I was surprised to see how far that inner gate of Verona was from the outer gate. To my eyes, this shows how much the city has grown over the millennia. These days, Verona is very well known tourist destination. This is my first time visiting this place and I’m really looking forward to see what the fuss is all about. To get into the city center of Verona. One needs to be pass through the Portoni della Bra. Not much can be seen of the old city walls at least from here but at least the gate itself was preserved.

The Portoni della Bra wasn’t as old as I thought it was. It was build at least a century before the Porta Nuova but there are other gates in the city which are wall older. I will no doubt be visiting those gates in the course of my visit. The Portoni della Bra serves at the main entrance which leads to be vast Piazza Bra or simply The Bra. “bra” in this case, originates from German meaning broad. Broad here refers to the piazza which contains several important structures. While the Portoni della Bra was part of the defensive structures of the city, it can be hard to visualize how effective the gate was. These days, there are no more doors which used to be part of the gate. There are instead arches which form the modern gates which we see today. The gate is also open to vehicular traffic which removed the need for the doors. More prominently, there is a clock which is built on the city gate. I don’t know when the clock was installed there but I can’t imagine it to be very old. At least as far as I was concerned, the clock seemed to be accurate.

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