There had been no long blonde hairs discovered on the shoulder of my jacket. There had been no forgotten billet doux found sloshing about in the washing machine. And yet, of late, a certain coolness had crept into my wife's manner, a certain aggrieved mien. It was inexplicable. It was alarming. Hell hath no fury, as the bard once famously wrote. Something had to be done.

Perhaps in recent months, I had to admit, I had not played the perfect Latin lover. But after nearly 20 years of married life together, might not the rare lapse, the occasional failure to show ceaseless adoration, be excused?

I had, to be precise, forgotten in close succession Jany's birthday, Valentine's Day and our wedding anniversary. The intimate tetea-tete that I had promised as a way of making it up to her did not have the desired effect - what is wrong, I would like to know, with a microwaved dinner in front of a football match on the telly? Even Jany's breakfast conversation, I acknowledge, had lately been floating over the top of my morning paper undetected.

Is it not extraordinary, I reflected as we roared down the autostrada towards Verona, how women can become so upset over such small things? But the situation was once again in hand.

Verona, in my campaign to get myself back into my wife's good graces, was my secret weapon. I had thought - briefly - of a weekend in Blackpool. I had then considered Rome, Andalusia, the Cote d'Azure and Paris - all admirable places for the rekindling of passion. But for my purpose none of them held a candle to the obvious, final choice. For Verona is, of course, the city of amore eterno, the home of Romeo and Juliet.

Now, I am as romantic as the next fellow, but I am not a chump. I did not believe that simply because a dead playwright has written "Act II, Scene 1. Verona. A lane by the wall of Capulet's Orchard. Enter Romeo", that these things actually existed. But I had done my homework. The story of Romeo and Juliet was around, in fact, long before Shakespeare took it up.

It seems that in the early 1300s there were in Verona two powerful feuding aristocratic families named Montesches and Capellets. Whether in historical fact a Romeo Montague and a Juliet Capulet ended up dying for the love of each other - as Shakespeare would have it - is uncertain.

From the beginning I was taking no chances. Our suite, beamed in ancient oak, lay under the roof of the 400-year-old building that is now the Hotel Accademia. Above us, through the skylight, we could see the Torre dei Lambertini, the massive tower that looms over the heart of old Verona. Outside the hotel door lay the bustling Via Mazzini, the most fashionable of the city's shopping streets.

Gently I guided my Juliet down the Via Mazzini to the Piazza delle Erbe and adjoining Piazza dei Signori, site of the city's old Roman Forum.

This was more like it. The heart of the city is as enchanting today, as lively and intriguing as it has been for 2,000 years. Here are the medieval palaces, courtyards, churches, towers, stairways, statues and battlements erected by the Scaligeri clan, the family that in the 1300s built Verona into a powerful and extensive city state.

Here are the houses and buildings of the powerful trade guilds of the 1500s. Here, too, are ornate baroque palazzi, oriental arched windows, and sculpted lions of St Mark, reminders of centuries of Venetian rule in Verona.

But historical backdrop is not all - present-day life around the piazzas is just as vibrant and romantic. Set against the rich, faded colours of the buildings were cafes and cooing pigeons, flower stands and cycling students, dried sunflowers and braids of garlic in the umbrella-covered market, water splashing from the fountain of the white marble Madonna of Verona.

It was now or never. I steered Jany a few steps off the Piazza delle Erbe down the Via Cappello. Here, behind a brick gateway where a million lovers had scratched their names, lay the Capulet family house, an ivy-covered courtyard and, above it, the stone-carved balcony from which Juliet had exchanged her immortal words of love with Romeo.

"Now, if you want to be lucky in love, tradition says you must squeeze Juliet's breast," a tour guide was telling a large party of Spanish tourists as we entered the courtyard. For below the balcony stood a bronze life-size statue of Juliet herself. So enthusiastically is this injunction followed by hundreds of people every day that Juliet's breast remains permanently shiny.

That evening, under a bright moon, I walked my wife through Verona's silvery streets, past the beautiful stone bridge on the Adige River, past the delicate carved stonework of the Scaligeri tombs, ivory in the moonlight, to the Osteria al Duca. The oldest restaurant in Verona, it is also the former home of the Montague family.

Here, in an upstairs room - could it have been the very room where Romeo slept? - I scanned a menu, looking for oysters or other known culinary aphrodisiacs. There were none, so I ordered the closest thing I could think of - squid in its own ink served with polenta. Perhaps it was the wine or perhaps I was on to something: in next to no time, in between forks full of polenta, we were holding hands.

But the real breakthrough came the next evening, when I led Jany outside the old city walls to the church of San Francisco and the underground vault reputed to have been Juliet's tomb.

It is a dark, damp place, and unconducive to romance. It is frequented largely by giddy 14-year-old girls who bring flowers and leave behind long, confiding letters to the ghost of Juliet.

But what will a man not do for love? Together we gazed at the tomb of Juliet. I swore unceasing devotion and passion. I also swore that I would not read the paper at breakfast anymore.

She forgave me, and we kissed. Then out of the tomb we stepped into the shining Veronese night. And there, if I dare say so myself, she looked pretty good - good enough, in fact, to teach the torches to burn bright.

Nicholas Woodsworth's trip to Verona was arranged by Kirker Europe, specialists in tailor-made European city-breaks, 3 New Concordia Wharf, Mill Street, London SE1 2BB. Tel: 0171231 4771