As always, my travels are not sight seeing trips, as the day before, I usually catch the last flight to the place the course will be held, or if possible the first flight out arriving a couple of hours prior to the course starting.
This was the case in the Society of NLP, Master Practitioner course, (click for photograph),organised by NLPItaly in Verona. I caught the 6:20am flight from London Gatwick.
After being picked up by my translator Raffaele Tovazzi, at 9:30am from Verona‘s small airport, booking into the hotel and setting-up the course room as I like it, we had time on our hands, time for a leisurely lunch.
Verona, is a very small city, so we were soon in the town center, parking very close to the Arena, a Roman amphitheatre, built AD 30, and in such good condition. So good is the structure, they hold operas and concerts on a regular basis. The night I was there it was the opera Tosca, but I would not have time to enjoy such culture.
The Roman Arena, Verona
Raffaele took me on an easy walk through the traffic free town center, full of shops and well dressed shoppers, so clean and with old charm, unlike the streets of Milan which are full of parked cars and buildings of a recent era, so box like.
The Archway to the courtyard of Romeo and Juliet. Lovers in the Archway with messages of love
We approached a small archway entrance in a shopping street. This archway, covered with, graffiti, messages of love written by lovers, cuddling and kissing, opened out into a little courtyard, with the balcony of Romeo and Juliet, known throughout the world by William Shakespeare’s 1594 play Romeo and Juliet.
The balcony of Romeo and Juliet
Was Shakespeare’s story true? The house belonged to a family called Capello, which is close enough to Capulet, Juliet’s family name. I understand the balcony was added in the 1930’s, so why are the tourists so engrossed in the attraction, and to the bronze statue of Giulietta?
The statue of Giulietta in Verona
This recent addition of the statue of Giulietta, has become an attraction in its own right. Being bronze, the metal is quite dark, except for her right breast, now a bright polished yellowish patch, where tourists, mostly males, have their pictures taken. I refused to have mine taken, mostly because there was a big queue.
Many towns now have similar statues, stones, shrines, to be visited, viewed, touched, where you place your hand in a hole in a rock, Rome, touch the head of a bronze elephant, Penang’s Goddess of Mercy, complete a circular movement on a spot, Milan, all giving the person something to believe in.
Belief is so strong, and let it be so.
I had my half an hour of being a tourist, and I enjoyed it.