Velo Veronese

Velo Veronese sits almost at the centre of the Lessinia plateau, at 1087 metres, and is the third highest comune in the province after Erbezzo and Bosco Chiesanuova. In Cimbrian it is called Vellje, that is field, and it is one of the Thirteen Communities of the Verona mountains: three of the original thirteen lie within its territory alone — Velo, Azzarino and Camposilvano — and there are thirteen stars on its coat of arms. The Cimbrian language has been lost here; the traditions have not.

At Camposilvano there is the Covolo, a huge karst cavity that collapsed and stayed open to the sky: seventy metres wide, thirty-five high, fifty deep, and inside it a thermal inversion strong enough for snow to fall in summer. Not far away is the Valley of the Sphinxes, almost a kilometre of limestone monoliths lined up along the valley floor at regular intervals, once known as le Buse. On Monte Purga there stood an Iron Age hill fort, a Roman fort and a fourteenth-century castle; today there is a chapel. And there is a church dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo — who passed this way on his journey to the Council of Trent — built in 1606, years before he was proclaimed a saint.