Just a few months ago, the possibility of a summer tourism revival for Italy appeared remote. COVID-19 hit here particularly hard, beginning in March 2020, when the country went into a national lockdown.

From a tourism perspective, that meant that for more than a year, the great cities of Rome, Florence and Venice — along with the rest of this beautiful country — remained essentially off-limits to most Americans (who’ve faced their own trials with COVID-19, of course).