A night at the Opera...

On Wednesday I spent the day in Verona.  First impressions were that it was just like any other city but that changed when I arrived inside the old city walls.  Just like Vienna there is a lot of architecture and history and I literally spent the day wandering around finding more and more to look at.  As you can see I quickly learnt not to mess with the locals:

Luckily a couple of euros changing hands allowed me to escape and so I made my way to Juliet's house of Romeo and Juliet fame, at least I was in the right town this time.  I thought I would go and have a look around the house and joined the queue to pay but after a few minutes I realised that all the people queuing were women and it was then that it occurred to me that they were paying to go and stand on the balcony, doh!  I went outside and lo and behold everyone is taking pictures of the women on the balcony so here it is.

Whilst I was singing the Dire Straits song to myself I noticed a statue of a woman in the corner.  In the following picture you may be able to see that her right breast is very shiny and it soon became apparent why.  People were lining up to have their photograph taken whilst holding the breast.  I asked a guide and apparently it brings good luck.  One thing I did notice though, when girls or women stood there they just got on with it and had their photograph taken but all the men had to put these dumb goofey looks on their face, weird!

On leaving the courtyard of the house you pass under an archway and both sides of it is covered in graffiti with couples professing their love for each other.

I left there and thought I would wander out of the tourist area to try and find something to eat.  I eventually found a pizza place that was full of Italians and thought I would try it.  The pizza was delicious and after I paid and was leaving the owner told me to sit down again and came over with a plate of water melon to refresh me.  He refused any more money and kept shaking my hand as I left which I thought was pretty nice.

I was enjoying Veron so much that I thought I would check out the Coliseum and then decided to book  ticket to see the opera Aida. 

The show started at 9'o clock and the setting was pretty impressive. The music was written by Verdi and whilst I didn't understand any of the language it was very moving and enjoyable.  I have since googled it and the brief overview is that Aida, an Ethiopian princess, is captured and brought into slavery in Egypt. A military commander, Radames, struggles to choose between his love for her and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. To complicate the story further, Radames is loved by the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris, although he does not return her feelings.

Hope everyone is well

Robert