Verona is one of the most photographed cities in Italy. The photos going around, though, are always the same ones – Juliet\u2019s balcony, the Arena, Piazza delle Erbe – and they tell more or less the same story every time. The Verona tourists find easily, which is beautiful, but which doesn\u2019t describe the whole city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this list, alongside the great classics – which you shouldn\u2019t miss anyway – you\u2019ll find other places, told with the kind of detail that traditional guidebooks skip. And then you\u2019ll find the places of the real Verona, the ones locals know and use, which change the way you understand the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ready? We start with the classics, told our way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. The Verona Arena \u2014 the buried Roman structure nobody looks for<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know how many people walk into the Arena every year and never look down? Almost all of them. The current floor of the amphitheatre covers a deeper original arena, with underground structures that included the animal cages and the gladiators\u2019 corridors. But there is something else that very few people know: the Arena is older than the Colosseum. It dates from 30 AD, the Colosseum from 80. And yet in the guidebooks the hierarchy is always the other way round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other detail worth knowing: the fragment of four arches standing alone on the north side \u2014 the Ala, as locals call it \u2014 is all that remains of the original outer ring. It was made of seventy-two arches on three levels. In the Ostrogothic period, under the reign of Theodoric, the outer ring was partly dismantled to be used as building stone. What you see today is a shred of what once was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Piazza delle Erbe \u2014 the Roman forum that never disappeared<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most photographed square in Verona is also the most layered. Under the bricks you walk on lies the Roman forum: the central square of the ancient city, with the same proportions and the same orientation as today. The fountain at the centre \u2014 Madonna Verona \u2014 uses a fourth-century Roman statue as a decorative element. The lion of Saint Mark on the column is Venetian. The Mazzanti houses carry sixteenth-century frescoes that are slowly fading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look up as you cross the square: the fa\u00e7ades change style every three metres. Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Venetian. It is a vertical architectural stratigraphy. Very few people notice it, because they are too busy looking at the market stalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Castelvecchio and the Scaliger Bridge \u2014 the finest museum you probably skipped<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many visitors step into the Castelvecchio courtyard, take a few photos of the crenellated bridge and leave, missing the chance to see a wonderful museum \u2014 wonderful both for what it holds and for the building that holds it. Inside is one of the most important medieval art museums in northern Italy, designed by Carlo Scarpa in the 1960s in a project widely considered a masterpiece of museum architecture. Scarpa left the cuts visible, the layers in the walls, the changes in level between different eras. The museum doesn\u2019t hide history: it shows it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Scaliger Bridge dates from 1354. Walking across it \u2014 which you can do for free \u2014 gives you a perspective on the Adige and on the fortress walls that you get from nowhere else. It is one of the best-preserved defensive medieval bridges in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. The Scaliger Tombs \u2014 an open-air dynastic cemetery in the old town<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty seconds from Piazza dei Signori, behind a wrought-iron railing many tourists mistake for the fence of a private palace, stand the Gothic tombs of the Scaliger family. Cangrande I, Mastino II, Cansignorio: the three most powerful lords of medieval Verona, buried in four-metre-high equestrian sarcophagi, with carved marble canopies and sculptures that inspired centuries of European art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dante was a guest in those palaces. The tombs were built after his death, but he walked a few steps from where the tombs of his patrons stand today. If you have read our magazine article on Dante in Verona, you already know why this place carries such literary weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. The Basilica of San Zeno \u2014 the Romanesque masterpiece that is never talked about enough<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n San Zeno is only ten minutes on foot from the Arena: outside the classic old-town tours, and yet worth the walk. The basilica is considered one of the most important examples of Romanesque architecture in Italy: the twelfth-century bronze doors with their biblical reliefs, Mantegna\u2019s triptych on the high altar, the crypt where the city\u2019s patron saint is buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dante mentions it in canto XVIII of Purgatorio: the abbot of San Zeno is one of the characters in the Comedy. And in the beautiful garden of the adjoining cloister, on a sunny day, you understand why Verona earned its UNESCO listing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. The Arco della Costa \u2014 the whale bone hanging between two squares<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Between Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori there is a covered archway. Look up at the vault and you will find a large rib \u2014 probably a whale\u2019s \u2014 hanging there for at least three centuries. The arch is called Arco della Costa, the arch of the rib, precisely because of that bone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most plausible explanation is that it was an apothecary\u2019s sign: at the time, powdered whale bone was believed to have healing properties. The pharmacy beneath it still exists today. Legend, on the other hand, says the rib will fall the day an honest and pure soul walks under the arch. We have been waiting for centuries; nothing has happened yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. The Giusti Garden \u2014 the hidden Renaissance across the river<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the left bank of the Adige, in the Veronetta district, hides one of the finest Renaissance gardens in Italy. The Giusti Garden was created in the 1400s, and Goethe visited it during his stay in Verona in 1786 \u2014 the same trip on which he was struck by the Arena. Mozart came through in 1770, aged fourteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cypresses