Treasure hunt in Verona: a different way to discover the city
Something strange happens when you turn a sightseeing visit into a contest. The Arena, which you have walked past a thousand times, suddenly becomes an object to reason about: how many arches does it have? Where is the original fragment of the outer ring? What is the difference between the Roman stones and the medieval ones? The Scaligeri Tombs, which you usually cross in three minutes, become a riddle to solve before the rival team.
Verona is one of the most concentrated cities of art in Italy. And precisely for this reason — paradoxically — it risks being one of those cities where you see everything without seeing anything. A treasure hunt is an effective antidote to this risk, because it forces you to make real contact with the places instead of glancing at them distractedly.
One of the most original activities in Verona
Verona’s old town is compact, walkable, full of architectural details that almost no one notices unless they have a precise reason to. It is an almost perfect playing field: large enough to require orientation and strategy, rich enough in history to allow questions of any level of difficulty.
There is Piazza dei Signori with the heraldic symbols of the Scaligeri carved into the palaces; the Scaligeri Tombs with their thousand details — had you ever noticed the difference between the older sarcophagi, in red Veronese marble, and the three monumental tombs, for example? And then the layering of eras in Piazza delle Erbe, ranging from the Roman forum to the Venetian lion, all within the space of a few dozen metres.
The Arena, then, is an emblematic case: the most photographed monument in Verona, on which almost no one really lingers. Built in the mid-1st century AD, outside the Roman walls of the city, it could hold around 30,000 spectators. Of the whole original structure, the outer ring is almost completely missing — destroyed by an earthquake in 1183 — of which only a fragment of four arches survives on the north side, the one the Veronese call the Ala. Something you can discover precisely through the treasure hunt.
Juliet’s House: the most photographed place, the least read
The courtyard at Via Cappello 23 is one of the most visited places in Italy. Every day thousands of people go in, photograph the balcony, the statue of Juliet, then leave. Few know that the balcony was added to the building in the 20th century. The link with Shakespeare’s Capulets came about through popular attribution in the 19th century. Just think: all it took was the hat-shaped coat of arms of the inn documented in this building in 1351.
It is a place that says a great deal about history, about legend, about how myths are built and consolidated — but only to those who stop to read it. A treasure hunt is a magical tool, able to persuade a group of people to do exactly that: stop, read, search.
What remains afterwards: the difference between seeing and discovering
Anyone who has experienced a treasure hunt in a city of art can confirm it: the city changes before your eyes. Or rather, the way it is looked at changes. Piazza delle Erbe is no longer ‘the market square’: it is the place where the Roman forum once stood, where the medieval Capitello from which public edicts were proclaimed still stands, where the Lion of St Mark arrived in 1523 to remind everyone that Verona had become Venetian.
This difference — between seeing and discovering — is what separates an outing you forget from an experience that stays with you. What matters is not the hours spent or the number of monuments visited; it is all in our involvement. And play is one of the most effective tools for stimulating it.
It holds true for students on a school trip. It holds true, surprisingly, even for groups of adults: the competition between teams generates an enthusiasm no one expected, and turns an ordinary afternoon into a memory still talked about weeks later.