Natural features
Alpe di Siusi and Seceda, Dolomites
Siusi, South Tyrol
The Alpe di Siusi (Seiser Alm) is Europe's largest high alpine meadow, a rolling plateau of pastures, wooden huts and wildflowers below the jagged pe…
Travel tips in Italy
Natural features
Amalfi Coast and Positano
Positano, Salerno
A spectacular stretch of coast south of Naples, where pastel villages cling to cliffs above the sea, linked by a dramatic winding road.
Attractions
Borghese Gallery, Rome
Rome
A small museum in a 17th-century villa in the Villa Borghese park, with one of the finest art collections in the world: Bernini's breathtaking marble…
Natural features
Capri and the Blue Grotto
Capri, Naples
A glamorous island in the Bay of Naples, with dramatic cliffs, the Faraglioni rock stacks and the hilltop villages of Capri and Anacapri.
Historic sites
Colosseum, Rome
Rome
The great amphitheatre of ancient Rome, opened in 80 AD, where up to 50,000 spectators watched gladiator fights and animal hunts.
Historic sites
Doge's Palace, Venice
Venice
The Gothic palace of the Doges, the rulers of the Venetian Republic for nearly a thousand years, beside St Mark's Basilica.
Buildings
Florence Cathedral and Brunelleschi's Dome
Florence
Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, with its marble façade of green, white and pink, and its huge red-brick dome by Filippo Brunelleschi, co…
Tours and activities
Grand Canal by vaporetto, Venice
Venice
The best way to see Venice's main waterway is from vaporetto line 1, the slow water bus that stops at every landing between Piazzale Roma and the rai…
Historic sites
Greek Theatre of Taormina
Taormina, Messina
An ancient theatre built by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC and rebuilt by the Romans, set high on a cliff above the sea, with Mount Etna as its bac…
Natural features
Lake Como and Bellagio
Bellagio, Como
A long, Y-shaped lake surrounded by mountains, lined with elegant villas and gardens.
Attractions
Malcesine and the Monte Baldo cable car
Malcesine, Verona
Malcesine is one of the prettiest towns on Lake Garda, with a medieval castle on the rocks above the water and a small harbour.
Historic sites
Manarola, Cinque Terre
Riomaggiore, La Spezia
A tiny village of pastel houses tumbling down a rocky spur into the sea, and the most photographed view in the Cinque Terre, especially at sunset fro…
Attractions
Michelangelo's David, Galleria dell'Accademia
Florence
The Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence is home to Michelangelo's David, the 5 m marble statue carved between 1501 and 1504, displayed under a skylit…
Buildings
Milan Cathedral (Duomo)
Milan
One of the largest churches in the world, a Gothic cathedral that took nearly six centuries to complete, covered with more than 3,000 statues and 135…
Natural features
Mount Etna
Nicolosi, Catania
Europe's highest and most active volcano, about 3,300 m, dominating eastern Sicily.
Historic sites
Pantheon, Rome
Rome
The best-preserved building of ancient Rome, a temple completed around 125 AD and a church since the 7th century.
Historic sites
Piazza del Campo, Siena
Siena
One of Europe's most beautiful squares, a sloping shell-shaped piazza of red brick in the heart of medieval Siena, surrounded by palaces and overlook…
Historic sites
Pompeii
Pompei, Naples
The Roman city buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and rediscovered in the 18th century, preserved in astonishing detail: streets with …
Historic sites
Roman Forum and Palatine Hill
Rome
The Roman Forum was the centre of public life in ancient Rome: temples, basilicas, triumphal arches and the Senate House, now a field of evocative ru…
Natural features
San Vito Lo Capo
San Vito Lo Capo, Trapani
A fishing village on the north-west tip of Sicily with one of Italy's most beautiful beaches: about 3 km of soft white sand and Caribbean-like water,…
Historic sites
Sassi di Matera
Matera
Matera's Sassi are ancient districts of cave houses carved into the side of a ravine, inhabited for perhaps 9,000 years.
Natural features
Scala dei Turchi
Realmonte, Agrigento
A dazzling white cliff of soft marl rock on Sicily's south coast, eroded into the shape of a huge staircase descending into the turquoise sea.
Walks and treks
Sentiero Azzurro (Blue Path), Cinque Terre
Vernazza, La Spezia
The coastal path that links the five ancient villages of the Cinque Terre ('five lands'), clinging to steep cliffs above the Ligurian Sea among terra…
Historic sites
Sirmione and the Grottoes of Catullus
Sirmione, Brescia
Sirmione sits on a narrow peninsula jutting into the south of Lake Garda.
Natural features
Spiaggia di Cea, Ogliastra
Tortolì, Ogliastra
A long beach of fine sand on the east coast of Sardinia, famous for the two red porphyry rock stacks (the Faraglioni di Cea) standing just offshore.
Buildings
St Mark's Basilica and Square, Venice
Venice
St Mark's Basilica, the cathedral of Venice, glitters inside with more than 8,000 square metres of gold mosaics.
