Butterfly Verona

Worth getting out of bed for

Verona is dubbed the city of love with visits to Juliet’s tomb, Juliet’s house (and Romeo’s) high on many a visitor’s wishlist: whether you wish to park your scepticism that Shakespeare’s Verona-set tragedy is a work of fiction with no balcony or grave visits required, there’s no debating the romance of this ancient city, cupped by the river Adige and ribbed with crenellated city walls (one such straddles the hotel’s street) and an alley-ribboned, mediaeval città antica that’s Verona’s beating heart. Its Roman amphitheatre, the Arena, is just a three-minute walk from the hotel, and hosts a summer season of opera: you can expect a bit of Bizet but a lot of Verdi (seeing Aida in an open-air Roman amphitheatre sounds pretty spectacular). Grandiose Piazza del Erbe, once a Roman forum, is the home of Torre dei Lamberti, a soaring brick tower with bird’s eye views of the city (hilltop fortress Castel San Pietro has impressive panoramas, too). On Piazza del Erbe, you’re also at one end of Via Mazzini, an avenue of high-street and designer stores that’s catnip to big spenders. At the other end, Piazza Brà is the café-lined main square beside the Arena. Take a guided bicycle tour for a comprehensive whirl around town on two wheels. If you find yourself on Corso Porta Bursari, look up. Above the original Melegatti panetteria, you can see the city’s prized pandoro rendered as a pair of stone finials – reason enough to immediately track down the sweet doughy version and an espresso. 

Local restaurants

Precise plates of avant-garde cuisine (tweezered herbs, cloched smoke, glossy emulsions) are overseen by innovative chef Saimir Xhaxhaj at upscale restaurant La Canonica, where the tasting menus are less of a meal, more of a culinary odyssey.  A stained glass lantern lights the way to a historic restaurant of frescoed dining rooms at 12 Apostoli, where chef Mauro Buffo oversees an accomplished menu of dishes named by listed ingredients such as ‘salted venison, rocket, lovage’ or ‘milk ice-cream, strawberry, rhubarb.’ Alongside his most popular outpost Casa Perbellini, chef Giancarlo Perbellini (of pastry box fame) has a handful restaurants in the city, including Pizzeria Du De Cope and a fish restaurant El Capitan that’s an innovative celebration of seafood serving up cuttlefish noodles, monkfish and spider crab. 

Local bars

You don’t even need to be a wine drinker to appreciate the walls and walls of bottles at historic enoteca Botte Gavini, which has a fine Veronese selection alongside vintages from further afield.