Where they never kissed: the castles of Romeo and Juliet

I'm an eternal lover of Italy, perhaps shaped by those early history lessons where Rome, alongside Greece, stood as cultural pillars, at least in our Western imagination. Traveling there has always felt like a path more than a route—not slow and taciturn, but swift, intense, yet reflective. My journeys have always echoed this rhythm, that andiamo adesso drawing me forward, even toward quiet hills above Vicenza, where stone castles murmur truths marble balconies never could.

Lasciatemi cantare…

Not every myth is born where it’s worshipped. Some rise elsewhere—on quiet hills, on dirt paths, in voices that only sussurrano when you’re ready to listen.

I left Milan that morning in a Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera Targa. I removed the hardtop as soon as I left the city behind. The sky opened with no resistance, as if it, too, knew I was after something unmarked by maps. The engine didn’t roar; it held a note. And I held it with it.

At some point, I began humming—first unconsciously, then with the certainty of someone who recognizes an echo of himself:

Lasciatemi cantare... con la chitarra in mano.

I started to sing a viva voce.

I had no guitar. But I used to. There was a time when I wrote songs. The words came before the answers. Simple, rhythmic, honest. I left them behind when time began to weigh heavier than paper. But on that stretch of highway, with the hills of Veneto unfolding like a faded score, the music returned—not as nostalgia, but as gratitude.

I was born in Venezuela, a country where Italian immigration left its mark. You see it in the surnames around you. In the way people greet each other. In the devotion to long tables and slow coffee. In that blend of tenderness and theatricality that turns ordinary phrases into music. For us, Italy wasn’t Europe—it was family, memory, a childhood haunted by affectionate ghosts.

As I drove, scenes from Caracas rose quietly in my memory: crowded tables set with mismatched plates, animated conversations effortlessly woven together like threads of an invisible fabric, in a city where a cozy restaurant or coffee is always just around the corner. There was always music—someone humming softly, someone tapping fingers on wood, rhythm lingering gently, without urgency. Italy had never been mine, yet it felt familiar, quietly but persistently, as if borrowed from the air we breathed together in those warm gatherings.

“Buongiorno Italia che non si spaventa,” I thought as I passed a billboard announcing a wine fair. I smiled to myself. Not because of the line, but because I understood something: there are things you don’t translate—you live them. Like songs. Like certain ruins.

And then it appeared—Montecchio Maggiore, unannounced, unpolished. Two castles staring at each other from opposing hills, like two names too proud to speak aloud. Bellaguardia and La Villa. Juliet and Romeo. Silence. Stone. A history without ceremony. And me, arriving with the wind on my face, not yet knowing I had chosen the hill where they never kissed.

The hill where they never kissed

Shakespeare wasn’t the first. Long before his quill turned impossible love into a universal tragedy, there was another voice—shorter, closer. His name was Luigi Da Porto. A soldier. A nobleman from Vicenza. Wounded in body, wounded in shadow. He was the one who, in the early 16th century, first wrote the story of two young lovers from rival families. He gave them names. He gave them fate. And he gave them a city: Verona.

But he wasn’t in Verona. He wrote from Montorso Vicentino, where from his window two silhouettes of stone stared back at one another—Bellaguardia and La Villa, the two castles still perched atop Montecchio Maggiore. That’s where he imagined it. That’s where he gave the myth its breath: from the hill where they never kissed.

The rivalry between these castles, between their families, was more than simple territorial pride; it was deeply rooted in honor, wealth, and ancient feuds that had been passed down through generations. It was a rivalry fueled not only by differences but also by tragic similarities—the stubbornness of pride and the unwillingness to yield. Romeo and Juliet's story emerged as a reflection of this human paradox: love flourishing precisely where it was forbidden, its strength magnified by opposition, its purity intensified by secrecy and sacrifice.

Yet beneath the fictional feud lay another, subtler rivalry—one between Verona and Vicenza themselves. Verona, charming and grand, effortlessly embraced Da Porto’s story, polishing it into a luminous spectacle for visitors. Vicenza, quieter, more reserved, remained in the shadow of its glamorous neighbor, quietly holding onto the truth of the story’s origins. Perhaps this unspoken competition between the two cities was no less profound than the fictional one Da Porto created—a tension not openly acknowledged, yet still felt in their silent coexistence.

Verona—Verónica, as those who fancy her like to call her—kept the spectacle: the balcony, the letters, the cameras. She became scenery. A city reenacting herself. Montecchio, by contrast, offers no postcards. Only stone, wind, and uncorrected time.

That’s why, on one of my trips to Italy, I chose that hill. I could’ve gone to Verona. I didn’t. I chose the crack, not the marble. The silence, not the reenactment. I chose to look toward where love was imagined, not where it is sold.

As I climbed the gentle slope, fragments of the original story whispered to me through the rustle of leaves. I wondered if Da Porto ever paused, pen in hand, to watch clouds drift lazily between these castles, shaping and reshaping his thoughts. Perhaps he knew the silence here was profound enough to carry secrets, that these quiet ruins would always outlive the stories told about them.

I had driven up from Milan like someone not detouring from a path but from logic itself. And when I arrived, I knew I hadn’t been wrong. The castles were there. Quiet. Like two sentences left unfinished. Like two bodies no longer waiting.

