I’m not going to lie.
When we were told that we were going to Verona, I had no idea why. I knew about the Romeo and Juliet “history”
but I did not see how it related to our study of Architecture. Then, I remembered my second year when I did
a study on Carlo Scarpa and his buildings / additions in Verona. So naturally, I assumed that was what we were
going to see was his creations.
We started our day very early in the morning with our bus
from the Caserma. The bus ride was supposed to be about 5 hours long, about the
same as the ride for our south trip. After a couple hours we drove through
Florence and made a stop at the Church of the AutoStrada. This is probably the most modern building
that we have visited as a group. This church is located off one of the exits
for an autostrada reststop.
It was a very pretty church.
It had a lot of concrete and very modern stained glass. I really liked
the baptistry which was in separate part of the building.
After a bathroom break and some snacks, we boarded the bus
and continued on our way. When we
arrived, we were given the rest of the day to explore Verona. Berta, Jessica
and I decided to head off on our own. We
walked around town for awhile and saw the Old Castle and the Duomo. We also went to the “House of Juliet” and
watched some Italian students act out the Balcony scene from Romeo and
Juliet. It was very cool. There are
locks everywhere and there are so many colors.
Just outside the house is a square which contains a market with lots of
little cool knick knacks. I bought a pair of sunglasses. I look pretty good in
them if I do say so myself. From there we continued through the city. Verona is also home of a well preserved and
still functioning Roman Arena. We meandered around that and then through the
rest city, got some gelato and headed back to the hotel for our group dinner.
The next day, as a group we went to the Old Castle. The Castle was bombed during WWII I believe,
and then rebuilt in the old style by Carlo Scarpa. It has since been turned into a museum with
paintings and architectural remains. We
all had great fun exploring all of the little nitches of the castle!
From there we went to the Roman Arena to go inside and sit
and observe. The Arena is still used for
concerts and operas and is in much better shape than the one in Rome. While we were there they were setting it up
for an opera, putting a stage in, etc.
From there we went for lunch, and then we departed for
Vicenza.
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