italy

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