Roman Temples, Convents and Student Life: A Veronetta Walking Tour

Verona's historic centre gets all the attention, but across the river lies a quieter district Napoleon's troops dismissively dubbed Little Verona. On this walking tour, you'll find out why this overlooked neighbourhood actually holds some of the city's oldest settlements. You'll also hear how Roman temples, medieval convents, and student life now share the same narrow streets.

The tour starts at the Ponte di Pietra, a Roman bridge painstakingly reconstructed stone by numbered stone after Nazi forces destroyed it in 1945. Crossing into Veronetta, you'll pass beneath the Della Scala family's fortified gatehouse and climb Via Santo Stefano toward the castle-topped hill of San Pietro, where prehistoric settlers once lived. Along the way, you'll glimpse the Roman Theatre's stone seating carved into the hillside, still in use today.

Winding through Veronetta's lanes, you'll learn how road names like Vicolo and Borgo reveal centuries of settlement patterns, and pass the walls of a former convent of Poor Clares nuns. You'll stop at San Giovanni in Valle, where crypts hold sarcophagi reputedly containing the remains of two apostles, and pass Piazza Isolo, once a literal island shaped by a since-buried river branch. The tour ends at the Church of Thomas Becket, where Mozart once carved his initials into the organ.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Learn how the Della Scala family's rule shaped Verona's medieval power struggles and left fortifications across the city
• See a bronze sculpture memorializing Holocaust victims, its barbed-wire imagery still striking decades later
• Hear the murky history behind Via Interrata dell'Acqua Morta, named for a since-buried dead water river branch
• Spot one of Verona's miniature gnome doors, tucked into a wall for passersby who believe in fairy tales
• Discover the wooden inlays at Santa Maria in Organo, crafted by Fra Giovanni da Verona in the 1400s
• Find out why a bishop's personal devotion gave Verona a church dedicated to England's martyred Archbishop of Canterbury

By the time you reach the Thomas Becket Church, you'll understand exactly why Napoleon's insult never stuck.