Verona, Italy

Ever since I watched the movie "Letter's to Juliet" I have wanted to go to Verona. It looked so beautiful in the movie. I also wanted to write my own letter to Juliet. Allison agreed. We even watched the movie before we left. So we added it to our list of places to go. It was actually perfect because we wanted to visit Venice, but we didn't want to stay there and Verona is only an hour or so away... so we stayed in Verona and explored Venice one day and Verona the next.

As soon as we arrived in Verona we knew we loved it. While walking to find our B&B we obviously looked lost, like we usually were and this guy riding a bike stopped and helped us and just wanted to chat. People are so nice. It was a smaller city. Super Charming and beautiful and we were SO excited that it was less crowded and less touristy. We couldn't wait to explore.

While exploring, we finally found Juilet's (Giulietta) courtyard. Let me start out by saying you should never want to do something based on a movie and expect it to be like the movie. In the movie, she wonders into the beautiful courtyard and there are a handful of people there. A few people taking pictures with the Juliet statue and someone on Juliet's balcony and there are several people in the courtyard writing their letters to Juliet and the wall is covered beautifully with people's letter's. That is all that is there in the beautiful courtyard.

In real life... it is a beautiful courtyard... but there were SO many people in the courtyard, that you can barely get around. In the entryway into the courtyard the walls are covered with bandaids and post it notes and scrap paper with people's names on them. It's kind of gross.

You have a line of people waiting to grope the Juliet Statue which is why her right breast is all worn out (which you also don't see in the movie.... but apparently it is good luck. Allison and I didn't do that, but we did take a picture with her.

The gate behind Juliet's statue is filled with locks. Love locks? I thought that was just a Paris thing. I guess not. That is also not in the movie.

The biggest disappointment was NO letters on the wall. I saw a lot of gum... but no letters. A couple of people had put letters up, but nothing like the movie. We thought that maybe it wasn't a real thing, but I had checked online before we went so that we would get there and not be disappointed.

I had even come to the courtyard with my letter ready. Then I looked behind the statue of Juliet. I found a basket of letters. It is a thing... just not on the wall. I will take what I can get. I poured my heart out that letter and I am hoping that I get a response.

After that we paid to go into Juliet's house which is now a museum of her... but really the only reason we did it was to stand on her balcony. There wasn't much to that museum anyway. Totally Worth it!

While exploring Verona, we discovered that it has an amazing view. It was a little hike up there, but not too bad. Totally worth it. What a beautiful and charming city. We were SO glad we went. Loved it.