“
O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost. Seeking out Romeo.” William Shakespeare
I stepped into a candy shop not far from Piazza Brà, the historic centre of Verona. With a big smile on his face, the shopkeeper bragged that “
Venice has a lot of water, Verona has a lot of wine. Which would you rather drink?” He then immediately offered me a couple of ‘pebbles’ from the Adige River. They looked just like the pebbles that assemble at a bend in the meander of the river just a block or two from the candy shop. Then the shopkeeper chuckled and showed me a whole bin full of ‘pebbles’. They were chocolate covered and delicious. Verona seems to be like that. This historic city has a lot going for it, but around 10:00 AM when all the cruise ship tourist groups arrive, they head straight for Juliet’s balcony to relive the romance. Little does it matter to them that the
balcony was added to this thirteenth century house in the mid-twentieth century.
If you have an interest in science, it is possible to escape the zombie tourist hordes. The guided tour groups don’t seem as interested as I am in STEM.