Verona / Arena di Verona
Ancient Rome · Music
Arena di Verona
A Roman amphitheatre older than the Colosseum, still doing exactly what it was built to do.
- Price
- From €10 daytime · opera tickets vary widely
- Hours
- Roughly 8:30am–7:30pm outside festival season
- Avg. visit
- 1 hour daytime · a full evening for opera
- Book ahead
- Essential for opera performances
The Arena was built around AD 30, predating the Colosseum in Rome by roughly fifty years, and survives today as the third-largest Roman amphitheatre still standing. A major earthquake in 1117 brought down most of the outer ring — only a fragment, known locally as the ala (the wing), survives to show what the full exterior once looked like — but the inner tiers of seating came through largely intact.
That structural survival is precisely why the Arena still functions as a working venue rather than a ruin to walk through. The open-air opera festival has run here since 1913, staged without amplification on a purpose-built stage set into the arena floor, using the natural acoustics of the stone bowl — a use of a 2,000-year-old building that has itself become a genuine Veronese institution.
Inside
What to see
- The surviving inner tiers of seating, still used for tens of thousands of spectators during the opera festival
- The ala, the sole surviving fragment of the original outer ring, destroyed elsewhere by the 1117 earthquake
- The arena floor, transformed each summer into an elaborate opera stage set
- The view from the upper tiers back across the rooftops of central Verona
Practical
Good to know
- The opera festival runs through summer evenings, roughly June to September, with performances staged without electronic amplification.
- Cheap unreserved seats are on the original stone steps — bring or rent a cushion, since a full opera runs several hours on bare stone.
- Daytime visits outside performance days let you walk the tiers and floor at leisure, a very different experience from an evening under lights.
Timing
When it's busiest
- Morning
- Quiet
- Midday
- Busy
- Afternoon
- Busy
- Festival evenings
- Packed
Nearby
Combine your visit
10-minute walk
Piazza delle Erbe & Piazza dei Signori
Continue into the historic centre's two connected squares.
Visit →
10-minute walk
Casa di Giulietta
Visit the courtyard associated with Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.
Visit →
10-minute walk
Torre dei Lamberti
Climb the city's tallest tower for a view back down over the Arena.
Visit →
FAQ
Common questions
Do I need to book the opera ahead?
Yes, essential — popular performances and the best seats sell out well in advance of the summer season.
Can I visit without seeing an opera?
Yes — daytime tickets let you explore the tiers and arena floor independent of any performance.
Why is so much of the outer wall missing?
A major earthquake in 1117 destroyed most of the original outer ring; only one fragment, the ala, survives to show its original height and design.
What should I bring to an opera performance?
A cushion for the stone steps if you have unreserved seating, and a layer for the evening, since summer nights can cool down once the sun sets.