Verona’s unique and historic centre is a lovely, lived-in palimpsest of Roman, Medieval, Renaissance and later overlays. Just beyond the city gates, the landscape of Valpolicella is no less carefully moulded by time and man; a play of vineyards, cypresses, olives, cherry trees, persimmons and traditional marogne dry-stone walls, its hilltop villages and historic villas as seductive – once you leave the busy Verona to Garda road behind – as anything Tuscany has to offer.

There’s a bond between city and country, too, not just because many of Verona’s most powerful families had summer houses in the amarone wine zone but also because Rosso Verona, the fossil-rich building stone that brings a pink blush to the Roman Arena and many other veronese landmarks, comes from quarries in Valpolicella.