Vestenanova

On the arms of this mountain comune, on a blue field, there are fish. It is not a mistake by whoever drew them: they are the fossils of Bolca, the hamlet that lies little more than a kilometre away as the crow flies and that has a museum devoted entirely to them. A village at the foot of the Lessini mountains, forty-six kilometres from Verona, chose as its emblem neither a saint nor a tower, but what is found inside its own rock: fish from a sea that no longer exists. On the first weekend of July, at Bolca, the palaeontology festival brings together the palio of old games, the walks and the visit to the fossil museum, which says a good deal about what kind of local pride this is.

The name, attested as Vestena as early as 1145, seems to come from an ancient personal name, Vestĭna; then it split in two, because Vestenanova stands on the eastern bank of the Alpone torrent and Vestenavecchia on the western one, and to speak of both together people here simply say le Vestene. The comune is made of about a hundred contrade, and the source of the Alpone lies within its boundaries. There is also a villa one would not expect: Villa Emo, of the fifteenth century, partly decayed, one of the very rare patrician villas built above four hundred metres, since as a rule the Venetian nobility built on the plain. For the partisan struggle and for what its people endured, the comune holds the bronze medal for military valour. And then there is an appointment worth the journey: on the second Sunday of August, at Castelvero, they run the goose walk, a race over seven hundred metres reserved for geese. The record is under seven minutes.