Here is a warning: If you cannot stand the sight of water … … and if you are particularly allergic against streams that are narrowly framed by rows of ancient buildings … … you should stay well clear of Treviso because, once you are there, you will find no way of escaping your nightmare. You…
Taranto is not one of Italy’s Instagram destinations. There are no grand piazzas lined by statues from Michelangelo and other artists whose names you may remember from high school, no scenic inland waterways that break up the sunlight into thousand shards of sparkle. Taranto’s beauty is of a different order – and, on top of…
Italy was the birthplace of the tourism industry. For the 500 years since the invention of the “Grand Tour” by English aristocrats, foreign visitors have flocked to Italy in ever-increasing numbers to sing the praises of the country in any language and any medium at hand, from painting and poetry to TV programmes and Instagram….
Are you thinking about visiting Italy but don’t know where to start? Here is an easy and entertaining way of familiarizing yourself with the regions between the Alps and Sicily, their characteristics and their “feel”: just watch a bunch of Italian movies! Movies as guides for a tour through Italy can take you on a…
This is a question that every traveller will, sooner or later, have to answer: is it right to only see or visit what is beautiful at my destination, or should I go for a rounder picture that also includes the typical and the truthful? Lets us say, we are visiting Italy : do we concentrate…
Genoa, “La Superba”, proudly stands apart from the rest of the country – and, in many ways, does not feel like an Italian city at all. It is neither elegant (like Milan) nor full of joie de vivre (like Naples), and it is certainly not an open-air museum where everything has been neatly arranged for…
Scenic walks in urban environments come in one of two guises: they take you either through a cartoon version of nature that has been carefully designed for the delight of urbanites or through feral landscapes – abandoned “brownfield sites” such as railway lines, port installations and industrial depots – that have been reclaimed by nature….
If you have seen a Bible movie at any time in the last few decades that was shot on a proper location rather than a soundstage, there is a good chance that Matera was in it. In fact, Matera – located in the southern Italian region of Basilicata – stood in so frequently for the…
Matera is the ugly caterpillar on the tree of international travel destinations. 70 years ago, the town was the epitome of the backward, benighted Italian South, so poor and neglected that it was officially designated a national disgrace – la vergogna nazionale – by the country’s first post-WWII government. Today, it is one of Europe’s…
Bari, the largest city on the Adriatic coast, is not a mandatory stop on the Great Italian Tourist Trail. No Renaissance masterpieces are on public display, the town’s history does not feature names that you would recognize from old High School lessons, and you will not see reflections of magnificent medieval architecture in the sparkling…
