VERONA · ITALY
The Arena, the balcony, the vines.
Skip-the-line Arena tickets and summer opera, Juliet's House, Valpolicella wine tastings and day trips out to Lake Garda. The best of Verona and the Veneto, each one reviewed before it earns a place here.
Only in Verona
Three things you'll only do here.
Gelato and pretty piazzas you'll find the length of Italy. Opera inside a Roman arena, a pilgrimage to Juliet's balcony, and a wine dried on the vine belong to Verona alone.
Opera in a Roman arena
A Night at the Arena
The Arena di Verona is a Roman amphitheatre from the first century, older than the Colosseum, and it still fills. On summer nights the stone tiers seat thousands for opera under the open sky - Aida, Carmen, Nabucco - a tradition running here since 1913. Nowhere else do you watch grand opera in a two-thousand-year-old arena.
- 1 Verona: Priority Access Arena Guided Tour
- 2 Verona: Small Group Guided Walking Tour with Arena Tickets
- 3 Verona: Arena di Verona Opera Ticket
Star-crossed in stone
Juliet's Balcony
Shakespeare set his lovers in Verona, and the city took them in. Casa di Giulietta keeps a fourteenth-century courtyard, a balcony added for the pilgrims, and walls layered with love notes. Whether or not Juliet ever lived, this is the one city on earth that can claim her.
- 1 Verona: Juliet’s House Fast-Track Entry Ticket & Audio Guide
- 2 Wine Tasting near Juliet’s House & Arena with Valpolicella
- 3 Fascinating Verona: in the Footprints of Romeo and Juliet
The dried-grape wine
Amarone della Valpolicella
In the hills north of the city, growers lay the harvest out to dry for months before pressing, concentrating the fruit into Amarone - a deep, warming red made this way nowhere else on earth. A cellar visit in Valpolicella is a tasting of a method the Romans already knew.
- 1 From Verona: Valpolicella and Amarone Wine Tasting Tour
- 2 Discover Valpolicella Vineyards and Wine Tasting Experience
- 3 Amarone Wine-tasting Tour from Verona with Private Transportation
Start with the standout
The most popular thing to do in Verona.
More visitors build a day around this one than anything else in the city.
The classics
Verona's Most Popular Experiences
The Arena, Juliet's House, the guided walks through the old town and the runs out to the wine country. The ones nearly every visitor books.
Where to begin
The experiences a Verona trip is built around.
The Arena and its opera, Juliet's balcony, the Valpolicella cellars, a day on Lake Garda, a pasta class and the walk through the old town. The handful most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to do Lake Garda.
Italy's largest lake begins thirty minutes from the city, so the only question is which shore. Three ways to spend a day on Garda from Verona, depending on whether you came for the castle, the wine or the view.
Valpolicella
Amarone, dried on the vine.
A quarter-hour north of the city the ground lifts into the Valpolicella, a run of cypress-lined hills and stone cellars. Here the grapes are laid out to dry through the winter before pressing, the slow method that turns them into Amarone and Recioto. Tastings come with the view and, often, lunch on the terrace.
Read the guide: the best Valpolicella wine tours →At the table
Verona, learned by hand.
The Veneto eats well and Verona eats best: fresh pasta rolled by hand, risotto stained with Amarone, and tiramisu built from scratch. Spend a morning in a home kitchen or a chef's studio, then sit down to the lunch you just made. Market food tours run the same streets the cooks shop in.
See the cooking classes →Romeo & Juliet
The world's most famous balcony.
Shakespeare never set foot here, but he set his lovers here, and Verona made the story its own. Casa di Giulietta hides down an archway papered with love notes: a small medieval courtyard, the bronze Juliet, and the balcony every visitor knows. Guided walks tie it to the real Capulet and Montague Verona of the feuding fourteenth century.
- 1 Verona: Juliet’s House Fast-Track Entry Ticket & Audio Guide
- 2 Wine Tasting near Juliet’s House & Arena with Valpolicella
- 3 Fascinating Verona: in the Footprints of Romeo and Juliet
By the day you want
Three kinds of day in Verona.
A slow morning over wine and cheese, the headline sights of the old town, or a day out to the lake and the hills. Verona does all three, and most trips take one of each.
Slow days
Wine, cheese and a long lunch.Amarone tastings in the centre, cellar visits up in Valpolicella, truffle hunts and a table set for the whole afternoon.
Beyond the walls
Out to the lake and the hills.Lake Garda and Sirmione by boat, the Valpolicella vineyards, and the longer runs to Venice and the Dolomites.
The Arena
Grand opera in a Roman amphitheatre.
Every summer the Arena di Verona stages opera the way almost nowhere else can: a full orchestra and a cast of hundreds on the floor of a first-century amphitheatre, the audience on the same stone steps Romans once filled. As the light goes, the crowd lights candles, and Aida or Carmen carries up into the open night. Daytime visits and skip-the-line tickets run year round.
See all 13 Arena tickets & tours →By place
Verona, and the Veneto around it.
The city for the Arena, the piazzas and Juliet's balcony. Lake Garda for the castles and the water. Valpolicella for the vines. Venice and the Dolomites when you want the lagoon or the mountains.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Walk the old town with a guide. Taste your way through the cellars. Roll pasta in a Veronese kitchen. Pedal the river path, chase the Romeo and Juliet trail, take an Arena ticket, or sail out on Garda.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Verona? Here is a long weekend that takes in the city, the wine country and the lake without a wasted hour.
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