A Walk with Marco

I signed up a few days ago for an English-language guided historical walk on Saturday, August 31. The meeting place was impossible to mistake, but when no one else had shown up by a few minutes to 10 o’clock, I started to get anxious. Then at 10:00 exactly, having texted me a few minutes earlier, Marco arrived. It turned out I was the only person who had signed up. I couldn’t believe my luck. Most tour operators would have cancelled. Because I was the only person, not only could Marco tailor the tour to places I hadn’t already seen, but we could also speak Italian instead of English.

Marco was immensely knowledgeable about the history of Verona and its buildings. He pointed out things I wouldn’t have noticed, and he often had entertaining anecdotes.

We started at the Arena, built by the Romans in 1 CE. It suffered from a severe earthquake in the 12th century and was also used as a ready source of construction material until an edict of 1451 prohibited the removal of stones. Only four arches are left of the outer circle, which was the façade. A Medieval legend, Marco told me, has it that it wasn’t the Romans who built the Arena. In ancient times, a prisoner under sentence of death was told that his life would be spared if he could, in one night, build the biggest and most beautiful building ever seen. The prisoner made a contract with the devil, offering his soul in exchange for the building. The job was too big even for Satan, and he didn’t finish the external ring. However, the building was so impressive that the prisoner’s life was spared; and as for his soul, it was safe. Satan hadn’t fulfilled the full terms of the contract, so it was void!

Without Marco, I would never have known about, let alone found, the non-descript door beside a restaurant and the stairs down to the Corte Sgarzerie archaeological site, which is open for three hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. An excellent video explained that we were standing in part of the Capitoline complex, the center of which was the grand temple dedicated to the trinity of Roman gods: Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva.

Later on, on part of a Roman road that has been exposed for people to walk on, Marco pointed out to me the fossil of an ammonite in the marble. The fossils are characteristic of Veronese marble. Once I’d seen it, I started seeing them everywhere. The photograph is of one on the Ponte Pietra.

We made two stops: the first to sample freshly hand-made tortellini at La bottega della Gina, and the second for coffee at Cappa Café. The picture on La bottega della Gina's business card of is by the Veronese artist Pier Paolo Spinazzè, who paints under the name of “CIBO.” For the past 10 years, CIBO has been painting images of food (hence his choice of sobriquet) over neo-fascist graffiti around Verona, despite regular threats from the far right. When racist slogans and symbols are spray-painted back on his work, he simply paints over them again.

I'll be passing on others of Marco's stories and explanations in future posts. If you visit Verona, definitely take his historical walking tour.Read more