Arena, Verona

One of the biggest and best preserved Roman arenas. Its dimensions clearly show how important Verona was under the Roman Empire thanks to its excellent strategic position.

Unfortunately I had not the chance to attend a performance of an opera (mostly from Giuseppe Verdi) but I surely shall do it when I come again. I can imagine that it is an impressive experience and preformed at a place like this it comes maybe closer to the real meaning of this kind of art - it is a much better venue for a "grande spettacolo" than any Opera house.

Arena di Verona is the centerpiece of Verona centro, and was also the largest and most important structure in ancient Roman Verona. Although not near as large as the Colisseum in Roma, this sports and event arena is an impressive structure indeed. The arena was built in the first century AD. The arena itself is built primarily of limestone, although much of the interior seating area is of pink and white marble.

The high outer wall shown at the left of the photo completely encircled the arena for about 1300 years, until the Scaligeri family needed the limestone blocks for building their immense fortress and city walls. ( They needed protection from everybody else ). All that remains of the outer wall is the segment shown here. A corridor filled the entire periphery between the arena and outer wall. This gave the Romans a great place to buy hot dogs, mingle, line up for the restrooms, and yell at their kids. Surprisingly little has changed in 2000 years.

Gladiator battles and feedings of Christians to lions are no longer staged in the arena, but operas are held here frequently. The Italianos love their opera. I am sure you will love the makeshift shanty shops selling junky souveniers, like the " classy " one shown in the photo.

When we first arrived we thought that the arena was closed for renovation.We were quite dissapppointed as we were looking forward to seeing inside.

However later on we discovered it was only open in the afternoon.

The entrance fee was nominal and we were able to access all areas of the arena.

The place has an atmosphere that enables you to picture life back then.Walking round the inner sections of the arena you could clearly picture the lions, bears etc being caged ready to fight in the arena itself.

Climbing up the various levels makes you marvel at the sheer scale and magnificence of the arena.Alas i suffer from a fear of heights and could not enjoy what must have been a stunning panoramic view of Verona from the top.

Buildings such as this make you realise what an influence the Romans had as a race on their time and the world as we know it today.

I would reccommend Verona as a city to visit.

Around the whole arena, under the top of the steps, runs a circular passage for the circulation of spectators. Because of the works in progress for the installation of the festival, only the south part was open to the public.

While I climbed the steps towards the top, a shape that appeared on one of the steps suddenly caught my attention. It was a large size ammonite that was included in the stone and that has been polished along the time by thousands of butts ! Looking more closely, I found that this was not the only ammonite on the steps of the arena but this one was the best drawn, which even showed the lodges of its shell.

On this picture, you can see that a whole structure is building in the center of the arena for the Festival which will take place in about 2 month. The show will take place on the upper level while underneath will be all the technical machinery needed.

The steps, built in high quality stone are in perfect condition. The whole inner part of the arena is in good condition and is used each Summer for three month of Festival. When you are on top, the steps seem to be very steep. The arena is 152m x 128m and is the third larger still existing after Roma's Coliseus (188m x 155m) and the arena in Capua (167m x 137m)

Most of the outer wall has been destroyed along the centuries and there remains only a small part of it. The good side of these destructions is that it allows better to see how the circulation of the spectators could work in a Roman's arena, exactly as if it was a pedagogical section done on purpose !