Casa di Giulietta visitor guide — everything you need to know before visiting

At a glance

Address

Via Cappello 23, 37121 Verona, Italy

Hours

Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:30); Mon 13:30–19:30 (last entry 19:00)

Operator

Musei Civici di Verona (Comune di Verona)

Building

14th-century medieval brick tower house

Municipal ownership since

1905

Balcony added

1939, by architect Antonio Avena, from a medieval marble sarcophagus

Bronze Juliet statue

Sculptor Nereo Costantini, donated by Lions Club of Verona, installed 1 June 1973; original moved indoors and replaced by replica in 2014

UNESCO

City of Verona inscribed 2000

Typical visit

30 to 60 minutes inside, plus 15–30 minutes in the courtyard

Courtyard access

Free, no ticket required — interior museum requires a ticket

What is Casa di Giulietta?

Casa di Giulietta is a 14th-century medieval brick tower house in Verona's historic centre — and a museum dedicated to the layered literary tradition that has grown around it over the last 250 years. The original building was the residence of the Capello family, used at various points as a private home and as an inn called 'del Cappello' (Italian for 'hat'). The name's similarity to Shakespeare's Capulet family was first picked up by 18th-century travellers reading Shakespeare's tragedy, and the connection has been culturally cemented ever since. The Comune di Verona acquired the building in 1905 and operates it under the Musei Civici di Verona umbrella as a civic museum.

What visitors actually see is the work of two distinct moments in the house's life: the medieval Capello-family fabric (the brick walls, the irregular floor plan, the original architectural details), and the 1939 transformation by the architect Antonio Avena, who curated the museum displays and added the famous balcony to the courtyard side. The interior houses period furniture (some original, some reproduction), Renaissance-style frescoes, costumes from Franco Zeffirelli's celebrated 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and exhibits on the Capello family heraldry that started the literary association.

Did Shakespeare know Casa di Giulietta?

No — Shakespeare almost certainly never visited Verona, and the Casa di Giulietta connection is entirely posthumous. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet around 1594–1596, drawing on Italian sources (notably Matteo Bandello's 1554 novella, which itself adapts Luigi da Porto's 1531 Historia and earlier Greek-Italian feud-tale traditions). The play sets the action in Verona — a real city Shakespeare picked from his sources — but does not name any specific house, balcony, or location. There is no historical Juliet, no historical Romeo, and the Capulet and Montague families of the play are loosely based on Italian-feud archetypes rather than documented real-life clans.

What turned this fictional Verona into a tourist destination was 18th and 19th-century Romantic travel: educated Northern European visitors arrived with their Shakespeare quotations and asked locals to point them at Juliet's house. The Capello family heraldry — a hat-shaped device on the keystone of an arch in Via Cappello — provided a phonetic-and-visual hook ('Cappello' / 'Capulet'), and the local guide tradition gradually settled on this house as the answer. The municipality formalised the association by acquiring the building in 1905; Antonio Avena's 1939 balcony installation made the photographic icon. The site is best understood as a 19th–20th century work of literary tourism layered onto a real medieval house.

Is the balcony at Juliet's House original?

No. The balcony was installed in 1939 by the Veronese architect Antonio Avena, who was responsible for that decade's redesign of the museum displays. Avena fashioned the balcony from existing civic stone — including, by his own account, a medieval marble sarcophagus pulled from the city's collections — and added two new marble consoles to support it. The balcony's deliberate weathering and Gothic styling were intended to make it appear historically integrated with the 14th-century brickwork; visitors not familiar with the building's history routinely assume the balcony is medieval. It is not. It was designed and installed for visitors who arrived after reading Shakespeare and wanted a Juliet's-balcony photograph; without it, there was no balcony at the site at all.

This does not mean the balcony is fake or fraudulent — it is a real architectural object, made from real medieval marble, installed by a respected city architect, on a real medieval house, in service of a layered literary tradition that goes back two centuries. It is honest about itself when you know the history. The 1939 balcony is itself now 86 years old and is part of the site's documented heritage in its own right.

