Brescia, Old city centre of Brescia

The sight-seeing tour of Brescia starts from the castle overlooking one of the major defensive bulwarks built primarily under the rule of Venice and the Visconti family. Via Piamarta, on the east side, goes down to St.Julie Monastery (Monastero di Santa Giulia), a monastery that in 753 A.D. the Queen of Longobards, Ansa, ordered to build and which has now become the Museum of the City (Museo della Città). This complex includes the high-Medieval St. Salvatore Basilica, the Romanesque church of Our Mary in Solario (Santa Maria in Solario) and a group of Roman houses. The entrance of the monastery is on via Musei, a former major decumanus of the Romans as well as the commercial route of the capital of Cenomanian Gauls. Going down the road westwards you will reach Piazza del Foro, which is a square overlooked by the Capitoline Temple (Tempio Capitolino), a temple built by Vespasian between 73 and 74 A.D. Next on the same road is Piazza Paolo VI with the 10th-century Rotonda or Old Cathedral (Duomo Vecchio) and the 18th–19th-century New Cathedral (Duomo Nuovo). Northwards you will find the Broletto characterized by the Pègol Tower (Torre del Pègol) built in 1187, and the 19th-century Balcony of Screams (Loggia delle Grida). Westwards from this square is Piazza Loggia, a symbol of the Venetian domination. ‘La Loggia’ is an elegant palace of the Renaissance featuring a hull-shaped dome. It was destroyed by a fire in 1575 and only rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century. The old Pawnshop (Monte di Pietà) – built in the late 15th century and characterized by an elegant small balcony (or ‘loggetta’) to which the new Monte di Pietà was added one century later – overlooks the south side of the square. Southwestwards is the St. Francis Church (Chiesa di San Francesco), a Romanesque-style church which was concluded in 1265. If you move backwards along via Pace you can reach the Pallata, a tower of the 13th century, with its Rivers’ Fountain (Fontana dei Fiumi), which was built by Antonio Carra in 1596. Northwards from here, it is worth seeing the 15th-century Church of Mount Carmel (Chiesa del Carmine), a Romanesque-Gothic church with a terracotta façade built in the 15th century. Go southwards if you want to see first the St. John the Evangelist Church (Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista), where works of art by Moretto and Romanino are preserved, and then the St. Nazaro and St. Celso Church (Chiesa dei Santi Nazaro e Celso), hosting the renowned Polittico Averoldi by Tiziano. If you wish to see other prestigious paintings you have to cross the 15th-century Piazza Mercato and walk through the arcades up to the Tosio Martinengo picture gallery (Pinacoteca Tosio Matingeo, currently closed until 2011) located in Piazza Moretto. Finally, if you leave Piazza Arnaldo, just some 4 km eastwards is the museum of Mille Miglia.