as tall as towers, panoramic terraces, an artificial grotto, a small maze and a postcard view over the city. There is an entrance fee, and it is worth every cent. The best moment is late afternoon, when the light on the red stone buildings is impossible to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8. Via Sottoriva \u2014 the medieval street nobody photographs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two minutes from Piazza delle Erbe, along the bank of the Adige, lies one of the most intact streets of the medieval centre. Via Sottoriva still has its original low porticoes, trattorias with handwritten menus, and workshops that have looked the same for decades. It is what everybody is looking for when they say they want to discover the “real Verona”, and it sits four minutes from the busiest spot in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You won\u2019t find souvenir shops here, but rather locals having lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9. Porta Borsari \u2014 the Roman gateway inside the modern city<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Walking along Corso Cavour towards the centre, you pass under a first-century Roman arch that most tourists walk through without stopping. This is Porta Borsari: one of the two great entrance arches of the original Roman city, its white stone fa\u00e7ade still intact across two levels of blind windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stop on the other side and look at the structure: what you see is the front of a Roman city gate from around 40 AD, in perfect condition. It is worth knowing that this was also the route of the old Verona Palio \u2014 the foot race Dante watched during his stay and immortalised in canto XV of the Inferno, where he compares a figure to the runners racing for the green cloth across the fields of Verona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10. Castel San Pietro and the funicular \u2014 the view locals keep to themselves<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the top of the hill above the Roman Theatre there is a terrace from which you can see the whole of Verona: the Arena, the squares, the river, the Valpolicella hills in the background. Tourists do look for it, but many don\u2019t know there is a funicular that goes up for a few euros. The walk up the medieval staircases is worth it too: shaded, quiet, with unexpected views over the rooftops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ideal moment is an hour before sunset. The low light on Verona\u2019s red stone creates a palette you don\u2019t forget. It is the favourite viewpoint of photographers and of locals escaping the crowds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 11. Piazza dei Signori (Piazza Dante) \u2014 the heart of Scaliger power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Locals call it Piazza Dante, not Piazza dei Signori. The statue of the poet at its centre explains why: Dante lived here, a guest in the palaces around the square, while he was writing the Paradiso. The plaque with Cacciaguida\u2019s lines is on the wall of one of those palaces. Caff\u00e8 Dante is still there, with the same name it has had for a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The square is also where all the great themes of Verona\u2019s history intersect: the Scaligers, Dante, Venetian rule, the Risorgimento. It is the place where the overlap between different centuries is densest and easiest to read. It is one of the most beautiful squares in Italy, and with a guide every palace turns into a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 12. The Roman Theatre and the Archaeological Museum \u2014 the lesser-known side of the hill<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the left bank of the Adige, at the foot of the San Pietro hill, stands a first-century BC Roman theatre in extraordinary condition. The theatre still hosts concerts and summer performances – the best ones are in the evening, with the hills behind the stage – one of those experiences that stay with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above the theatre, in the Augustinian convent carved into the hillside, is the Archaeological Museum: Roman mosaics, bronzes, ceramics, and a panoramic terrace with one of the best views over the city. It is systematically underrated compared with the Arena, which means you will almost always find it empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 13. The Basilica of Sant\u2019Anastasia \u2014 the two hunchbacks at the door and Pisanello\u2019s dragon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sant\u2019Anastasia is the largest Gothic church in Verona. The fa\u00e7ade was never finished \u2014 in five centuries nobody has agreed on how to complete it. Inside, two details are the ones people almost always remember: the holy water fonts at the entrance, held up by two hunched, twisted figures that seem to rise out of the floor like stone ghosts, and Pisanello\u2019s fresco in the Pellegrini chapel, showing Saint George and the princess, considered one of the greatest masterpieces of international Gothic art in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are following the Shakespeare\u2019s Verona<\/a> itinerary, Sant\u2019Anastasia is one of the settings of the story. If instead you are following Dante\u2019s route<\/a>, there is a link here too: the Alighieri family \u2014 the poet\u2019s descendants who stayed in Verona \u2014 had their house right in front of the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 14. The left bank of the Adige \u2014 the sacred route of the little Jerusalem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Crossing the Adige towards the Veronetta district, you enter a part of the city most tourists never reach. This is where the Verona “o minor Hierusalem”<\/a> route runs: the early Christian churches built by Archdeacon Pacificus in the ninth century to recreate the holy places of Jerusalem, the seal reading VERONA MINOR HIERUSALEM, and the church that holds more than 30,000 relics of saints, arranged by liturgical calendar \u2014 unique in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 15. The Adige Museum and the Venetian Customs House \u2014 the river port nobody knows exists<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a museum in Verona that tells you something fundamental: the relationship between the city and its river. The Adige Museum sits inside the Dogana Veneta dei Filippini, the former river customs house where goods were taxed before entering and leaving the city. Documents, tools, maps, records of the medieval merchant port.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe unexpected places \u2014 the ones that change the visit<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The tour places \u2014 where history really makes sense with a guide<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n