"Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of fifteen hundred years ago. With its marble-fitted churches, lofty towers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues and Capulets once resounded....." Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens, Chapter 8 The walls of Verona When Romeo was forced to leave Verona, he despaired: "There is no world for me outside the walls of Verona, except purgatory, torture, and hell itself. So to be banished from Verona is like being banished from the world, and being banished from the world is death." Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Arena di Verona Still standing since the first century AD, the Arena no longer hosts gladiator fights but it still draws a crowd. It is the v
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” - James Michener