Beach dining and secluded private villa (Image: Sashi Rajamahendran)
That s amore
Famous as the setting for Shakespeare s 16th-century play Romeo and Juliet, love is always in the air in the captivating city of Verona.
This was proven when locals Michele D Alpaos and Paola Agnelli made the front pages when they fell for each other across their balconies in lockdown last September.
And if music be the food of love, the magnificent must-see Roman amphitheatre Arena di Verona plays host to the world-renowned summer Opera Festival.
After a moonlit stroll across the Adige River, over the Ponte Pietra, festooned with love locks, cosy up in the riverside Terrazza Bar al Ponte over a bottle of Valpolicella, produced from the region s fine vineyards.
Andreas Tille
In
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare did much to render the Roman emperor’s death iconic: in the Roman Senate, Caesar is set upon by a group of conspirators who stab him as he cries out, Et tu, Brute? to his trusted friend Brutus, who has sided with the schemers. It wasn’t until 2012 that archaeologists announced that they had confidently identified the spot where Caesar was killed: the Largo di Torre Argentina, a square in the center of Rome today filled with ancient ruins and stray cats.
Forest of Arden
Thomas B. Hollyman/Photo Researchers
In
As You Like It, after a duke is sent into exile by his usurping brother, he and his supporters end up in the Forest of Arden. It is a place of banishment, but it’s also a place of freedom from the constraints of court life. Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden had several real-life precedents: the Ardennes forest on mainland Europe was one, but another was the ancient Forest of Arden in Warwickshire, near the town where Shake