Explorer Vérone

The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheatre on Piazza Bra, built in the first century AD. An earthquake in the 12th century brought down most of its outer ring, of which a four-arch section called the Ala survives. Since a performance of Verdi's Aida in 1913 it has hosted an open-air opera festival each summer, and concerts the rest of the year.

Castelvecchio Museum is Verona's civic art museum, housed in the brick castle that Cangrande II della Scala built beside the Adige in the 1350s. The architect Carlo Scarpa remodelled it between 1959 and 1973; the collection covers Romanesque sculpture, the equestrian statue of Cangrande I, Veronese painting, arms and old bells.

Juliet's House is a medieval tower house on Via Cappello, first recorded in 1351 and later linked to Shakespeare's Juliet because of the Cappello family's hat crest over its courtyard arch. Since April 2026 the visit starts in the Teatro Nuovo and leads to the courtyard, the balcony added in the 1930s and the rooms of the house.

Piazza delle Erbe is a square in the centre of Verona on the site of the Roman forum. Around it stand the Baroque Palazzo Maffei, the Gardello tower, the frescoed Mazzanti houses and the Casa dei Mercanti; in the middle are the 1368 fountain with the Roman statue called Madonna Verona and a column carrying the lion of St Mark.

The Scaliger Tombs are five Gothic funerary monuments of the della Scala family, who ruled Verona from the 13th to the late 14th century. They stand in a walled court beside the church of Santa Maria Antica, behind wrought-iron grilles with a ladder motif; the canopied tombs of Cangrande I, Mastino II and Cansignorio carry equestrian statues.

Sant'Anastasia is a Gothic basilica in the centre of Verona near Ponte Pietra, begun by the Dominicans around 1290 and completed in the 15th century, with a brick façade that was never finished. Inside, two holy-water stoups rest on kneeling hunchback figures, and Pisanello's fresco of Saint George and the Princess is above the Pellegrini chapel.

Verona Cathedral, dedicated to Santa Maria Matricolare, is a Romanesque church consecrated in 1187 after the earlier churches on the site fell in the earthquake of 1117. Its two-storey porch rests on griffins carved by the sculptor Nicholaus, Titian's Assumption hangs in a side chapel, and the complex includes a cloister and the baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte.

The Basilica of San Zeno is a Romanesque church in Verona's San Zeno district, built over the tomb of the 4th-century bishop Saint Zeno. The present building dates mainly from the 12th century; its façade has a rose window and bronze door panels, and inside are the crypt with the saint's body, a cloister and Mantegna's San Zeno Altarpiece.

Ponte Pietra is a Roman arch bridge over the Adige in Verona, completed around 100 BC and the oldest bridge in the city; the Via Postumia crossed the river on it. The arch nearest the right bank was rebuilt in 1298, and the four arches blown up by retreating German troops in the Second World War were rebuilt in 1957 with the original stone.

Giardino Giusti is the Renaissance garden of Palazzo Giusti, a 16th-century palace east of Verona's centre that has belonged to the Giusti family for centuries. Laid out around 1580 under Agostino Giusti, it has box-hedge parterres, a hedge maze, an avenue of cypresses leading to a grotto with a carved mask, and hillside terraces with views over the city.

The Archaeological Museum at the Roman Theatre fills the 15th-century convent of the Gesuati above Verona's Roman theatre, on the left bank of the Adige. The visit crosses the excavated seating of the theatre and climbs to the convent, where sculpture, mosaics, inscriptions, small bronzes and glass from Roman Verona are displayed.