July 8, 2012
Shaking off Shakespeare: Lazise - Vicenza
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
I WAS NEVER much taken by Shakespeare. To say that is like admitting stealing from babies. But you will understand because you are my friend. So, let me say again that I can't make much sense and I get still less enjoyment out of the old bearded one. Ever since I had to study him at school.
He's always thought of as terribly inventive. But he copied other people when he wrote Romeo and Juliet because the story goes back further than he does and several others had written the story before him. Added to which, since he had never been to Verona, he could only have pinched the descriptions from the others.
Still, when you are a tourist you do touristy things. So we went looking for Juliet's tomb. She did exist, it seems, and she did kill herself. And because the Church thought so dimly of people who hastened their consideration for Heaven, it denied her a conventional burial place. It was only through Shakespeare and the rest that her cause became so well known that the Church relented a little and agreed to a tomb on condition that her name wasn’t on it.
It lies now in a crypt behind a small airy garden and a couple of rooms of sufficient artefacts that the tourist people feel justified in charging admission. Because, frankly, you wouldn't pay otherwise and you certainly wouldn't pay if you had any idea what an anti-climax the tomb was. For it is just a stone casket, empty, unlabelled and without a lid.
There's not even a sign by it to say what you're looking at. Perhaps they want to keep you in doubt, so that you don't do what Lord Byron did and chisel bits off to take home to his family.
We left Lake Garda this morning by way of a decent climb. We soon picked up another of Italy's wonderful bike paths and rolled, hot and a little sweaty, into Verona. A huge ancient arena marks its centre. And the arena's own presence is marked by a dumping ground of scenery from productions there, including mock statues of lions and a comic car with a propeller and a dozen exhaust pipes fanned up at the back like a fish tail.
It all got a bit ordinary after that we because Verona put us into the flat and bleak countryside of the Po valley.
"I remember that before when we rode in northern Italy," Steph said. "There aren't that many useful roads and the ones there are have a lot of traffic." But if the countryside and Verona had been a disappointment, Vicenza was a gem. It was one of those towns of which we expected little, because our notes spoke only of its sprawling suburbs. But the centre is airy and a treasure of leafy squares and enchanting courtyards. There are old squares and ochre buildings and enough to refresh a soul blighted by traffic fumes.
So much so that we will have a day off here, I think.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |