Italy Day Twelve: Verona and Milan

On day twelve we made our trip to the final city at which we would stay, Milan. As we traveled by train, however, we stopped part of the way and spent a few hours exploring Verona. 

There was really only one thing that I knew about in Verona that I wanted to see, which was "Juliet's Balcony." The house where the balcony is supposedly belonged to Capello (Capulet) family in Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is indeed based off a story from Italy, but I'm not sure if this was definitely her house (and apparently the balcony was added within the past hundred years). Nevertheless, as a big Shakespeare fan, I thought Juliet's House was quite charming and enjoyed going up to the balcony and looking around the museum within the house. It was fun to at least imagine that this was where Juliet stood. One could even write letters to Juliet (like in the movies Letters to Juliet). 

Statue of Juliet in the courtyard 

Later in the afternoon we continued on to Milan. The first thing that many of us noticed about Milan was how much more modern it seemed as compared to the other places we had visited. While places like Rome, Florence and Venice seemed very intent on displaying the aspects of their history, the buildings in  Milan were quite modern (although we did discover some of the historical places the next day). Milan is a very large and fashionable city, and it was even somewhat intimidating to walk around in the evening, looking for a place to eat and feeling a bit out of place. But my two friends and I did find a place to eat and managed to do alright even though it seemed none of the waiters knew English (unlike most of the places we had previously visited). We had quite a lovely dinner during which I enjoyed some delicious gnocchi :)

Waiting for our food to come -
(this photo was taken by my friend Tyler on his camera)