Marina Spironetti visits the intriguing city state of Seborga in western Liguria. Fiercely independent, it still boasts its own currency, its own passport and, yes, its own prince… Small countries have always fascinated me. From Andorra to Liechtenstein, from Monaco to San Marino – tiny states with their own history, proud to be different. I […]
The delight of eating at a local trattoria is being among real Italians and eating seasonal, traditional food. Mario Matassa shares his favourite establishment with us, and goes behind the scenes of this Italian Restaurant… The local trattoria in Italy is a theatre, a daily stage show where hundreds of life’s mini dramas are eagerly […]
Il Golfo di Lerici lies on the Ligurian coast, about halfway between Genoa and Livorno. Commonly, albeit unofficially, is also known as Il Golfo dei Poeti…. The Renaissance poet Francesco Petracco (aka Petrarch, to the English; Petrarca to the Italians) travelled extensively throughout Europe – indeed, as well as his more famous epithet: “The Father […]
The Torre dei Quattro Canti in Noli stands as a reminder of the days when wealthy families were permitted to erect buildings as a record of their munificent benefactions to their town… The Tower of the Four Corners in Noli, in the Province of Savona, is perhaps the most striking building of several in this […]
While neighbouring Portofino and the Cinque Terre are arguably the best-known tourist destinations on the Italian Riviera, the town of Sestri Levante is becoming a favourite among Italians… Originally a small, secluded island, Sestri Levante is now connected to the mainland, and what used to be a small fishing village is slowly becoming a tourist […]
The ancient village of Bogliasco lies on the enticingly named Golfo Paradiso, a small bay towards the eastern end of the larger Gulf of Genoa. It has a long history of foreign invasion and fishing… If you take the mainline train from La Spezia to Genoa – which is a beautiful experience in itself as […]
Viewed here from the hills above, San Remo is the endpoint of the world’s longest professional one-day cycle race. Starting at Milan, competitors will have covered 298 kilometres by the time they reach their destination… The course of the Milan-San Remo endurance bike race is largely flat, though the hills at the end have caught […]
1. Rome: population 2,750,000 Italy’s brash, loud, vibrant capital is a confident, thick-skinned place, secure in its achievements and completely unsurprised to receive 12 million visitors a year. For all Rome’s expense and congestion, a high proportion of ex-pats who settle down here ‘for a while’ never go home again. Property prices are, as you […]
Pesto (n.m.) Pesto. The word pesto comes from the Italian ‘pestare’, meaning ‘to pound, or crush’, or indeed to ‘pestle’, and is of course also cognate to our noun ‘pestle’ (Italian: ‘pestello’, Latin: ‘pistillum’) – so there is absolutely no need to ever again get confused about which is the pestle and which is the […]
Italia magazine is delighted to have had won two different awards at the Italian National Tourist Board awards evening. The event was celebrating journalism and guide books covering Italy that were published throughout 2013 and the awards evening took place on Tuesday 11th February at Getti restaurant in London. Adrian Mourby’s 48 hours in Busetto, […]