The balcony
World literature's most famous balcony — built for the dream, not the record.
This Photo was taken by Andrea Bertozzi. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Álvaro de la Paz Franco — CC0 · Álvaro de la Paz Franco — CC0 · Álvaro de la Paz Franco — CC0
Juliet's House is Europe's most successful tourist legend — with every party a willing one: a lovely medieval house of the Cappello family, whose name neighbours Shakespeare's Capuleti, to which 1930s Verona added a Gothic balcony, and "Juliet's House" was born — and the world believed with joy, story beating fact as it always does. The courtyard is free and eternally packed: Juliet's bronze statue, her breast polished by millions of luck-seeking touches; the entrance walls sheathed in lovers' notes in every language on earth; the famous balcony overhead — the obligatory photo minutes. The interior takes a ticket: a restored medieval house with paintings and the bed from Zeffirelli's film, its climax standing on the balcony itself. Take it in its right spirit — a charming celebration of the power of stories — and you leave smiling; take it as a historic site and you leave puzzled.
World literature's most famous balcony — built for the dream, not the record.
Juliet's bronze, breast burnished by millions of wishes.
Earth's lovers writing to a heroine who never lived — an astonishing human document.
Via Cappello 23, 37121 Verona
Cappella dei Notai (Chapel of the Notaries)A few steps above the vegetable market, behind a door nobody notices, hides one 1 minute walk4.4
Galleria Achille FortiA gallery of modern art inside the Palazzo della Ragione in the heart of Verona,1 minute walk4.2
Scala della RagioneAn external stone staircase in the Mercato Vecchio courtyard in central Verona, 2 minutes walk4.6
Torre dei LambertiThe Lamberti tower is Verona's highest point: eighty-four metres grown across ce2 minutes walk4.4
Palazzo della RagioneA complex of twelfth-century buildings between Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei 2 minutes walk4.4Juliet is literary — but Shakespeare built on an older Italian tale that truly set the feuding families in Verona, and both similarly named clans existed. The house is "real of family, literary of heroine" — Verona added the balcony, and the world's belief supplied the rest.
For the unsmitten: the courtyard gives the whole story free. Inside is for those who must stand on the balcony itself — a moment worth its price to its people — and for lovers of restored medieval houses. Rule: measure the queue against your longing.
For decades thousands worldwide have written to "Juliet, Verona" — and a volunteer club of women, Juliet's Secretaries, genuinely answers every one, the finest winning a prize each Valentine's. Post yours on the designated boards, not the walls — Verona is protecting its house from excessive love.