📍 🇮🇹 Strolling in Verona

Second only to Rome's Coliseum in size and height, Verone's amphitheater has been the town's symbol for two millenium now. Verone's Eiffel Tower, one might say - with these pinkish stones (extracted near Lake Garda in the north of the town) that stripe most buildings all across the city.

Listen to German author Goethe describing the neighborhood in September 1786, on a fine Indian summer day:

"The amphitheater is the first Antique monument I have seen, and so well preserved! When I got in, walking around the upper edge, I found it strange to see something large, and yet - to tell the truth - nothing at the same time. One should not see it empty first, but full of people, in order to catch the true measure of its scale... At sunset, the view from the top [of the amphitheater] over the city and the countryside is admirable. I was alone. On the wide cobblestones of Piazza Brà walked men of all conditions, also middle class women. Then, an hour before nightfall, the nobility began its own promenade, brought there by carriages. They cross the Brà, walk along the long, wide street that leads to the Porta Nuova; strolling and strolling; and as soon as evening bells rang, everyone returned to Piazza Brà - either to church for Ave Maria recitations, or for casual conversations with ladies..."

____ Sources ____

>> Goethe, "Italian Travels", 1786