Italian Lakes: 10 Cheesy Tourist Day

Cheesy tourist day was instituted by daughter and self some years ago when we went to New York for a father-daughter break just after I had left IBM. Since then we have run it in Naples and now Verona. The essence of cheesy tourist day is that you do all the things that tourists do, minimising questions of taste, historical attitudes etc. etc. So in New York it involves Staten Island, Broadway and the Empire State Building. In Verona it starts with the Casa di Giulietta and finishes with the Tomba di Giuliette.

Now I am pretty sure that the Veronese were pretty adapt at creating a selling relics if we go back a few centuries so its no real surprise that given the gift by Shakespeare, they should declare themselves the city of love, find a suitable house, add on a balcony and generally set up reality to confirm with the myth. That everyone falls for it, is part of the charm of cheesy tourist days. We even have the bed of Juliet, although they do stop short of staining the sheets, or have actors playing nurses bad admittance to the sleeping chamber, but that may only be a matter of time. Of course you can send an email to Juliet (I kid you not) or stick a bandaid on the wall and write a love message.

After this particular purgatorio (Dante is much in evidence) the Torre die Lamberti provides a wonderful panorama of the city, someone obscured today by the heat haze. If you go take the offer of an extra euro per person over and above the cost of the Verona Card. We didn’t and there was no warning of just how many steps there were in what confined space. Claustrophobia and acrophobia are equally well catered for, as was heilophobia as the day progressed. The number of beer and water stops increased as the day progressed.

The Roman theatre (see right), the Duomo and the Chiesa Di Santa Anastasia all provided some relief from the heat and from the excesses of cheesy tourist days. Castelvecchio as always is a wonderful piece of architecture, but the art exhibits disappoint in the main. I captured the Picture that heads this post from one of the towers looking down onto the Ponte di Castelvecchio in the afternoon heat. Roman soldiers are a key component of cheesy tourists days both here and Rome, but even this one needed a rest.

A beer or so later and I decided the Tomb was a step too far, so I settled on the shade by the Arena looking at the sets of Aida which are stored outside the Amphitheater. The final death aria was flowing through my mind in anticipation of Sunday evening’s performance. After an hour the rest of the party returned, disappointed by the final visit, exhausted by the heat but overall a day well done. From there to the airport to pick up my wife and thence for Pizza and local wine in the late evening.