Italy · Self-guided walk
Verona in one walk 8 sights, 35 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Verona Old Town: 8 sights on one 2.4 km loop, about 35 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 2.4 km, a loop
- Time
- about 35 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Arena di Verona
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the route
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Verona walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Verona, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Arena di Verona
the start
It stands in the largest square in town, and the square is its front hall. Walk the whole way round the outside first, for nothing, with a palm flat against the wall. Then take the Liston, the wide strip of pink marble along the edge, laid from 1770, which this city has walked up and down after lunch ever since. From April there is scaffolding inside for something. I am not telling you what.
Next: Chiesa di San Fermo Maggiore, 530 m, about 8 min, along Via Anfiteatro, Piazza San Nicolò, Via Pietro Frattini, Via Leoncino, Via Domenico Frangini.
2. Chiesa di San Fermo Maggiore
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
At the south end, where Stradone San Fermo runs down towards the river. From the lane it looks like one church. It is two, stacked: there is a second one underneath with four aisles, which is rare, and the stair down to it is the reason to go in. Then look up. The wooden ceiling is shaped like the inside of a hull and carries 416 painted heads.
Next: Porta Leoni, 170 m, about 3 min, along Via Domenico Frangini, Via Leoncino.
3. Porta Leoni
about 11 minutes of walking from the start
Half of it is set into the side of a house, and the rest is in a hole in the pavement out front. Lean on the railing and look down: one of the tower bases is left open to the sky, sitting at the level the street ran at back then, a good drop below the level you are on. This town has spent two millennia raising its own floor.
Next: Casa di Giulietta, 210 m, about 3 min, along Via Cappello.
4. Casa di Giulietta
about 14 minutes of walking from the start
An arch on the street, a short passage, and then a yard that is open at all hours and costs nothing. Ignore whatever the cameras are all pointed at and look at the arch you came in under. A coat of arms is cut into it, and the charge on the shield is a hat. That is where the street's name comes from and, if you believe the story, a rather more famous surname too. Come at seven in the morning. The stone is the same and nobody is standing on it.
Next: Piazza delle Erbe, 180 m, about 3 min, along Via Cappello, Piazza delle Erbe.
5. Piazza delle Erbe
about 16 minutes of walking from the start
A long thin square with the market down the middle and four different centuries facing each other across it. Walk to the arch at the north end and look straight up before you step under. Something is hanging up there. It has been for about three hundred years, nobody agrees what it is, and one story says it will drop on the first honest person to pass beneath it.
Next: Arche Scaligere, 140 m, about 2 min, along Via della Costa.
6. Arche Scaligere
about 18 minutes of walking from the start
A walled corner the size of a small garden, wedged between two lanes, and you can see all of it from the pavement without paying anybody. Come at it from Via Arche Scaligere rather than from the square. The lane is narrow enough that you look up into the thing rather than at it.
Next: Chiesa di Sant'Anastasia, 240 m, about 4 min, along Via Santa Maria in Chiavica, Via San Pietro Martire.
7. Chiesa di Sant'Anastasia
about 22 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Fri 09:30–18:30, Sat 09:30–18:00, Sun 13:00–18:00
The biggest brick box in the Old Town, at the top of Corso Sant'Anastasia. Stand out front and look up at the facade: the bottom half is dressed and the top half is bare, because the brick facing was left off and nobody came back for it. Inside, twelve white marble columns hold the lot up. A face that stopped when the money did, and it has not pretended otherwise since.
Next: Porta Borsari, 590 m, about 9 min, along Corso Sant'Anastasia, Corso Porta Borsari.
Lunch break
Osteria Caffè Monte Baldo, Via Rosa 12, about 80 m off the route, open Mon 11:00–24:00, Wed–Fri 11:00–24:00, Sat–Sun 10:00–24:00, Tue closed.
The regional register dates the business here to 1897, when it was a dairy shop. More on what to eat in Verona.
8. Porta Borsari
about 31 minutes of walking from the start
You do not visit this one, you walk through it, and most people manage that without ever looking up. Stand under the arches and read the wall: there is a long Latin inscription across the front of it, and ordinary houses grafted onto the back where the rest of the gate used to be.
Back to the start: Arena di Verona, 390 m, about 6 min, along Via Antonio Cantore, Via San Nicolò, Via Anfiteatro.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Verona.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 235 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Verona Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.