Verona, thanks to its strategic position at the center of a road network made up of Postumia, Gallica and Claudio Augusta streets, was a city of great importance in Roman times. Even today in Verona, the remains of its Roman past are so numerous and well preserved as to make it the Italian city with more finds visible after Rome.
An amphitheater, a triumphal arch, two doors, a bridge, a theater and even underground mosaics, paved with streets, walls, the city is a real open-air archaeological museum, with finds ranging from the early Republican era to the early Christian age.
Starting from the Arco dei Gavi, the celebratory arch of an important Roman family of the first century AD, we head along the route of the ancient Via Postumia towards the center of the city. The road connected Genoa with Aquileia and even two thousand years ago it was one of the main access routes to Verona.
Passed under Porta Borsari (1st century AD), on whose sides, in the base of more recent buildings you can still see remains of the Roman wall, you can access the ancient decuman, one of the two main axes of the urban plan founded on the castrum, the camp Roman. The decumanus is traveled along its entire length until it reaches the Adige river, right where the Postumio bridge once stood, which led the way to the other side and allowed it to continue its journey towards Aquileia.
From the Roman theater it is possible to visit the Archaeological Museum of Verona, housed in an ancient monastery in a panoramic position on the hill of the city. In the halls and courtyards of the suggestive exhibition space, the tourist guide will be able to illustrate the splendid finds that are preserved there: mosaics, sculptures, inscriptions, everyday objects as well as temporary exhibitions that take place there.
We then continue towards the city center where, through large circular windows open in the pavement of a courtyard of the Scaliger palaces, we can admire the splendid mosaics of a Roman domus. From here you pass to Piazza delle Erbe, the ancient forum that still retains part of the shape it had more than two thousand years ago. Not much remains of Roman times visible on the square but in the basement of the buildings that rise around it, by prior arrangement, the tour guide who accompanies you will be able to show you the remains of the public buildings of two thousand years ago: basilica, capitolium and curia a few meters below the road surface.
At the cardo, the other road axis that started from the forum, you arrive at the other end of the Roman city, closed by Porta Leoni, with its double facade, republican and imperial, and the remains of the defensive towers. Along the route of the ancient wall, the remains of which are still visible in some places, we reach the Arena, the greatest monument of Roman Verona, the amphitheater of the 1st century AD. used for gladiator fights. It is so well preserved that it is still used today for the famous opera season in summer.
The Arena still has part of the outermost wall today and can be visited internally. The tour guide who accompanies you will be able to illustrate its functions, characteristics, the various uses it had over the centuries and the most recent archaeological discoveries that reveal the secrets it still contains.