Attractions
The Last Supper, Milan
Milan
Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, painted on the wall of the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie between 1495 and 1498.
Historic sites
Torre Grossa and Piazza della Cisterna, San Gimignano
San Gimignano, Siena
San Gimignano is a small medieval hill town in Tuscany, famous for its skyline of stone towers, built by rival families as status symbols; 14 of the …
Walks and treks
Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Dolomites
Auronzo, Belluno
Three huge rock towers that are the symbol of the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage mountain range.
Historic sites
Trulli of Alberobello
Alberobello, Bari
A town in Puglia filled with trulli, little whitewashed stone houses with conical grey roofs built without mortar, many painted with mysterious symbo…
Attractions
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Florence
One of the world's great art museums, in a Renaissance building beside the Arno, with masterpieces such as Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera,…
Natural features
Val d'Orcia
Castiglione d'Orcia, Siena
The classic Tuscan landscape of rolling hills, cypress-lined roads, golden wheat fields and hilltop towns, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southern T…
Historic sites
Valley of the Temples, Agrigento
Agrigento
The remains of the ancient Greek city of Akragas, with some of the best-preserved Greek temples outside Greece, standing along a ridge above the sea …
Historic sites
Vernazza, Cinque Terre
Vernazza, La Spezia
Often called the most beautiful of the five Cinque Terre villages: colourful houses piled around a tiny harbour, with a little beach, the church of S…
Historic sites
Arena di Verona
Verona
A Roman amphitheatre from the 1st century AD, in remarkably good condition, in Verona's Piazza Bra.
Historic sites
Bardolino, Lake Garda
Bardolino, Verona
A charming lakeside town on the eastern shore of Lake Garda, known for its light red wine of the same name.
Historic sites
Burano
Burano, Venice
A fishing island in the Venetian lagoon, famous for its brightly painted houses, in every colour, lining the canals, and for lace-making.
Historic sites
Castello Dal Verme, Zavattarello
Zavattarello, Pavia
A powerful medieval castle on a hilltop above the village of Zavattarello, one of the 'most beautiful villages in Italy', in the hills of the Oltrepò…
Attractions
Egyptian Museum, Turin
Turin
The oldest museum in the world devoted entirely to ancient Egypt, and one of the most important outside Cairo, with more than 30,000 objects: mummies…
Food and drink
L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele, Naples
Pendino, Naples
Naples is the birthplace of pizza, and Da Michele, open since 1870, is one of its most famous pizzerias.
Places to stay
La Foresteria, Il Giardino di Fontarronco
Monte San Savino, Arezzo
An 18th-century villa in the green hills of the Val di Chiana, restored by the Illuminati family and furnished with antiques.
Buildings
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Pisa
The famous bell tower that began to lean while it was being built in the 12th century, because of soft ground.
Places to stay
Locanda Antico Fiore, Venice
Venice
A small, romantic hotel in an old Venetian palazzo in the San Marco district, close to the Grand Canal.
Natural features
Mondello Beach, Palermo
Palermo
Palermo's favourite beach, a long curve of white sand and clear turquoise water between Monte Pellegrino and Monte Gallo, with an old fishing village…
Natural features
Mount Vesuvius
Trecase, Naples
The volcano that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, and last erupted in 1944, rising above the Bay of Naples.
Historic sites
Ponte Vecchio, Florence
Florence
Florence's oldest bridge, a medieval stone bridge over the Arno lined with jewellers' and goldsmiths' shops built out over the water.
Campsites
Spina Family Camping Village, Lido di Spina
Comacchio, Ferrara
A large family camping village run by Club del Sole on a small headland between the Adriatic Sea and the lagoons of the Valli di Comacchio, inside th…
Attractions
Trevi Fountain, Rome
Rome
Rome's most famous fountain, a baroque masterpiece completed in 1762, with the sea god Oceanus riding a chariot pulled by sea horses, set against the…
Places to stay
Villa Olmi Firenze
Bagno a Ripoli, Florence
An 18th-century villa turned four-star-superior hotel, set in its own park and gardens in Bagno a Ripoli, about 4 km from the centre of Florence.
Historic sites
Volterra
Volterra, Pisa
A walled hilltop town in Tuscany, less crowded than nearby San Gimignano, with Etruscan, Roman and medieval layers of history.
Places to stay
Dakar Living Hotel, Vasto Marina
Vasto, Chieti
A four-star hotel at Vasto Marina on the Adriatic coast of Abruzzo, about 150 m from the long sandy beach.
Places to stay
La Siègià Spa Resort, Massa Marittima
Massa Marittima, Grosseto
A farm-stay hotel with a spa in the hills of the Maremma, just outside the medieval town of Massa Marittima in southern Tuscany.
Historic sites
Varzi
Varzi, Pavia
A medieval village in the upper Staffora valley of the Oltrepò Pavese, with arcaded streets, old towers and the remains of the Malaspina castle.