Our Mid Life Crisis Gap Year: The sites of Verona....somewhere!

Today we decided that we had to explore the sites of Verona as they were all well within one kilometre from where we were staying. The big thing we were concerned about was the heat, Verona was well into the mid 30's and there was no breeze whatsoever.

However, after walking for a short while we discovered that it was not the heat that was going to be our biggest problem....it was the tourists!!

It is now well into holiday season, and really, this is our first real big tourist destination and it does appear that we were not the only ones that thought Verona at this time of year would be a good idea! Another thing we had not really considered was that this was also right in the middle of the Verona Opera season as well, so there we literally thousands of people treading the streets of Verona. One thing I did become very good at was taking photos of things over the top of the "tourist hoards" and cutting most of them out of the photos...there is an advantage in being a bit taller sometimes.

Juliet being ravaged by the tourist hoards

One place I failed miserably at taking a good photo was at Juliet's balcony. There were so many people in that small courtyard it was incredible. Apparently, if you cup the statue of Juliet's right breast it will bring you luck in love...well at this time of year it looked more like some fearsome "grope" scene as everyone is trying to grab any bit of her they could get to!

Borsari Gate

The great thing about Verona is, if you do not like what you are looking at right now, take a few steps in another direction and you will be looking at something else of interest as everything is so close.

Just around the corner is the Arena di Verona, the old Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra where they hold all of the big operas at this time of year. However, because of this it is hard to get a clear photo of the arena is it is surrounded by barricades and staging equipment for use in the various operas, but with a little effort and clearing crowds you can be lucky.

Staging equipment around the arena

Finally, a photo of the arena...Lesley get out of the way!!

Buskers....How Do They Do It? Look Carefully!

Beautiful, Old, Ornate Buildings Everywhere

We explored for a few hours more before giving in to heat exhaustion and having walked twice the distance due to side stepping other tourists all day..