THE the world’s spotlight will turn on Verona on Sunday 22 February 2026 (live on Raidue, at 8pm) when the Arena will host the Closing Ceremony of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Gamestransforming the thousand-year-old Roman amphitheatre, today the largest open-air opera house, into a stage for champions of sport and entertainment. Event title: Beauty in Action: over two hundred performers on stage for a show inspired by water, which will mix opera, music, dance, cinema, design and technology.
The “beauty in movement” in Verona is widespread everywhere, thanks to the Adige river that crosses it and its Roman and medieval remains that you meet while walking through the historic center. And if the greatest testimonial of the city of “Romeo and Juliet” remains William Shakespeare, whose touching love story pushes crowds of girls and boys under Juliet’s balcony (a very crowded historical fake), there are many authentic masterpieces in the historic center that are worth the trip. Why the che heart of the city of Verona, a UNESCO heritage site, is a jewel layered with eras, architecture and memories.
Verona reopens the Scaligeri excavations
In conjunction with the Winter Olympic Games there is no shortage of news. In mid-February, after almost eleven years, the Scavi Scaligeri reopen with the new entrance from the scenic Cortile Mercato Vecchio: the exhibition space and the archaeological site will be visitable thanks to the recovery, safety and valorisation intervention promoted by the Municipality of Verona. February also offers the opportunity to visit the Scaliger Tombs, imposing Gothic tombs of the Della Scala lordsVerona’s medieval treasure (openings on 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15 February, from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm. Entrance is free, but reserved for those who already have a ticket for one of the city’s other museums or civic monuments).
Verona, Piazza delle Erbe, in Verona, view from the terrace of Palazzo Maffei. Photo by Massimo Ripani.
Hunting for hidden treasures
Capturing the soul of places while avoiding overtourism, which suffocates cities of art, is possible. Among the less frequented destinations in Verona, there is the fascinating Capitolare Library (Piazza Duomo, 13, 10-17, bibliotecacapitolare.it). Considered the oldest functioning library in the world, famous for the antiquity and preciousness of its over 1200 manuscripts, it was frequented by Charlemagne’s son, Pippin, by Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarca. The Allied air raid on 4 January 1945, at the end of the Second World War, hit and destroyed the main hall; fortunately the librarian Giuseppe Turrini had moved the manuscripts and incunabula to a safe place, while the less precious volumes that had remained in the library, buried under the rubble, were mostly recovered.
In the labyrinth of beauty
Turned the corner, you can visit the Cathedral without haste (chieverona.it/it/le-chiese/il-complesso-della-cattedrale), a complex architectural complex (which includes S. Giovanni in Fonte and the small church of S. Elena) which offers a dizzying succession of emotions, including Romanesque sculptures, Renaissance frescoes and archaeological excavations. Don’t miss the Capitular Cloister surrounded on three sides by paired red marble columns that support arches, creating poetic profiles of light and shadow on the walls and floor.
The most romantic “postcard” of the city
The auditorium of the Roman Theater of Verona. Photo by Anna Maria D’Urso.
After crossing the Stone Bridge it is nice to stop on the steps of the auditorium of the Roman Theatre (1st century BC) whose lost size and magnificence was hypothesized and reconstructed in some drawings by Andrea Palladio in the sixteenth century. Higher up, the Archaeological Museum at the Roman Theater stands outin the former S. Girolamo convent, from whose large terrace you can enjoy a wonderful view of the river and the city. A super romantic garden terrace, where Roman marble and columns that belonged to the portico that crowned the Arena’s cavea are placed.
Appointment with the Shaman
But what was there before the ancient Romans? The right place to go back in time is the National Archaeological Museum of Verona (open from Friday to Monday, 10am-6pm, manverona.cultura.gov.it) inaugurated in February 2022 inside a former prison from the Habsburg era, which with artefacts and educational panels tells of the human settlements in the Verona area before the Arena, of the palaces that were the backdrop to the theatrical idea of Romeo and Juliet, of the architectural grandeur of the Scaligeri family. Symbol of the museum: the Shaman of Fumane, a notable example of figurative art of the first Sapiens: painted in red ocher on a stone, a human silhouette dances with two ‘horns’ on the head, interpreted as a sorcerer or shaman from around 38 thousand years ago.
A mind-boggling eclectic collection
Room on the main floor of the house-museum of Palazzo Maffei, in Verona. Photo by Massimo Ripani.
Back in Piazza delle Erbe, a tour of Palazzo Maffei is a must (piazza Erbe 38, closed on Tuesday, palazzomaffeiverona.com). Seventeenth-century palace, opened in 2020 after a long restoration, houses the House Museum commissioned by the collector Luigi Carlon who, from his private home, moved over 750 works here including paintings, sculpture, applied arts, antique and design furniture. The eclectic collection of Palazzo Maffei fluidly combines the ancient, the modern and the contemporary, thanks to the museographic project of the art historian Gabriella Belli. «Together we identified strong temporal or stylistic short circuits» explains Vanessa Carlon, director of the museum. A museum of “beauty in movement”: one of the latest installations commissioned is “Cometa” (2025): the site-specific work by Anna Galtarossa rotates slowly suspended in the center of the spectacular helical staircase. «The glittering and colorful journey that Cometa proposes is that of a monument of the present: it does not celebrate heroism or completed revolutions, but opens up to hypotheses, fantasies, ancestral games whose rules we do not know» writes Andrea Lissoni, director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Room after room of Palazzo Maffei we come across a cut by Fontana next to a triptych from the 1300s; The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai, e you pass through precious living rooms that slow down your pace and give rise to the desire to stay in this “home” for as long as possible. The view from the top of the museum onto Piazza delle Erbe with the Case Mazzanti with its frescoed façade is stunning. Not to be missed at the Teatrino Maffei is the meeting dedicated to Felice Casorati (Thursday 12 February, at 6.15pm, free admission while seats last) organized by Gabriella Belli and Giorgina Bertolino.
