City walk · Città antica, Verona · Italy
Berto Barbarani
1872–1945 · a real person
an old Veronese dialect poet, warm, teasing, slightly sentimental, suspicious of monuments and fond of market women
Read what Berto Barbarani says
I am Berto Barbarani, and I wrote poems in the dialect of this city for fifty years. Not in proper Italian — in the words people actually shout at each other over a basket of peaches. I am going to walk you from the great stone oval to the river, and tell you who worked here, who paid, and who was hurt. I died in the January of 1945, and the thing I loved most in Verona was destroyed three months later, so forgive me if my voice changes near the end. Come — the city is better walked than described.
5.0 (1)118 min · 4.5 km · 9 stops · medium
You’re walking this one before anyone at Walk & Tell has. If something looks wrong, tap Report at any stop — we’ll fix it for everyone after you.
Partly shadedBest time to walk: Early morning or after 5pm: Piazza Bra and the bridges have no shade at midday, and the market square is calmest before 10. Castelvecchio's museum is closed on Mondays; the Torre dei Lamberti charges to climb and has its own ticket desk.
The walk
A story walk across the old city of Verona, told by the Veronese dialect poet Berto Barbarani, who spent his life writing about these streets and the people in them. It runs in one line from the Roman amphitheatre, past the Scaliger castle and its red-brick bridge, along the old Roman road to the market square and its great bell tower, and ends above the Adige at the stone bridge. No puzzles — just the city, its trades, its wars and its market cries. Half the stops are places Verona still uses every day.
