Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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The Best of Italy
From ancient ruins to tasty
trattorie
and from
urban verve to rural charm—how do you
choose?
by Reid Bramblett
W
HEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT
,
NEARLY EVERY REGION IN ITALY HAS QUAINT
hill towns, picturesque countryside, magnificent art cities, ancient ruins, exquisite
food, sublime wines, and just about any other travel cliché you want to throw in
there. It's wonderful, it's incredible, and it's why Italy remains one of the most
popular destinations on the planet—but it's not going to help you plan your trip.
You probably have only 1 or 2 precious weeks of vacation time, and we sus-
pect you have your own ideas about how to spend it. That's why we're going to
cut through the brochure-speak and help you home in on the best of the best,
right from the start.
THE BEST OF THE BEST
While there are
ancient ruins
across the peninsula, from the Alps of the Valle
d'Aosta to the very southern tip of Sicily, the real showstoppers lie in the southern
half of the country. You'll find the best Roman remains in—surprise, surprise—
Rome (the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Imperial Fori, and several top museums),
and get the best sense of what life was like 2 millennia ago in the ancient ghost
towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both just outside Naples, or in Ostia Antica,
just a subway ride from the center of Rome.
What few folks realize is that, before the Romans, everything from Naples
south was actually part of Greece (back in the 5th c.
B
.
C
., when
Magna Graecia
was much, much bigger), and that some of the best-preserved ancient Greek ruins
anywhere are actually in Sicily (Agrigento, Siracusa, Segesta, Selinunte), and on
the coast south of Naples (Paestum).
When it comes to
medieval hill towns,
you have plenty of options. However,
the hill-town heartland really is central Italy, particularly in Tuscany (Siena,
Montepulciano, Montalcino, and especially San Gimignano, bristling with stone
towers like a medieval Manhattan) and neighboring Umbria (from its capital,
Perugia, to smaller cities and towns such as Gubbio, Todi, and Spoleto).
Of course, you can't swing a paintbrush in Italy without spattering it on some
of the finest
Renaissance art
in the world. This is where Italy's Big Three—Rome,
Venice, and Florence—really live up to their reputations. Florence (the Uffizi and
Pitti Palace), Rome (the Vatican), and Venice (the Accademia) collectively have
more works by Old Masters like Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, Botticelli, and Titian than you could hope to see in three lifetimes. And
the artwork is not limited to just the major museums. There are dozens of smaller
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