Verona, Italy 4/9-13/2026

 Verona, Italy

Verona is a city in northern Italy’s Veneto region, with a medieval old town built between the meandering Adige River. It’s famous for being the setting of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet." A 14th-century residence with a tiny balcony overlooking a courtyard is said be “Juliet’s House." The Verona Arena is a huge 1st-century Roman amphitheater, which currently hosts concerts and large-scale opera performances. 

I am adding new pictures from this stay but including some of the older ones too.

The top picture is the coliseum of Verona, which we were told was older than the one in Rome, and in much better condition.  It was also quite a bit smaller.  Kind of a mini me...

This is the Adive River and has two main bridges that cross it, the Ponte Della Vittoria and the Ponte Pietra Bridges.  The Ponte Pietra connects the fortress that was built to protect the royal family.  A lot of Roman influence here, the center picture in the collage is a Roman gate that was relocated to the current spot.

The Ponte dell Vittorio is to commemorate their victory in 1918.

Smallest jewelry store in Italy - it is just a small window display.  The carvings of medusa and carving on the other side of the lintel are from the renaissance period.   The bottom left fossils are embedded in the cobblestone walkways all over the city.  

Sights from our walk around the city.  The famous Well of Love is about another tragic love story between Corrado di San Bonifacio and Isabella Donati in the 1500's, about a century after the more famous love story of Romeo and Juliet.  She came from a wealthy family, and he was poor soldier. Here, Isabella threw herself down the well after she asked her lover to retrieve something from the well to prove his love of her and not her money and he drowned in the attempt.  

We are staying at the same boutique hotel as our last visit from the world cruise in June 2024. We had breakfast in our suite, and it was amazing. 

 From 2024. Verona was the setting of Romeo and Juliet, and we stopped by the House of Juliet to get some pictures of the famous balcony.  We had heard that the crowds got very large later in the day, and so we went early.  

Romeo's balcony on the left, Juliet's on the right.

From 2024

From 2024 First stop, The Coliseum.  Night tour we saw the outside, day tour we went inside.  Mickey climbed to the top, of course.  Seems to be a pattern on this incredible journey. As I said earlier, a smaller and better-preserved version of the one in Rome, and supposedly the older one.

Street art as we walked the city.

Neighborhoods pure Italy.

The frescos in the city are remarkably well preserved and beautiful.

From 2024. We took the funicular up to San Pietro Hill for some great views of the city. They are considering reopening the cable cars to get up the hill also.   The church was not open for us to see inside unfortunately. Walking down the hill to the Ponte Pietra, we passed some beautiful villas - a very expensive place to live.  Mickey and I both felt we would fit right in if our budgets could afford it.  

From 2024.This is the Porte de Basari, the gate built by the Romans to enter the city.  It was under renovation so all we saw was the cover over it - the right had side is what it looked like before it needed cleaning and repairs. 

The renovations are complete.  This is from our 2026 visit.

This is the main market square and Dante's square.  The market is said to be the oldest in Europe and is open year-round.  

From 2024.  The Scaligare Family tombs and museum.  Once the leading family of Verona, they were not of royal lineage but were from the merchant class and the populace voted them in power as the royal leaders were not doing such a great job. They ruled for 125 years. Their early tombs were not very fancy, so the heads of the house decided to design their own, and each one got more elaborate than the previous ones.

From 2024. After our tour, we returned to Dante's square and had lunch and some great wine before heading back to our hotel, and on to the train station heading to Trieste.

A lovely city and one we would like to come back to... 

2026   And so we did.  Different activities but another great visit.  We did not visit many churches last time, so we viewed some on this trip.

One of the biggest wine festivals in Europe.  We were here for the first day

We had a day tour to Lakr Garda including a winery.  It was a cool blustery and rainy day which was a shame.  It would have been wonderful to wander in good weather.

Another great visit, even though we had rain and wind again here, as we did in Monopoli. Tomorrow, we head to Siracusa, Sicily.