So one of the benefits of having only one class/ day is that there is plenty of time for exploring! So far we've done a lot of things including visiting the Roman Arena, the Biblioteca Capitulare, the Duomo, Juliet's balcony, Romeo's house, and the Monastery on the top of the hill.
The Roman Arena was really cool. Its so eery to be in a structure that old. The history in this town is incredible. I love wandering around and seeing Roman ruins everywhere. You can see the original Roman road in Dante's square (where the Divine Comedy was written after he was exiled from Florence). There is also an entire room below a store in Piazza Erbe that was part of the original Verona when it was controlled by the Romans.
The Biblioteca Capitulare is one of the oldest functioning libraries in Western Europe dating back to the 4th century AD. Many of the texts are so old that they were hand written. It typically took a day to write all the passages on one page and two weeks to do the art work around the passages. The color in the artwork came from ground up precious stones and metals. Once applied to the sheepskin, the monks then covered it in a thin layer of egg-whites to preserve it. Cool huh? There were a bunch of really famous people who studied there as well including Ezra Pond and Mark Twain.
The Duomo in Verona houses the Bishop. However, this church is neither the oldest nor the largest church in the fair city. But it sure is beautiful!
It was really neat to see Juliet's balcony and the wall of love notes, along with Romeo's house. There are quotes from the story all around the city which is really cool.
That being said, I have to say, my favorite thing that Ive done so far in Verona was the hike to the monastery. It was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous hike up a long winding cobblestone path. The original monastery was bombed by US troops during WWII but somehow the statue of Mary managed to survive. It was found completely in tact sitting amongst the rubble.
The view from the monastery was absolutely incredible. You could see the entire city (which by the way is a lot bigger than one might imagine). It was cool to be able to see everything from there.
Verona is a really cool city and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to explore it. Its one of the most gorgeous places I've ever seen. =)
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