The lunch, the limone, and the donne

Bellaguardia, Juliet’s castle, sits higher up. The road that leads to it is short but steep, winding through vineyards arranged with an elegance that doesn’t seek symmetry. Inside, there’s a small, honest restaurant, its windows open to the valley and tables covered with cloths that make no effort to impress.

I had lunch there.

The pizza arrived with charred edges, the dough still alive, obedient only to the fire. I ordered a Coca-Cola, expecting it with ice. Instead, it came at room temperature, al limone, a thick slice of lemon floating like a punctuation mark. Mio Dio, I thought, but said nothing. There was no need. They looked at me the way you look at someone who isn’t from here but isn’t entirely foreign either.

Italians have a particular way of seeing you—they don’t judge, but they know. Especially the donne. They read you before you speak, before you even sit, with subtle gestures, brief pauses, an eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, as if to silently communicate, we know.

"Con più donne, sempre meno suore," sang Toto Cutugno. At that lunch, I understood the line wasn’t humor or nostalgia—it was an x-ray. This is a country where the world is filtered through the eyes of women. And Giorgia Meloni embodies this with tectonic precision—una vera moglie italiana, as I would confide to these hills. Not by politics, but by fierezza italiana: that untranslatable alloy of grit and grace forged in nonna’s kitchen and vineyard soil. When she speaks, her voice carries grandmothers burying olive pits at dawn, mothers weathering familial tempests in sacred silence, vineyards murmuring truths to the wind long after tourists leave. She is less a leader than a landscape—these hills given voice.

And just behind that voice, somewhere in the background of countless kitchens and dashboards, you can still hear what Toto Cutugno once sang:

Buongiorno Maria, con gli occhi pieni di malinconia.
[Good morning Maria, with eyes full of melancholy.]

It's like a Hail Mary every Sunday morning—not doctrine, merely habit—the quiet kind of faith that lives in ceramic Madonnas and folded hands before meals. It’s there even when no one mentions her, even when no one believes.

Buongiorno Dio, sai che ci sono anch'io.
[Good morning God, you know that I’m here too.]

(I believe. And my children can tell that I also believe in Santa.)

I remember my grandmother’s kitchen, modest and warm, where such rituals shaped my early world: plates quietly placed on the table, the soft whisper of a prayer before lunch, an unspoken reverence in the air. She was Larense, from Lara state, Venezuela—not Italian—yet the spirit felt strangely familiar, like a song whose lyrics you've forgotten but whose melody lingers deep inside.

From the terrace of Juliet’s castle, I looked across the valley towards the other hill. Romeo was waiting there—but not to kiss, only to look, just like me.

Epilogue – The stone, the wind, and a song that won’t leave

Romeo’s castle sits lower on the hill. Closer to the dust, the people, the world. That afternoon, there was an event: an inflatable screen shaking in the breeze, plastic chairs in rows, the quiet murmur of a town gathering without fanfare. I didn’t go in. I stayed on the slope, still. From there, I could see Juliet’s castle slightly higher up, across a gentle dip in the hill, glowing softly in the late light. I wondered if Romeo had ever known she was that close. And whether that was enough.

Near the entrance, a Vespa was resting. Pale blue. Just slightly tilted, as if listening too. From the handlebars, a small Topolino doll hung in silence. Mickey Mouse, yes. But here—nella Italia—it’s Topolino. And you learn that late, like so many things that aren’t taught—they’re remembered.

I sat on a stone. Not to look. Not to understand. Just to remain. On a hill where nothing happened—but could have.

I thought of my father. He never saw these castles. But something about him was with me. In the way I held the wheel. In how I sat without saying a word. In the weight of presence, more than voice. He was never one to pray out loud—but there was always a small image of the Virgin near the kitchen, or tucked in the car visor, as if watching over things that couldn’t be named. Maybe he had dreamed this trip before I even knew how to dream it. Maybe this story belonged to him, too—a love letter to the hill where they never kissed, but where he always dreamed.

And perhaps, I thought, every journey carries a shadow of someone who wished it first—a quiet companion you recognize only when silence deepens. For my father, Italy had always been an unspoken longing, distant yet strangely familiar, existing only in fragments of music, faded photographs, and the small rituals of daily life. And now here I was, completing a circle he had started without ever leaving home.

I remembered earlier, back at the restaurant, before the Coca-Cola arrived, the young lady had said:

"We don’t put ice in it here. The flavor cools on its own."

I wasn’t sure if she meant the drink or life. But I nodded. The way you nod when something becomes clear, just a bit too late.

When I asked for another drink, she paused, giving me a knowing look. She returned shortly afterward, not with a Coke but with a slender glass filled with Bellaguardia 1920—a sparkling wine born of these very hills.

I accepted the glass silently. Perhaps she knew that this—rather than the Coke I had asked for—was exactly what the moment required.

I got back in the car. The engine started with that low, deliberate growl reserved for machines that have waited for your return. I placed my hands on the wheel. The sky was still open. And the wind, again, asked me to sing.

I said it to myself. Like sealing a letter never meant to be sent—but meant, perhaps, to be found.