Verona

The amphitheatre on Piazza Bra dates from the first century and survives in far better condition than most, having been repaired and reused continuously rather than quarried for stone. It seats a substantial audience and still works as a venue: the summer opera season puts full stagings inside it, with much of the audience on the original stone tiers. Even outside the season the interior is worth entering to stand on the arena floor and look up. If you come for a performance, take a cushion — the stone steps are exactly as hard as they look — and expect a late finish.

The historic centre sits inside a loop of the Adige and is UNESCO-listed. Piazza delle Erbe occupies the old Roman forum and still holds a market under frescoed facades and a medieval tower you can climb for the rooftop view; the adjoining Piazza dei Signori is quieter and more formal. Nearby stand the Scaliger tombs, elaborate Gothic canopies over the street, and the cathedral. Verona's Roman street plan is still legible underfoot, and surviving gates and an arch stand mid-street where the modern city simply grew around them.

Worth being straight about. The house on Via Cappello is genuinely medieval, but the balcony was added in the twentieth century and the association with Shakespeare's characters is a later attribution rather than a historical link — the play was set here by an author who never visited. The courtyard is small, extremely crowded and covered in graffiti and padlocks. Some visitors enjoy it for what it is; others prefer to walk past, look up from the street for free, and spend the time on the arena or the river instead. Both are reasonable choices, but knowing in advance prevents disappointment.

Cross the river by the Ponte Pietra, a Roman bridge rebuilt after wartime damage using its recovered original stone, and the city opens up. On the far bank the Roman theatre — older than the arena and cut into the hillside — holds an archaeological museum in the convent above it, and stages summer performances of its own. Continue up, by the stepped path or the funicular, to Castel San Pietro, where the terrace gives the classic view back over the roofs, the bridges and the river loop. Late afternoon is the moment for it.

The hills begin immediately north of the city and are the reason to give Verona an extra day. This is Valpolicella, home of Amarone — made from grapes dried on racks for months before pressing, which is what gives it its weight — and of the lighter Valpolicella Classico and the sweet Recioto. Cellars across the villages receive visitors, mostly by appointment, and the landscape of terraced vines and villas is a short drive from the centre. East of the city, Soave produces the white counterpart around a properly castellated hill town. Book ahead and arrange a driver or a tour rather than tasting and driving.

Garda's southern shore is close enough to make Verona a viable base for both. Peschiera and Sirmione sit around half an hour away — Sirmione on a long thin peninsula with a moated castle at its neck and Roman villa ruins at its tip, and it is very busy in summer for good reason. Ferries link the lakeside towns, so a day can combine a train or bus out, a boat between two or three villages, and a return in the evening. The northern lake, with the cliffs and the windsurfing, is a longer haul and better suited to a stay than a day trip.

Verona sits on the main Milan-Venice line, which makes it easy to reach and a sensible base for the region; the station is a short bus ride or twenty-minute walk from Piazza Bra. The centre is pedestrianised in large part and driving into it is restricted by camera-enforced zones, so leave the car outside. A city card covering the main monuments and buses pays for itself quickly if you intend to see the arena, the towers and the museums. Spring and autumn are the pleasant seasons; opera season fills the city through the summer heat.