What's the story of the bronze Juliet statue?

The bronze Juliet statue in the courtyard was sculpted by Nereo Costantini, a Veronese artist, and donated to the city by the Lions Club of Verona. It was installed on 1 June 1973 — over three decades after Avena's balcony — in response to the popularity of the courtyard as a photo-tourism destination. A long-running tradition holds that touching or rubbing Juliet's right breast brings luck in love; over decades this caused visible wear, and in 2014 the original statue was moved indoors for conservation and replaced in the courtyard with an exact bronze replica cast from the same molds. The replica continues to be touched by visitors, but the patina damage now occurs on the replacement rather than the 1973 original.

Visitors who want to see the original Costantini statue can ask at the museum's reception, where staff can advise on whether it is currently on public display inside the house museum or in conservation storage. The replica in the courtyard is, for photographic purposes, indistinguishable from the original.

What is the Letters to Juliet tradition?

Visitors have been writing letters to Juliet — the fictional character, addressing her as if she were real — since at least the early 20th century. The volunteer association Club di Giulietta (Juliet's Club), founded in the 1930s and formalised in 1972, receives the letters, reads them, and replies on Juliet's behalf in over a dozen languages. The club's volunteers (the 'Segretarie di Giulietta', or Juliet's Secretaries) handle several thousand letters per year, addressed simply to 'Juliet, Verona, Italy' or left at the courtyard wall. The 2010 American film Letters to Juliet popularised the tradition internationally and significantly increased the volume of correspondence. Visitors can drop letters in the dedicated post box in the courtyard, leave them taped to the wall (where they are periodically removed by museum staff to prevent damage), or post them from home addressed to the club at Casa di Giulietta. The club operates independently of the museum but with the city's blessing.

How do you get to Casa di Giulietta?

Casa di Giulietta is in Verona's pedestrian-only historic centre at Via Cappello 23, a short walk from Piazza delle Erbe. From Verona Porta Nuova rail station the journey is about 20 minutes on foot through the old town, or 5 minutes on city bus 11, 12, or 13 to Piazza Bra (Verona Arena), then a 5–10 minute walk through the old streets. International rail connects Verona Porta Nuova directly to Milan, Venice, Bologna, Munich, and Innsbruck. Drivers should park in one of the peripheral car parks (Piazza Cittadella, Piazzale Re Teodorico, or Saba Arsenale) and continue on foot — the historic centre is a ZTL (Zona a Traffico Limitato) and unauthorised vehicles are camera-fined automatically.

Verona is well-positioned as a single-day stop on Italy itineraries: 1.5 hours from Milan, 1 hour from Venice, 1 hour from Bologna by train. Many international visitors do Casa di Giulietta as part of a 4–6 hour Verona walking tour that also takes in the Roman Arena (the third-largest amphitheatre in Italy after the Colosseum and Capua), the Ponte Pietra Roman bridge, the Castelvecchio museum, and the Torre dei Lamberti viewpoint.

What are Casa di Giulietta's opening hours in 2026?

Casa di Giulietta is open daily year-round on a split schedule reflecting Italian museum convention: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:30), and Monday 13:30 to 19:30 (last entry 19:00) — the late Monday opening is unusual and a useful planning fact. Hours can adjust around major Italian public holidays: Christmas Day (25 December), New Year's Day (1 January), Easter Sunday, Ferragosto (15 August), and Republic Day (2 June) sometimes carry shortened hours or closure; confirm on the day. The courtyard with the balcony and the bronze statue is freely accessible during museum opening hours and at no charge — only the interior visit requires a ticket. Skip-the-line timed-entry is the most reliable way to guarantee a specific museum entry window during peak season (May–September), when the courtyard is consistently dense with day-trippers.

How much does Casa di Giulietta cost?

