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| Italy is a sumptuous feast for the senses. Every corner overflows with beautiful landscapes, remarkable cities, villages, castles, and pleasure villas, all decorated with dazzling art. Add exquisite food and wine, and the innate style and charm of the Italian people, and not least of all, the national passion for going over the top with bravura. In Italy life is somehow richer, grander, sweeter. After all, la dolce vita was invented in Rome. The Eternal City preserves magnificent monuments from the days when it ruled much of the known world, standing cheek to jowl with those created by the Church over the past 2000 years. Lazio, Rome's region, has lovely hill towns, frescoed Etruscan tombs, and lavish villas. Just inland, green Umbria was controlled by the popes for centuries--Assisi, Orvieto, Spoleto, and Perugia are only four its splendid hill towns. South of Umbria, Abruzzo and Molise have the highest mountains on the peninsula--conveniently located an hour or two from Rome--and little seaside resorts along the Adriatic. After the fall of ancient Rome, Italy's regions followed different destinies, only to be re-united again in the 19th and 20th centuries. |
| . In the intervening centuries each has developed a distinct personality. One of the most colorful is Campania, south of Rome, the region of magnificent, anarchic Naples, its lovely bay, Vesuvius, Capri, and the sublime Amalfi coast. Further south are the regions of Calabria and Basilicata, sun drenched, with long quiet beaches and memories of the first settlers, the ancient Greeks. The long region of Puglia, on the Adriatic coast has a different flavor--here you'll find Norman and Baroque monuments and curious domed houses called trulli. The great boot of Italy seems to be tickling Sicily, a continent in miniature under the mighty flanks of Etna, Europe's tallest and most active volcano. The ancient Greeks left splendid monuments in Syracuse, Agrigento, and Taormina, and the medieval Normans built dazzling churches and mosaics in Palermo. To the north, Sardinia, Italy's other great island, has the country's best beaches and wild scenery, and is a favorite for spaghetti Westerns. North of Rome lies Tuscany, its enchanting hills covered with olives and the vines. The Renaissance began in its capital Florence, a superb city full of masterpieces by Michelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli and a thousand more. Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Arezzo are only the cream of its art cities. To the east, the little region of the Marche look like an annex of Tuscany, especially the north, where you'll find Urbino, a glorious Renaissance city. Over the Appenines from the Marche and Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna follows the country's longest river, the Po. This is the culinary capital of Italy. But Bologna, Parma, and Modena, art cities in their own right, have far more to offer besides ham, cheese, and pasta. On the coast lies Rimini, Italy's Miami Beach, not far from Ravenna, filled with unique, utterly luminous Byzantine mosaics from the fifth and sixth centuries. Northeast of Emilia-Romagna, the Veneto, is the sensuous land of Palladian villas, of Verona, Padua, and Vicenza, and matchless Venice. North, towards Austria, the Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige share the Dolomites, the most romantically beautiful mountains the world. To the east, stretching towards Slovenia, is winegrowing Friuli Venezia-Giulia where you'll find Trieste, the neoclassical city of Habsburgs, and the ruins of Roman Aquileia. East of the Veneto, Lake Garda is the first of the fabled Italian lakes, followed by Iseo, Como, Maggiore, and Orto. They lie (mostly) in Lombardy, the largest and wealthiest region. Milan is the capital of Italian fashion, and there are other splendid art cities to visit as well--Mantua, Bergamo, and Cremona, the hometown of Stradivarius. East of Lombardy lie Pedmonte, and Aosta, bordering on the French and Swiss Alps. Turin is the unexpected Baroque capital. The mountainous crescent of coast to the south is Liguria, perhaps better known as the Italian Riviera, where Genoa has an old quarter Christopher Columbus would easily recognize, and lovely seaside towns like Portofino and Portovenere are high fashion resorts. |
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