Verona reminds me of the most famous love story ever told – William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, thus making it a popular holiday destination for lovers and romantics. Shakespeare said, ‘There is no world outside these walls…’ and thats exactly what I felt when I entered the gates to the historic city of Verona. Few places match Verona in preserving their Roman relics as living parts of the city; Italy’s best preserved Roman arena is still in use for opera and pop concerts. Verona’s Roman sights, like those from the middle Ages and Renaissance, are part of this northern Italian city’s daily life, not roped-off museums of some long-forgotten time.

This city gave me an opportunity to watch shows in the first-century area, walk through Roman gates, and follow the grooves made in the paving stones by ancient chariot wheels.

It is widely believed that whenever any new construction requires digging, more relics of Verona’s Roman history emerge from under its streets. The foundations of a massive Roman gate, Porta Leoni, was unearthed under Via Leoni , and left exposed to show the stonework.

A diagram of the whole gate is on the wall above, and behind it is one complete arch of the original gate, which had been covered by the wall of a later building. Porta Leoni was an entrance through the original Roman walls that enclosed the core of the city.

However, not everything was covered. At the center of Piazza Erbe, the busy market square, a statue of a Roman goddess was used as a stand in for the Virgin Mary, and is now known as La Madonna de Verona.

A few blocks away, where Corso Porta Borsari meets Via Diaz, the imposing multi-tiered Roman Porta dei Borsari spans the street, as it has since the first century AD. A third Roman arch overlooks the river on Corso Cavour. The Gavi Arch, a first-century Roman gate, stood elsewhere originally, but was disassembled and was reconstructed here in the 1930s. Under it are the original paving stones, complete with the grooves made by chariot wheels passing through the gate.

For me, the star of Verona’s Roman collection is the First-century Arena, far better preserved than Rome’s Coliseum. I also explored the giant   vaulted interior of this arena and climbed to the top for the full impact of its grandeur. This arena is believed to have been a part of the city’s history for 2000 years, first as a stage for gladiator combat, later providing shelter from barbarian invasions and as the venue for one of Europe’s most famous summer opera festivals, the Stagione Lyrico di Verona.

As I set sail across Ponte Pietra, I discovered a stone bridge which was first built by the Romans, but destroyed by the retreating German army in 1945. The bridge’s two arches on the far side of the river are all that’s left of the original Roman construction; however, it has been rebuilt exactly as it was, from the stones the Veronese had carefully salvaged from the river in 1945.

Overlooking this magnificent bridge is the Teatro Romano, where the Romans were the spectators to some striking performances. Its stone seats were built into the natural curve of the hillside, but in the intervening centuries the hillside was built over with shops and homes. However, by 1830, when this situate was bought over by a Veronese merchant, there were no traces left of this magnificent amphitheatre. Now in use again, it is the venue of a summer Shakespeare festival, ballet and jazz concerts, which I personally feel is an absolute treat to watch.

I also explored the smaller Roman treasures of Verona like statues; reliefs, columns, mosaics, bronzes; pottery and glass that have been unearthed are displayed in a former monastery above Teatro Romano, at the small Museo Archaeologico.

These Stones retrieved from ruins and excavations of Roman Verona and displayed at the Museo Lapidario Maffeiano opposite the Arena on Piazza Bra give just a clue of what the city must have looked like 2000 years ago.

Visiting this magnificent city of Verona was like travelling into the past and reliving all the glorious moments that made this city what it is today.

Touring Roman Verona

Italy Travel Pages and Tourism Directory

India and International Holiday Packages