Romantic Route Venice - Padua - Verona

About the destination: Perhaps no city is as fabulous as Venice, a metropolis built upon stilts, a maze perched over a lagoon. Venice has been dubbed the parlour of Europe, and indeed for centuries the city was a haven for ideas and idealists, a crossroads of the Byzantine and Roman worlds. Today Venice is a different kind of parlour. Wealthy visitors scramble into gondolas to gawk at the Byzantine palaces while being serenaded by accordionists and art lovers strain for a glimpse of Renaissance masterpieces. No monument is as memorable as the city itself, so use the major sights only as an excuse for wandering. Venice revolves around Piazza San Marco. The best feature of the mosaic-covered Basilica di San Marco is the Pala D’Oro, a glittering gold Byzantine bas-relief. The Torre dell’Orologio, to the left of San Marco, is a beautifully adorned clock tower. For culture enthusiasts, check the Accademia for the best of Venetian paintings. Some say that the tourist Venice is indeed Venice, but there are other Venices as well. To find them, wander away from the major sights and into the quieter outlying residential areas, you won’t be disappointed, this labyrinth of stone and colour radiates enchantment from every brick.

About the destination: Padua is an Italian province with its capital in the city of the Veneto. It is bordered to the north by the province of Treviso, to the east by the province of Venice, to the south by the province of Rovigo and to the west by the province of Verona and the province of Vicenza. (Note: The text is already in English and does not require translation. English is spoken in Ireland with some regional dialects and accents, but the written language remains the same.)

About the destination: Set amidst endless vineyards and cypress groves, this blend of Roman ruins, pink palaces and whimsical tombs has a romantic beauty that is hard to overstate. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet here, and would likely be amused to know that his fictional lovers have become Verona’s top tourist attraction. However, Verona has more to offer than just Romeo and Juliet. In the centre of Verona, Brà square, there is the almost perfectly preserved Roman Arena. Up via Mazzini from the Arena is piazza delle Erbe, where tacky trinkets are sold amongst the Renaissance palazzo of former Veronese merchants and it has a lively atmosphere with charming cafes and stunning restaurants. Through an arch on the right are piazza dei Signori and the Tombs of the Scaligeri, the peculiar Gothic remnants of della Scalla, Verona’s medieval tyrants. The equestrian statue of Cangrande I, head of the Scalla clan is a glorification of raw power and can be visited at the museum of Castelvecchio. But if you are a hopeless romantic, at 23 via Cappello you’ll find Juliet’s house, where lovers scrawl their hopeful pleas. The house where Romeo used to live is now a pub. This ancient city oozes history from every brick and is well worth a visit.

About the destination: Peschiera offers its visitors visible signs of every historical era through which it has lived: from the age of pile-dwellers (stilt-house inhabitants) during the Roman Age, and from the early to late Medieval years in which the Scala Family ruled, to the period of Venetian nomination, then the Napoleonic Empire, and finally to the Hapsburg rule, when Peschiera was one of the four fortresses of the Austrian Quadrilatero, at the time the most powerful defensive system in Italy. Peschiera was equally-important during Italian Unification and then, in the First World War. Such is attributed to its geographic position, leading to its use as a strategic hub in terms of communications between the Alpine and Padania regions of the country, in addition to those between east and west. That is, Peschiera lies on Lake Garda’s southernmost point (part of the Veneto Region and Verona Province), where the Lake becomes the Mincio Bayou and, at the same time, a tributary of the Po River running into the Adriatic Sea.