Juliet's balcony

After a very relaxing and hot week we are back in the UK. We stayed in the lakes region of Italy which is incredibility beautiful but also expensive (even by Italian standards) While we were there we took a trip into Verona and visited the only literary connection of our holiday; Juliet's balcony.

Juliet's balcony is located in a small courtyard just off one of the main shopping streets in the city of Verona. To get to the balcony visitors must walk through a stone tunnel leading to the courtyard. The tunnel is covered with graffiti and post-it notes all covered with beautiful declarations of love such as 'Sharon & Ross 4 ever'


The courtyard is quite small and located there in the far corner is the famous balcony where Juliet called “Romeo Romeo where for art thou Romeo?” and a statue of Juliet herself beneath it. The courtyard was very crowded and busy which isn't really clear from the photo taken. I also noticed that people who were posing for photographs next to the statue of Juliet were fondling her breasts (it certainly looked like it anyway) I later found out that local tradition dictates if you rub Juliet's right breast then you will find a new lover within the year, I'm glad I found this out as it really did look very odd otherwise.


So what connects this balcony to the fictional character of Juliet? Not a lot. There were two families who lived in Verona named the Cappellettis and the Montecchis (later changed by Shakespeare to Capulet and Montague) but there is little evidence to suggest that that the Cappellettis ever set foot here. The house was brought by the Veronese authoriries in 1936 after George Cukor's oscar winning production of Romeo & Juliet. They then “restored” the balcony. There are various other tourist destinations scattered around the city all allegedly linked to Romeo and Juliet and all equally bogus. The original story was fictional so why not the props as well?

The balcony does however look the part and while there are far bigger and better things to see in Verona, its a nice little spot to take a photo and if you are the romantic sort (as Chris is) i'm sure you'd enjoy the experience.

Posted by Jess