San Giorgio di Valpolicella: the stone parish church that overlooks the vineyards

There is a spot, among the vine rows of Valpolicella, where the road stops climbing and you find yourself facing a limestone church that seems to have grown straight out of the ground. The parish church of San Giorgio clings to a small hilltop village above Sant'Ambrogio, and to get there you have to really want to: it isn't on the coach routes, it isn't in Verona, it isn't on the lake. And yet it has stood there for almost a thousand years, one of the oldest and most intimate Romanesque testimonies in the whole Verona district.

The part that stays with you is the cloister. A small quadrangle, with slender little columns and carved capitals, opening onto the luminous emptiness of the valley. You sit on the low wall and look down: vineyards, cypresses, the odd roof of terracotta tiles, and far off the plain fading into the haze. Inside the church the light is low, the walls preserve traces of frescoes and an ancient stone ciborium that alone is worth the climb. There is a silence here that in Verona, twenty minutes away by car, is by now unthinkable.

The beauty lies precisely in that contrast. While the Arena and Juliet's house jostle beneath thousands of selfies, here you can find yourself alone for half an hour, with the wind and the bells. The village around it is tiny: two trattorias, a shop, people who greet you because you're a new face.

Go early in the morning or in the late afternoon, avoiding the heat of the high-season months. Leave the car below and walk up between the dry-stone walls: the effort is part of the ritual. Have a glass of Valpolicella before heading back down, in no hurry. It's a place that rewards those who slow down, not those who rush from one stop to the next.

Getting there

The parish church rises in the little village of San Giorgio, on high ground above Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella, north-west of Verona. The handiest way to get there is by car: from the A4 motorway take the Verona Nord exit and continue towards Valpolicella and Sant'Ambrogio, from where you climb up to the village. Verona is the reference city and airport, with parking available at Sant'Ambrogio.