Where Piacenza’s Basilica of Santa Maria di Campagna rises today, there used to be a small oratory. According to some, this was the small building where pope Urban II launched the first crusade in 1095, to recapture the holy land in the Near Orient from the Arab Muslim people who had taken it from the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century. Almost fiv...

One of the best ways to see Tuscany's legendary Val D'Orcia region is on the reopened steam railway running through fields, forests and vineyards. Most of us see Tuscany’s famous rolling landscape from the road. Or maybe on foot, since walking holidays in the region have become so popular. But there’s a more unusual way to get your fix of stunning...

The idea of a city perfectly geometric in shape and surrounded by walls was popular among philosophers, artists, and well-educated people of 16th-century Europe, and many representations of such a perfect town can be found in the art and literature of the time. So when the architects of the Republic of Venice were presented with the rare opportunit...

Interview with Chiara and Gloria Piscedda of ChiGlo. Tell us about the opportunity to take a fresh look at investment in Italy through fashion and the arts? There is so much in Italy that is unexplored for the global community. We see fashion as a thruway to opportunity for the country, for Sardinian tourism, for industry and certainly for the econ...

There are two teenagers at the Trieste train station, the boy dressed as a cowboy, the girl as a squaw. They are lovely and absurd on this cold, dark winter morning. They’re buying tickets to Venice. It’s Fat Tuesday, and Alice and Nicola, thirty-five years old between them, want their piece of Carnival. Trieste constitutes an ideal point of depart...

During the coldest months of the year, Italy becomes a winter wonderland – especially in the northern regions surrounding the Alps. If you want to experience the season like a true Italian, don't miss a thing on this list (especially the cioccolata calda). Discover five can't-miss winter activities in Italy below! 1. SETTIMANA BIANCAThe Settimana B...

Brufa is a small village in the municipality of Torgiano, Umbria, with a population of only 600 people and an enviable location on the hills facing Perugia, Foligno and Assisi. Since 1987, its rural landscape – shaped and transformed over the centuries by olive groves and vineyards – is home to art project “Scultori a Brufa. La strada del vino e de...

Monteferrante, a tiny mountain town in the province of Chieti and region of Abruzzo, has 128 residents as of 2017. Around since the Middle Ages, in the early 1900s, it was a farming community. However, many residents migrated to the United States and the Americas during the mid-1900s. This included my mom, uncle, Nonna and Tatone. Many residents se...

A paradise for skiers, the Italian Alps of South Tyrol offer a more placid pastime that’s surging anew. A host of spas are sprouting up in isolated tracts among the highlands, and though there’s hiking, biking and access to some of the Alps’ easier ski slopes, sports are a mere afterthought here. The spas draw skiers and nonskiers alike to spend da...

As a Los Angeles native who has rubbed elbows with my fair share of celebrities, I found myself imagining Lake Como, Italy, as any cliché-skeptical American might: an overrated luxury resort town that had only gained international attention when George Clooney bought a villa there in 2002. But this cynic stands corrected. The truth is, Lake Como is...