Checkpoint 3, Mantua is located 1324km from the start.
Mantua was an island settlement that was first established about the year 2000 BC on the banks of River Mincio, which flows from Lake Garda to the Adriatic Sea and is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes, created during the 12th century as the city’s defense system. The cultural value of Mantua is outstanding, with many of Mantua’s patrician and ecclesiastical buildings being uniquely important examples of Italian architecture. Just to mention Basilica di Sant’Andrea which holds a vile of holy blood that was identified as authentic almost 1000 years ago. Built way back in the 15th Century this beautiful basilica took over 300 years to complete!
Mantua has been the setting for several of Italy’s most beloved works of art and artists. Mantua influenced Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Rigoletto, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and Romeo and Juliet, and was the birthplace of Virgil. Over the years, famous visitors to the town such as Peter Paul Rubens, Giulio Romano, and Petrarch enriched its history, and their traces can still be seen in Mantua today.
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