2016 Italia! Travel Awards

Welcome all to the inaugural Italia! Travel Awards – our team selects the very best places to visit, museums to view, beaches to relax on and much more. Discover the best of Italy right here… Every month we bring you the experience of Italy, with all the best places to go and all the best things to […]

Gardens of the Northern Lakes

Historically a trailblazer in garden design, Italy still wows with its gorgeous giardini. Fleur Kinson finds variety in all its splendour on the shores of the northern lakes. Italy, like England, is one of the great gardening nations of Europe and was hugely influential in the evolution of ideas about green spaces arranged for pleasure […]

The Basilica of St Mark, Venice Sights

The smuggling of the mortal remains of St Mark to Venice from Alexandria in 828 satisfied a Divine Will – according to the Venetian version of the story, anyway… When, in the 4th Century AD, St Mark the Evangelist allegedly visited the then uninhabited lagoon, an angel appeared unto him saying: “Pax tibi Marce, Evangelista […]

Top 4 Italian Health and Beauty Spas

Relax in style, here’s a quick break down of the very best… If you want a relaxing holiday, then what better than staying at a spa? Take your pick from four of the best spas in Italy. Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni E. Vitali 24, Bellagio (Como) www.villaserbelloni.it Adored by kings, queens, politicians and celebrities, the […]

Top 20: Rome

st peter's and the vatican museum

Italy’s capital is so full of treasures, you could spend years here and not manage to see them all. So what hope is there for the short-term visitor? Don’t panic – Fleur Kinson is here to distil the great city into its most unmissable sights… Photos by iStock For 500 years, Rome was the mighty centre of […]

Siracusa & Taormina

James Miller travels the east coast of Sicily to discover two cities rich in ancient history and vibrant with modern life… The Roman statesman and scholar Cicero described Siracusa as “The greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all.” In ancient times Sicily was once part of Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece, and […]

The Luson Valley

luson valley

Known as the Gateway to the Dolomites, the Luson Valley is a hiker’s paradise with a number of trails leading from here into the mountains that surround it… The Germans call it Lüsen, as do its inhabitants. Though we are well inside the modern Italian border here, some 40km northeast of Bolzano, roughly the same […]

In the Valley of the Snakes

Each year, in a remote village in the Peligna valley, a festival takes place that dates back 3,000 years. Nadia Attura attends a celebration in the valley of the snakes. Deep in the Peligna valley, where north Italy meets south, villagers are preparing to celebrate Europe’s oldest festival: a bizarre, 3,000-year-old tradition that mixes ancient […]

A Day Trip To Ischia

Any visit to Naples is enhanced by a trip to the islands. Robin Crews finds that it’s easy to hop over the water to Ischia… We all know that passion runs through the veins of Italians right throughout the peninsula, but in the Mezzogiorno there is something else coursing through the locals’ bodies. As you […]

48 Hours In Verona

With preserved architecture spanning all the ages from ancient times through the medieval and Renaissance periods, Verona is the perfect city for sightseeing. Lorenza Bacino reports… I don’t want it to end. My last morning in Verona is spent enjoying the view from a café in Piazza Bra’ overlooking the Arena and savouring the traditional spritz […]