“Cometa” (2025), the site-specific work by Anna Galtarossa suspended in the center of the spectacular helical staircase of Palazzo Maffei, in Verona.
Between avant-garde and tradition
Climbing the monumental Scala della Ragione in red Veronese marble (between Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori) the intoxication of paintings continues at the Achille Forti Modern Art Gallery (closed on Mondays, gam.comune.verona.it) where you are greeted by five extraordinary paintings by Felice Casorati. Between avant-garde and tradition, a masterpiece stands out: Meditation (1851) by Francesco Hayez. The exhibition has been extended until May 24, 2026 The study on the Hill. Guido Trentini and Angelo Zambonidedicated to two artists who were protagonists of a fertile season of artistic and literary renewal in the city in the early 1900s. Not to be missed at the Scudo Gallery Accardi, oroargento works 1964-1965 (via Scudo di Francia 2, until 28 March 2026) exhibition that brings together for the first time the paintings of a well-defined nucleus by Carla Accardi – among the founders of the Forma group in 1947 – characterized by the use of gold and silver pigments.
Walking from church to church
The central nave of the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia, in Verona. Photo by Anna Maria D’Urso.
Verona is not a place for hit-and-run tourism. The unmissable destinations are numerous, and all close to each other. The interior of the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia looks like a garden in blooma masterpiece of Italian Gothic. which houses the fresco with “Saint George and the Princess” created by Pisanello between 1433 and 1438. The Church of San Fermo Maggiore, one of the richest and most stratified religious complexesis instead built on an ancient cult site and consists of two superimposed rooms. In the lower, Romanesque church, spirituality is enclosed in frescoes from the 11th to 13th centuries; in the Gothic upper church you can admire the wooden ceiling in the shape of the hull of an overturned ship.
A view from the Castle
Castelvecchio (museodicastelvecchio.comune.verona.it) the medieval castle and its fortified bridge, renovated between 1958 and 1964 by Carlo Scarpa, is an example of how contemporary intervention can dialogue with history. A journey between art and architecture, made more fascinating by the tour along the patrol walkways of the parade ground. The Basilica of San Zeno, dedicated to the city’s patron saint, is a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture. Built in the 9th century, it was rebuilt three hundred years later, due to an earthquake that damaged it. The façade is made of tuff, embellished with a rose window and a portal with 48 bronze panels which reproduce scenes from the Old and New Testament and from the life of San Zeno. The interior, with three naves, houses several masterpieces, including Mantegna’s triptych (Madonna and Saints). In addition to painting, Mantegna also designed the frame of the triptych, which still includes six panels. From the left nave you exit into the Romanesque cloister, which offers a fascinating view of the bell tower and part of the basilica.
The north cell of the Hypogeum of Santa Maria in Stelle from the 1st century AD (near Verona) with, in the lunette, the fresco of an apostolic college with a Christ docens. Photo by Daniele Cortese.
Under the stars of the Hypogeum
Entering the Hypogeum of Santa Maria in Stelle is a unique experience (reservation required: ipogeostelle.it). Eight kilometers from Verona, in a village in Valpantena under the church of Santa Maria Assunta, you descend to a depth of five meters to admire the polychrome frescoes of an early Christian work, dating back to the 1st century AD. An exciting visit.
Where to sleep in Verona
Hotel Due Torri (Piazza S.Anastasia 4, hotelduetorri.duetorrihotels.com) For a stay in the heart of Verona, a 5 star in a historic building next to the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia. Stylish furnishings and a lounge with great scenographic impact, which extends for 300 meters and houses seventeenth-century paintings and a large fresco by Pino Casarini, the Brandenburg Knights Tournament. Remarkable too The Casarini Arena circus themed, a cycle frescoed by Pino Casarini in a theater room inside the hotel and can be visited on request. On the bedside table, between Bedtime bookspublished by Due Torri Hotel, the small volume The Hypogeum of Santa Maria in Stelland Germana Cabrelle.
The lounge bar of the Hotel Due Torri, in Verona, with the fresco “Tournament of the Brandenburg Knights” by Pino Casarini.
Where to eat
Maffei restaurant (Piazza Erbe 38, restaurantmaffei.it). Aperitif with a view of the Roman excavations (in the restaurant’s cellars) which reveal the foundations of the Roman Capitol (1st century BC). Then you taste the tortelli stuffed with ossobuco and the beef cheek braised in Amarone.
The archaeological excavations in the cellars of the Maffei Restaurant, in Verona. Photo by Anna Maria D’Urso.
Wine shop (Viale Scudo di Francia 3, bottegavini.it/verona). In the heart of the historic center of Verona, a place that embodies the food and wine and convivial history of the city. Famous for its wine list, among the most awarded in the world, with around 4,500 labels and over 18,000 bottles. Try the risotto with Amarone wine.
Info: visitverona.it
