It is located in the municipality of Sant’Anna d’Alfaedo, in the hamlet of Giare, in the spectacular Lessinia Regional Park, in the province of Verona. A protected area of about 10,000 hectares, which extends between the Val d’Adige, Trentino, the Small Dolomites group and the high Veronese plain, enclosing a variety of natural, historical and archaeological elements of great value.
An ideal destination for visitors looking for genuine contact with nature and ancient traditions. The Veja Bridge is imposing, with an arch of about forty meters over the valley, a thickness of nine meters and a width that can reach twenty meters.
According to some studies, this natural arch would have formed from an ancient karst cave, modeled over millions of years in the limestone rock, due to the erosive action of water, which filtering through the rock caused the cave to open.
In fact, once upon a time, on the lintel of the cave, consisting of ammonite red limestone slabs, a lively stream flowed, which passing over the current Veja bridge, formed a spectacular waterfall.
Some caves at the bases of the Veja Bridge were already inhabited in the Prehistoric period, in fact many finds testify to the presence of a colony of skilled flint workers, a rock worked and transformed into arrows, needles and points, and which were then traded in many parts of Europe, such as the Baltic Sea and northern France.
Going below the bridge, you can admire this majestic natural work in all its beauty, a source of inspiration for many artists, such as Andrea Mantegna, who reproduced it in the background of a fresco in the Camera degli Sposi, in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. Furthermore, according to some legends, it would seem that it was also a source of inspiration for Dante Alighieri, who, staying there during his exile from Florence, took inspiration from here for the eighth circle of hell of the Divine Comedy.
It is one of the most fertile and welcoming areas of the Veneto region.
