This becomes my favorite day.
We are leaving Italy and heading for Austria for an overnight stay in Innsbruck.
Heading north we stop in Verona, the proposed home of Juliet. As in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.
So, the movie "Letters to Juliet," is based upon the idea of this place. There is, Club di Giulietta, a group of women who respond to letters written by people who drop them in the mailbox in the square where the balcony is located. The story claims this is the balcony of the real Juliet and this was her home. There is a statue of Juliet in the square and it's good luck to rub her boob (I'll assume a man came up with that superstition.) Also, lovers write their names on a lock and lock them to an iron fence in the square.
The whole scene is very cliche and corner, but a must see for tourist, especially lovers. It was fun though. We all wrote our letters to Juliet and deposited them in the mailbox. Until I began writing this blog I'd forgotten we'd done that and now I'm sad because we never got a response from our letters. What a hoax! Verona is small and quaint. We only stopped long enough to see Juliet's and grab some lunch.
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| Balcony |
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| Locks and letters |
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| Graffiti fills the walls of the passageway into the square. |
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| Iron gate of locks. |
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| "What light through yonder window breaks. It is the East and Juliet is the sun..." |
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| Drop box for letters to Juliet |
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| Good luck! ;) |
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| View of Verona |
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| These guys were ridiculous. Still trying to figure it out... |
Pressing onward north to Austria.
When we leave Italy and enter Austria it is instantly noticeable.
The change in scenery is unbelievable.
The fields of sunflowers and grape vines become snow-capped mountains.
My ears begin to pop from the change in atmospheres.
When we enter Innsbruck we are at the center of town in a valley and all around us are mountains etched in the background.
The air is chill when we step off the bus and I instantly fall in love after yesterday's horrendous weather in Venice. The sky is dark and rain is coming soon. The 65 degree chill winds put a pep in my step and we set off to wander about for the next hour.
We are not staying in town, our hotel is 30 miles north in the mountains.
Ana and I find some steals on great clothes and pick up a few groceries and liquor for the cabin because Eirini was very specific once we got there that there would be no way down.
We gather back up and head toward paradise.
The further the bus drives, the more beautiful my surroundings become. Away from the town, the buildings we now see are small homes with small gardens and swing-sets for children.
When we reach our hotel I am convinced we stopped there because we could drive no further without catching a shuttle to space because we have officially reached the top of the Alps.
From the front of our hotel you can look down and see the tiny squares of color that make up the city we were just in. From our bedroom window I look out onto a hill with sheep and cattle. I'm simply in awe.
As I mentioned in the beginning of my Europe blogs, WiFi was limited, so we were like hawks as soon as we got to the hotels and could get Internet.When we reach our hotel, at what I perceive as the highest point, the first question is, "do we have WiFi?"
Eirni tells us no and everyone goes into mild shock and it's never mentioned again.
We unload and once again lug our suitcases up a few flights of stairs to our new home for the evening.
Since we were WiFi-less and essentially stuck in the mountains we whipped out the booze and got started toward one memorable night.
I believe we were the only tenants for the evening because we were awfully loud by the end of the evening but never received any noise complaints.
This night was one of the most memorable for me. We drank, sang, laughed and several opened up to the group. Although many arguments and discussions resulted from that, I wouldn't change a thing about the evening. At one point all 17 of us were crammed in our room. We smoked hookah 'til 2 a.m. and one by one faded out to sleep.
I mentioned the bit about asking Eirini about WiFi when we first arrived because as it turns out we had WiFi the whole time. We all agree we were glad she lied to us because we had one helluva night. In Eirini's defense, she had no idea we believed her. Funny how much the Internet and a smart phone can control a person.
The next morning we set out for Germany, but not before waking up to the most beautiful view my eyes had ever seen. I never imagined anything more beautiful than the sights we saw the previous day. However, I was completely wrong. Today was cloudy, and being so high in the mountains you looked out over the horizons and although they appeared as fog, it was clouds. And they were everywhere. We were so close to the sky I think I could've reached out and touched them.
I will most certainly return to Austria someday for I am quite certain I left a large portion of my heart behind there.
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