2 stops in walking order

City

Verona is the largest city in the region of Veneto in Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city municipality in the region and in northeastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona covers an area of 1,426 km2 (550.58 sq mi) and has a population of 714,310 inhabitants. It is one of the main tourist destinations in Northern Italy because of its artistic heritage and several annual fairs and shows as well as the opera season in the Arena, an ancient Roman amphitheater. Between the 13th and 14th centuries, the city was ruled by the della Scala family. Under the rule of the family, in particular of Cangrande I della Scala, the city experienced great prosperity, becoming rich and powerful and was surrounded by new walls. The della Scala era is preserved in numerous monuments around Verona. Three of William Shakespeare's plays are set in Verona: Romeo and Juliet (which also features Romeo's visit to Mantua), The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

~20 min at this stop

Fortress

The defensive system of Verona is a military, logistical and infrastructural complex consisting of city walls, bastions, forts, entrenched camps, warehouses and barracks, built between 1814 and 1866 during Habsburg rule, which made the Venetian city, the pivot of the so-called "Quadrilatero," one of the strong points of the Empire's strategic system. Thus Austrian Verona became an army stronghold, that is, a center that could supply the entire imperial garrison present in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, consisting of approximately 100,000 soldiers. Monumental works forming a repertoire of nearly 2,000 years of the history of fortification art are still visible in the urban area, which is why the city has been decreed a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the ruins of the Roman fortified city, the perimeter of the Scaliger walled city with its castles, the structure of the Venetian fortress, as well as the final layout of the Habsburg stronghold still remain. The magisterial wall, in its final arrangement, has a development of more than 9 km and occupies almost 100 ha of area with its structures: curtain walls, towers, allures, bastions, moats, terrepleins and glacis. Finally, in the surrounding area, located in the flat countryside or on the Torricelle hills, 31 forts (19 of which still exist) formed the last and most modern city system, which was the defense of the Habsburg stronghol

~20 min at this stop