"Verona" a Verona Travel Page by alucas

We spent a wonderful week in Verona at the end of July 2005. Plenty of sight-seeing, some trips out (including Mantova and Lake Garda), some wonderful meals and two fabulous nights at the opera in the Arena. This page, the tips, and the travelogues are a joint effort as Liz has written quite a lot of the descriptive passages.

The ancient city centre of Verona possesses a wealth of art and architecture crammed into a network of streets and squares bounded by the River Adige. Today the city is well known for the annual Opera season held in the Roman arena during summer which draws crowds from cities across the Veneto region and down from the Lakes. Verona is also the home of Shakespeare's "star-struck" lovers Romeo and Juliet, some beautiful churches and palaces.

Or you can simply lose yourself amongst the crowds, window-gaze at the beautiful shops, be amused by street entertainers, admire balconies bedecked with flowers, enjoy a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and "watch the world go by".

Verona became a Roman colony in 89 BC, and quickly grew into a city as it sat on an important crossroads between the main east-west and north-south routes. The influence of the Romans is still visible today, not only because of the Arena, the Roman Theatre and Ponte Pietra, but also in the layout of the streets and piazzas. Indeed Piazza delle Erbe is the site of the Roman forum and Piazza dei Signori is built on Roman foundations.

The city reached its pinnacle in the 12th - 14th centuries before passing under the control of Venice. Many of the outstanding buildings date from this time, and fine examples of Gothic Romanesque and Renaissance architecture can be found in the narrow streets in the Centro Storico. Many of the churches either date from this time, or were re-built following the earthquake of 1117.

Verona is still a strategically important and very rich city. There is a large industrial area outside the city, and agriculture is also important, particularly wine and olives as well as the crops from the fields of the vast plain of the Po valley to the south.