Abruzzo National Park is one of Italy’s oldest and most important protected areas, a 500 km² wilderness of pristine beech forests, alpine meadows, and limestone peaks in the Apennine Mountains of central Italy that is home to the critically endangered Marsican brown bear, the Apennine wolf, and the Abruzzo chamois, a goat-antelope found nowhere else […]
Categories: Italy, National Parks, Nature, Nature
The Grotte di Frasassi are one of the most spectacular karst cave systems in the world, a vast underground complex in the Marche region of central Italy whose immense chambers include the Abisso Ancona, a single cavern so large (240 metres long, 120 metres high) that Milan’s entire Duomo could fit comfortably inside it. Discovered […]
The Amalfi Coast (Costiera Amalfitana) is widely considered the most beautiful coastline in Europe, a 50-kilometre stretch of UNESCO-listed Mediterranean paradise on the southern edge of the Sorrentine Peninsula where pastel-coloured cliffside villages, terraced lemon groves, and the impossibly blue Tyrrhenian Sea create one of the most coveted travel destinations on the planet. From the […]
The ancient Greek temples of Paestum rise from the flat plains of Campania with a presence that seems to belong to another age. Three Doric temples, among the best-preserved in the Greek world, stand in a row against the backdrop of the mountains, their honey-coloured limestone glowing in the afternoon light. Paestum was originally a […]
Orvieto is one of the most spectacular hill towns in Italy, a volcanic tufa plateau rising almost vertically from the Umbrian plain whose crown jewel is the Duomo di Orvieto, one of the greatest Gothic cathedrals in Italy, with a glittering facade of gold mosaics, carved biblical scenes, and rose windows that the art historian […]
The basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi rises from the hillside like a vision of peace, its simple Romanesque facade belying the artistic treasures held within. This is the spiritual heart of the Franciscan order, a UNESCO World heritage Site that draws pilgrims and art lovers from across the globe. Saint Francis, born here in […]
Updated: May 18, 2020 | By Claire | 2 Replies More If you take the ferry from Helsingør to Helsinborg, it is hard to miss the fortified castle of Kronborg at the coast. It became famous mainly because its corridors and rooms were used for William Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet. It is known as Elsinor in […]
Ischia and Procida are the two often-overlooked gems of the Bay of Naples, Ischia, the thermal spa island of volcanic origins with its dramatic Aragonese Castle rising from the sea, and Procida, a tiny, impossibly colourful fishing island that was Italy’s Capital of Culture in 2022 and remains one of the most authentically beautiful places […]
Mount Vesuvius (Monte Vesuvio) is the most famous volcano in the world, the brooding 1,281-metre giant looming over the Bay of Naples whose catastrophic eruption in AD 79 buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in metres of ash and pumice, preserving them in extraordinary detail for nearly two millennia and creating one of […]
Categories: Cities, Italy, Mountains, Nature, Nature, Rome, Sights
The Abbey of San Galgano is one of Italy’s most atmospheric and romantic ruins, a roofless Gothic Cistercian abbey in the Tuscan countryside near Siena, whose soaring walls and empty window arches frame nothing but sky, and whose nearest hilltop hermitage houses the legendary Sword in the Stone, Italy’s own Excalibur. Abandoned in the 18th […]
Categories: Cities, Italy, Religious Monuments, Sights, Sights