Casa di Giulietta uses a tiered ticket structure with adult, youth (8–17), senior (65+), and family categories, plus reductions available with the Verona Card (the city's combined-attraction pass for visitors planning multiple museums in one trip). Concierge-booked prices are displayed inclusive of our service fee on the homepage — what you see on the ticket card is what you pay, no FX surprise, no hidden add-ons. Verona residents qualify for free entry on the first Sunday of each month at the on-site ticket office; online concierge bookings do not carry this exemption. The courtyard with the balcony and the bronze Juliet statue is free and accessible without any ticket; only the interior museum visit requires payment.

When is the best time to visit Casa di Giulietta?

Visit at the 10:00 opening or in the final two hours before closing. The courtyard is busy from 11:00 onward in any season and reaches genuine density (queue around the bronze statue, stacked photo-tourists for the balcony shot) on summer afternoons and around Italian school holidays. Peak season runs May to September, with July and August the busiest months and Italian Ferragosto week (around 15 August) the single busiest single window. Shoulder months (April, late September, October) offer mild weather, lighter crowds, and excellent light for photography. Winter visits (December–February) are markedly quieter — the courtyard is sometimes almost empty in mid-week January — but Verona's old town is still magical, and the Christmas markets that fill Piazza Bra and Piazza delle Erbe make a December visit memorable in a different way. Valentine's Day (14 February) is a marketing high point — the city runs special programming and the museum can be busier than its usual February weekday.

What's inside Casa di Giulietta?

The interior is a small museum, typically toured in 30–60 minutes. The ground floor opens onto the courtyard and the bronze statue. Upstairs, frescoed rooms preserve the medieval character of the house and display reproduction Renaissance-period furniture. A central exhibit features costumes and props from Franco Zeffirelli's celebrated 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet — including some of the original wardrobe pieces — alongside historical material on the Capello family and the 18th–19th century literary-tourism tradition that built the site. A short stair leads onto the balcony itself: the centerpiece of every Verona honeymoon photograph since 1939. Visitors typically take ten minutes here, queue politely for their balcony moment, and step back inside. The balcony view looks down into the courtyard where you stood ten minutes earlier; the angle is famously short and the courtyard small — your travelling companion's wave-from-below photo is the classic shot.

What else can you see in Verona the same day?

Casa di Giulietta is small enough that most visitors combine it with a half-day Verona walking tour. The Verona Arena (1st-century Roman amphitheatre, third-largest in Italy after the Colosseum and Capua, still hosting summer opera) is a 5-minute walk away and the city's other defining monument. Castelvecchio (the 14th-century Scaligeri fortress on the Adige, now Verona's main civic museum) is 10 minutes' walk further. Piazza delle Erbe (the medieval market square built on the Roman forum) is 3 minutes from Casa di Giulietta and the city's most photogenic square. The Torre dei Lamberti viewpoint (84-metre brick tower with lift) is 5 minutes away and gives an aerial photo of the old town. Casa di Romeo (the supposed Montague residence at Via Arche Scaligere 4) is 5 minutes' walk and is a closed private home — exterior viewing only, but worth the diversion. A typical day adds Sant'Anastasia (Verona's largest Gothic church) and the Roman Theatre across the river. The Verona Card (24h or 48h passes) covers most museums plus public transport and is worth the math if you plan three or more attractions.

Why book skip-the-line tickets to Casa di Giulietta?

Casa di Giulietta uses on-the-day ticketing at the entrance, and the museum interior caps the visitor count to manage flow through narrow medieval rooms. On peak-season afternoons (May–September) the entry queue from the courtyard regularly runs 30–60 minutes — frustrating in a small museum where the visit itself takes only 30–60 minutes. Skip-the-line bookings reserve a specific entry slot before peak hours fill and let you bypass the courtyard ticket queue. The museum is small enough that a wasted 45 minutes in the queue is a noticeable loss against the rest of a Verona day; many visitors book skip-the-line specifically so they can fit Casa di Giulietta around the Arena tour, lunch in Piazza delle Erbe, and an afternoon at Castelvecchio without the day collapsing on a single queue.

Frequently asked questions