Verona Arena Italy

Legendary

Made of pink and white limestone, the arena was built during the reign of Emperor Augustus.

Photo by Dimitris Kamaras

The Verona Arena is older than the Colosseum in Rome. It was finished around 30 AD, roughly 50 years before the Colosseum opened.

And unlike the Colosseum, it's still being used for big shows. Every summer, thousands of people fill its stone seats to watch opera under the stars.

The arena stands in Piazza Bra, the main square of Verona in northern Italy. When the Romans built it, it sat just outside the city walls.

They used pink and white limestone from the nearby Valpolicella hills. That's why the stone glows a warm pinkish color at sunset.

In Roman times, about 30,000 people could crowd inside. They came to watch gladiators fight.

Back then, the arena had a tall outer wall made of three levels of arches. It wrapped all the way around the building.

In the 200s, the city was worried about invaders. The emperor Gallienus had the arena built right into Verona's new defensive wall.

Then, on January 3, 1117, a powerful earthquake shook northern Italy. Almost the entire outer wall came crashing down.

Only one small piece survived. It's four arches tall and wide, and the people of Verona call it the Ala, meaning "the Wing."

Locals spent centuries carting away the fallen stones to use in other buildings. Luckily, the inner part of the arena, with its seats and staircases, stood strong.

During the Middle Ages, knights held jousting tournaments on the arena floor. Starting in the 1500s, people began repairing and protecting it.

Its biggest new role came in 1913. To celebrate 100 years since the birth of the composer Giuseppe Verdi, a local singer named Giovanni Zenatello staged Verdi's opera Aida inside the arena.

It was such a success that it became a yearly festival. Today it's the largest open-air opera season in the world.

Walk through the old stone tunnels and climb to the top seats for a view over the pink rooftops of Verona. Find the Ala, the last surviving piece of the outer wall, standing on one side of the arena. Come in summer to see an opera at night, when the audience lights candles as the show begins.

Sources: Wikipedia, Verona.info, and Visit Verona Arena.