Castel San Pietro terrace at sunset

Verona sits inside a tight loop of the Adige, and Castel San Pietro looks straight down into it. From the belvedere the river curves across the bottom of the frame, Ponte Pietra crosses it in the middle, and behind that the red roofs climb to the Torre dei Lamberti and the bulk of the Arena. It is the single view that explains the city.

The terrace faces roughly south-west, which makes it a sunset spot in the true sense: the light comes over your shoulder and lands on the facades opposite, so the city glows while your subjects stay lit rather than backlit. In the twenty minutes after sunset the street lamps come on along the embankments and the whole composition changes from warm to blue without moving the camera.

Getting up is a choice between a funicular from Via Santo Stefano and a long stone staircase from the Roman theatre — check the funicular's hours, which are shorter in winter and can put the last descent before the light is finished. The terrace itself is wide and free to enter, but it fills for sunset in summer: arrive forty minutes early to hold a place at the parapet.