Juliet's balcony in Verona
Through storytelling, legend or their connection to famous lovers, some buildings and natural wonders are forever associated with romance. Often it is the power of a story that entices so many dewy-eyed travellers to visit a monument to love, and no tale is more bittersweet than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The balcony setting where the star-crossed young lovers first exchange promises is so hallowed that it has left the realm of the imaginary and become a real destination.
The Casa di Giulietta (Juliet’s house) is in the historic centre of Verona, in the Veneto region of Italy, and shelters behind stout iron gates away from the bustle of boutique-lined Via Cappello. The house’s association with the Shakespeare play is tenuous – it might once have been the house of the Cappello family upon whom the Capulets might have been based, and it might not (the current balcony was added in the Thirties). Nonetheless, it attracts people of all ages and nationalities who make the pilgrimage to the scene of the most famous love story of them all.
The stone walls of the arched opening leading to Juliet’s courtyard are layered with decades of graffiti as giant spray-painted hearts, with lovers’ initials inside, jostle for prominence. The right breast of the courtyard’s bronze Juliet statue has been rubbed to a brilliant patina by visitors hoping that this will make them lucky in love.
Behind the statue, handwritten letters, asking Juliet for help with romantic problems, are stuck to the wall, while couples who are already an item head into the house and ascend through the museum of Romeo and Juliet memorabilia, including the bed from Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film, to exchange a kiss on the famous balcony or even to say ‘I do’ (the balcony is now licensed for weddings). A cleverly contrived visitor attraction, or a special place to plight one’s troth? Does it really matter? It makes a lovely picture.
The stories of Greek mythology are as rich in drama and passion as any Shakespearean tragedy. Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love – but not monogamy – is said to have emerged from the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, just off the southwest coast of Cyprus near Paphos, and the reputed spot is marked by a rock that now bears her name. It has attained pilgrimage status and legend has it that anybody who swims around it three times, naked, will be blessed with eternal beauty. Sadly, it didn’t work for Aristotle Onassis.
A far less strenuous way to pay tribute to Aphrodite’s story is to visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence where Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus hangs, the best-known of the Renaissance painter’s work, depicting Venus (the Roman name for Aphrodite) at the moment that she steps fully grown, stark naked and siren-like from the sea. Who cannot think of love in the presence of this and other great romantic works by the masters of the Renaissance?
And as you leave this famous collection and wander through the ancient piazzas, you might recognise some familiar landmarks from romantic films such as A Room With a View. Then head to the city’s oldest bridge, the Ponte Vecchio where, if people wanted to make their love eternal, they padlocked a chain to the bridge and then threw the key into the River Arno below. Admittedly, this is a relatively recent tradition (rumoured to have been started by a nearby locksmith) and the practice has now been banned.
Heading 3,800 miles or so east, the Indian fort city of Agra is home to the most overpowering monument of them all to the endurance of love – the Taj Mahal. Commissioned by the grieving Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj took 22 years and 20,000 workers to build.
Its breathtaking beauty lies in its sheer scale, its cool architectural symmetry and its intricate landscaping – not least the Persian-style garden symbolising paradise with its geometrically planted trees, rose beds and the acclaimed fountain (scene of the famously lovelorn Princess Diana image, and now turned on only for VIP visits). It is rumoured that, upon completion, Shah Jahan ordered that the architect’s hands be cut off so that he could never create a more magnificent building – which seems somewhat ungrateful.
If no place on Earth seems sufficiently heavenly, and the notion of wishing upon a star just doesn’t do it for you, you could consider an alternative celestial experience by trying to spot a moonbow – a rainbow that is created when the light of the moon meets the spray from a waterfall. These night-sky phenomena are exceptionally rare because of the variables that all have to be just right for a bow to be visible – the moon must be full, the sky clear and the spray from the waterfall high. One of the few places that they are regularly sighted is at the Victoria Falls.
This natural wonder, located where the Zambezi River falls more than 360ft at the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, has beauty on a symphonic scale and is now a World Heritage site. The local Toka-Leya people know the falls as Mosi-oa-Tunya (‘the smoke that thunders’) and it is the power and volume of this spray that creates the moonbow. They are most common during the first half of each year when the river is highest. If it appears, the lunar rainbow will span the chasm, providing lucky viewers not only with one of nature’s most bewitching spectacles but, it’s said, a life full of blessings. What more could the love-struck traveller ask for?