Italy

Our Top Picks For Italy

• 1 Venice Carnevale, February

  Ten days and nights of masquerade madness in February before Lent, or until your liver twitches and wig itches. Don’t miss the Grand Canal flotilla, fritelle (rum-raisin doughnuts) or the Calcio Storico fancy-dress football match in Piazza San Marco.

• 2 Settimana Santa (Holy Week), last week of Lent and the week before Easter

  When much of the world is drooling over chocolate eggs and Venetians are recovering from Carnevale, many Italians are gearing up for Holy Week. Notable processions take place in Taranto (Puglia), Chieti (Abruzzo), Sorrento and Trapani (Sicily). On Good Friday, the pope leads a candlelit procession to the Colosseum and on Easter Sunday he gives his blessing.

• 3 Pompeii

  A stark reminder of the malign forces that lie deep inside Vesuvius, Pompeii is Europe’s most compelling, priceless archaeological site

• 4 Trevi Fountain

  Toss a coin into Rome's most famous fountain, and you'll return to the city some day; two coins, and you'll fall in love with an Italian (if you haven't already...)

• 5 World's best ice cream, Noto

  Summer and ice cream go together like Dolce & Gabbana, and Corrado Costanzo does the world's best gelato

• 6 Ravenna

  A taste of Byzantium in the West, Ravenna's churches glitter with impressive gold mosaics

• 7 Siena

  One of the best preserved medieval cities in Italy, it has a labyrinth of lanes gathered around the arena of Piazza del Campo

• 8 Piedmont

  From the elegance of central Turin to the truffles and wines of the Langhe area, Piedmont is a little-explored treasure chest

• 9 Cinque Terre

  Five dramatically located villages cut into the craggy Ligurian coast, backed by steep vineyards

• 10 Perugia

  With two universities and a thriving art scene, the modern melds with the medieval past

• 11 Alberobello

  Italy's strangest World Heritage Site looks as though it stepped out of a fantasy film

• 12 Aeolian Islands

  From the volcanic spectacle of Stromboli to the wild isolation of Alicudi, this archipelago off Sicily is a world of its own

• 13 Amalfi Coast

  Dramatic cliffs dotted by pretty towns plunge vertically into the deep blue of the Mediterranean

• 14 Golfo di Orosei

  A coastline studded with secret coves, reminders of its drama-laden history, and fringed with dark-green forest

• 15 The Lakes

  Wedding-cake villas, tiered gardens and elegant towns adorn the shores of Italy's great lakes

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