We loved Verona, but, as the hot and humid conditions continued, we decided to limit ourselves to one or two sites, promising ourselves a return trip, at a cooler time, another year.
If it hadn’t been for a tip from our Airbnb host, we would have missed the wonderful Palazzo Giusti and its garden.
Verona’s main source of wealth in the Middle Ages was wool, and the land where the garden now stands was bought by the Giusti family in 1406 as space to set out huge vats to dye their yarn. Later on in the fifteenth century, a Palazzo was added and the area that had been used for industry replaced by a formal garden with box hedges, cypress trees, fountains and grottoes.
The garden grew in fame and was a popular stopping-off point by those undertaking a ‘grand tour’. Apart from Goethe, famous visitors to the garden included Mozart, Ruskin and Tsar Alexander I.
The garden went through a period of neglect, but has now been almost totally restored. Today it looks fairly immaculate (apart from the lawn, which Mark always notices the state of).
The Palazzo, with decorations from the eighteenth century, was also open for visits.
We couldn’t leave Verona without paying a visit to the houses of Romeo and Juliet (along with hundreds of others).
You can pay extra to stand on it (we declined to)
And a final glimpse of Verona …
First finished in 100BC, it was re-built after being destroyed in the second world war
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