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elizabethenroute-blog · 6 years

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Using Tinder instead of Trip Advisor

“JULIET I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, Rememb'ring how I love thy company.

ROMEO And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this.” (2.2.184-189)

Translation? In today’s world, this is where Juliet would be lying awake, tapping away at her phone at 2am (even though she probably has a 9am lecture tomorrow morning), straining her eyes severely, all because she’s managed to find herself a rare species of boy who won’t leave her on read. In this scene, it’s the classic “you hang up”, “no, you hang up”.

This week I was on half term, and myself and a few of the other South Tyrol teaching assistants decided to explore the fair Verona where Romeo and Juliet lay their scene, as well as go on a couple of day trips to beautiful Venice and Peschiera del Garda.

Upon entering the city, which is renowned for its star-crossed lovers, the conversation turned to uni love lives - triumphs, horror stories, and of course, Tinder. Realising that we were finally well out of the range of any of our students who might have lied about their ages, Tinder was (re)downloaded and the swiping began.

I feel I should disclose in this that I have personally never been able to take Tinder seriously. Hats off to anyone who’s been able to use the app successfully AND maintain their dignity, but all I can think of is having to explain to my future children that me and Daddy met because we both swiped right. Call me high-maintenance, call me old-fashioned, I just want a proper story.

Anyway, there we were, sat round our table all completely absorbed in our personal online worlds (we are millennials, after all), when we decided we needed to plan the days ahead of us. When would we do our day trips, and what would we see in each of the cities? Cue light bulb, I suggested we could try asking a few of the guys on Tinder what they recommended. Who needs trip advisor when you’ve got a whole app of locals in the palm of your hand?

All I would send to the various male specimens was “Ciao - I’m in Verona for a few days, what do you recommend I do/visit?” - direct, simple, surely my plan was foolproof? Wrong.

Some of the most hilarious initial responses included simply the word “me”, one guy who told me to go to a specific wine bar, before telling me it was his specific wine bar, and another who ignored the question entirely with a request for nudes. I don’t know what I expected, this is Tinder after all.

Luckily, there is still a shred of human decency in this world, found in the form of one Simone, with a beard to rival Brian Blessed and eyebrows so on fleek they gave mine anxiety. He suggested that I visited the arena, the Lamberti tower, Juliet’s balcony, Castelvecchio, piazza delle erbe, eat pizza, drink wine, go to elk bakery for brunch “and of course go out with an Italian boy”.

So, the next morning, we set out to do (minus the last instruction) exactly that. We headed straight for the Elk Bakery, which is somewhere I’d 100% recommend to anyone visiting Verona. I’m guessing he took one look at my Tinder profile and thought “this is a girl who religiously uses the Valencia filter - I’ll send her to the most instragrammable place I know”.

The Elk Bakery is located on Via IV Novembre, and isn’t somewhere you’d want to go if you’re looking for anything remotely Italian. The best way to describe it is probably a Shoreditch Frankie & Benny’s, with avocado & bacon bagels, pancakes, and fresh juices served in mason jars all being just the tip of the iceberg. I had to stop myself from buying one of their branded mugs (but now that’s just giving me an excuse to return to Verona).

After breakfast, we trekked over to the city centre, where we checked off all the tourist spots Simone had suggested. Unfortunately, Juliet’s balcony is under renovation at the moment, so we had to settle for a quick grope of her boob for luck and carry on our way. All in all, it was a gorgeous first day, and the recommendations we’d received got me straight back onto Tinder to search for a Venice local, who I hoped could provide me with some similar suggestions for our day trip the following morning.

Our prayers were answered in the form of Leonardo, who sent me not one, not two, but three paragraphs full of recommendations on how I should plan my first ever trip to Venice.

On arrival, I underestimated how disorientating the city could be. At least Hampton Court Palace has a legible map! I think I’d have more chance of success navigating my way through a flooded Glastonbury in a floating tent than having to do Venice alone. This meant we weren’t able to follow Leonardo’s instructions as easily I we thought we could, however we picked out some of the key locations he mentioned and headed for those.

Our first stop was the Ponte di Rialto, which pictures can’t do justice to. My training from having an older brother who played rugby came in handy at this point, as we had to elbow our way across the bridge, through all the tourists. The whole day I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’d hate to be there in the height of the tourist season. This was late October, and yet we were still having to battle our way through the streets like it was the Hunger Games.

From the Ponte di Rialto, we followed the streets along to Piazza San Marco and the Basilica. Again, both incredibly beautiful suggestions. We were lucky enough to arrive there just as the clock tower was hitting midday, which meant we got to watch the two figures on top of the tower attack the bell, and we got to see the roman numerals change.

At that point, we were absolutely starving, and so we set off in search of something edible. After lunch, we set our sights on what we considered to be the most exciting of Leonardo’s suggestions - something he described as a “funny library”. A quick google showed us that it was close and it had cats, which was all the information we needed.

This “funny library” was the Liberia Acqua Alta (bookshop of high water), and I think it needs to be listed as a World Heritage Sight. Bathtubs filled with books, a gondola filled with books, books stacked up to create a staircase of books. Books literally piled from floor to ceiling, featuring the occasional cat attempting to clamber across all of them.

The name comes from the fact that water does flood into the shop on occasion, but rather than panicking, the owners have simply embraced the constant threat. In fact, following the shop round to the very back leads to what is labelled as the “fire exit”, which is simply an open door leading straight out onto the canal (paintings of stick men diving in are provided, should you have any doubts about what to do).

We spent the rest of the day wandering along the canal front in search of aperol spritz (another suggestion - not that I needed it), after which we caught a water taxi back to the station as the sun began to set - an image that was really amplified for me after having drunk literally the strongest spritz anyone has ever mixed for me.

Tinder suggestions were hard to come by for our next day trip, as I couldn’t find anyone from the specific area we were planning on visiting. The only suggestion I did receive was for a theme park called Gardaland, which looked great, but wasn’t something we were feeling up to. Nevertheless we headed out and explored Peschiera del Garda ourselves, another incredibly gorgeous place. Our day was filled with pizza, wine, gelato and a canal tour which took us around the walls of the ancient town.

On our final full day in Verona, we slept in before checking off the last of Simone’s suggestions from day one - Castelvecchio and the Lamberti tower. Seeing the city from 368 steps up was the perfect way to say goodbye to the area we’d fallen in love with over the past few days.

So, can I suggest Tinder as a replacement for Trip Advisor? To a certain point, yes. You’re asking local people for the best parts of their city, and locals tend to know their localities pretty well. The Elk Bakery and the Liberia Acqua Alta were both places that I never would have discovered if it hadn’t been for Simone and Leonardo.

However, this is still Tinder. A search for the perfect spots to visit on this app should not be recommended without warning that it is an app primarily used by millennials for hook-ups. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Besides, Romeo and Juliet didn’t meet by swiping right.

Until next time,

Beth ❤️

#tinder #trip advisor #third year abroad #languages #language student #verona #venice #lake garda #shakespeare #italy #romeo and juliet #elk bakery #liberia acqua alta

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