Other sights in Italy
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Galleria degli Uffizi
Reason enough to come to Florence, this fabled museum contains quite simply the world’s finest collection of Renaissance art, including both 12th- to 14th-century forebears and 16th- and 17th-century inheritors. Its 50-plus rooms are crammed with more than 1500 works, nearly all of them masterpieces. Part of the museum’s mystique is the difficulties it presents: long lines, crowded galleries, a daunting combination of quantity and quality. There are two tricks to enjoying your experience: pre-book tickets and concentrate on select artists or periods. While signage is less than satisfying, the museum is laid out chronologically, and largely over a single floor. For a menta…
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Sacra di San Michele
Brooding above the road 14km from Turin is the Sacra di San Michele, a Gothic-Romanesque abbey that has kept sentry atop Monte Pirchiriano (962m) since the 10th century. Look out for the whimsical ‘Zodiac Door’, a 12th-century doorway sculpted with putti (cherubs) pulling each other’s hair. To get to the abbey get off at Sant’Ambrogio station and hike up a steep path for 1½ hours. Alternatively, there’s a special bus from Avigliana train station six times a day from May to September. Concerts are held on Saturday evenings in summer; ask for details at the tourist office in Avigliana, 12km west.
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Cathedral
The Cathedral is an extraordinary (and enormous) feast of geometric patterns, ziggurat crenulations, majolica cupolas and blind arches. The interior, although impressive in scale, is a marble shell, a sadly un-exotic resting place for the royal Norman tombs. The crypt and treasury contain various jewels belonging to Queen Costanza of Aragón, a bejewelled Norman crown and, most bizarrely, a tooth extracted from Santa Rosalia, Palermo’s patron saint.
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Teatro Massimo
The grand neoclassical Teatro Massimo took more than 20 years to complete. Nowadays the theatre is an iconic Palermo landmark and has become a symbol of the triumph and tragedy of the city. Appropriately, the closing scene of The Godfather: Part III, with its visually stunning juxtaposition of high culture, low crime, drama and death, was filmed here.
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MAV
On the main street linking the ruins and the train station, child-friendly MAV is a new virtual-reality archaeology museum bringing the region’s ruins back to life through holograms and computer-generated video.
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Ostica Antica Ruins
The ruins are spread out and you’ll need at least a few hours. You can buy a handy site map from the ticket office (€2). Ostia was a busy working port until 42 AD, and the town is made up of restaurants, laundries, shops, houses and public meeting places, giving a good impression of what life must have been like when it was at its busiest. The main thoroughfare, the, Decumanus Maximus, runs over 1km from the city’s entrance (the Porta Romana) to the Porta Marina, which originally led to the sea. At one stage, Ostia had 20 baths complexes, including the Terme di Foro – these were equipped with a roomful of stone toilets (the forica) that remain largely intact. The mo…
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Rialto Market
Cutting-edge restaurants worldwide are catching on to a secret that Rialto markets have kept out in the open for 700 years: food tastes better when it’s fresh, seasonal and local. More vital to Venetian cuisine than any top chef are the fishmongers at the Pescaria. This is any foodie’s first stop in Venice to admire Venetian specialities in the making: glistening mountains of moscardini (baby octopus), crabs ranging from tiny moeche (soft-shell crabs) to granseole (spider crab), and inky seppie (squid) of all sizes. Sustainable fishing practices are not a new idea at the Pescaria, where marble plaques show regulations set centuries ago for minimum allowable sizes for …
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Galleria di Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
Banking group Intesa Sanpaolo has put its profits to good use, restoring the exquisite 17th-century Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano it occupies and opening a small art gallery on its piano nobile (main floor). While the 19th-century stucco detailing and frescoes are delightful, the gallery’s pièce de résistance is Caravaggio’s final masterpiece, The Martyrdom of St Ursula (1610). Completed a few weeks before the artist’s lonely death, it depicts the brutal scene of a vengeful king of the Huns piercing the heart of his unwilling virgin bride-to-be, Ursula. Positioned behind the dying martyr is a haunted Caravaggio, an eerie premonition of his own impending death. The tumu…
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Palazzo Franchetti
Makeover madness hasn’t diminished the essential charms of one of Venice’s most admired Grand Canal palaces. No fewer than three extended Venetian families originally lived under one Gothic roof at this 16th-century mansion, and apparently they didn’t always see eye to eye on decor. When archduke Frederick of Austria snapped up this Gothic palace in the 19th century, he attempted to unify competing styles with a spare, modern makeover. The Franchetti family lived here for decades after independence, and commissioned architect Camillo Boito to reinstall a retro-Gothic look, plus a formal garden and a grand art nouveau staircase. The palace was home to a private bank from 1…
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Upper Church
The upper church was built just after the lower church, between 1230 and 1253, and the change in style and grandiosity is readily apparent. One of the most famous pieces of art in the world is the 28-part fresco circling the walls. The fresco has been attributed to Giotto and his pupils for hundreds of years, but the question of who produced it is now under debate within the art-historian community. The fresco starts just to the right of the altar and continues clockwise around the church. Above each image is a biblical fresco with 28 corresponding images from the Old and New Testaments (possibly painted by Giotto, or Pietro Cavallini, who might or might not have painted …
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Villa Pisani Nazionale
To keep hard-partying nobles in line, Doge Alvise Pisani provided a monumental reminder of who was in charge with the 1774 Villa Pisani Nazionale, with a labyrinthine hedge-maze and pools reflecting the doge’s glory. The villa’s 114 rooms saw their share of history: the gaming rooms where the Pisani racked up debts, forcing them to sell the mansion to Napoleon; the grand bathroom with a tiny wooden throne used by Napoleon; a sagging bed where Vittorio Emanuele II apparently tossed and turned as the head of independent Italy; and the reception hall where Mussolini and Hitler met for the first time in 1934, rather ironically under Tiepolo’s ceiling masterpiece depicting the…
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Giardini di Augusto
Get away from the Capri crowds by heading southwest of the monastery where, at the end of Via Matteotti, you have the unexpected green oasis of the colourful Giardini di Augusto. Founded by the Emperor Augustus, you should spend a few minutes contemplating the breathtaking view from here: gaze ahead to the Isole Faraglioni and the three dramatic limestone pinnacles that rise vertically out of the sea. Measuring 109m, 81m and 104m respectively, the stacks are home to a rare blue lizard that was once thought to be unique to the Faraglioni but has since been found on the Sicilian coast. While sadly beyond the capacity of even the most sophisticated camera lens, a photo from …
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Villa Foscari
The most romantic Brenta villa is the Palladio- designed 1555–60 Villa Foscari, nicknamed La Malcontenta after a grand dame of the Foscari clan allegedly exiled here for cheating on her husband – though these effortlessly light, sociable salons hardly constitute a punishment. The villa was abandoned for years, but Giovanni Zelotti’s frescoes have recently been restored to daydream-inducing splendour, from Fame in the study to the Bacchanalian bedroom with Bacchus and Cupid among trompe l’œil grapevines over the bed. Palladio’s grand facade faces the river, with soaring Ionic columns, capped by a classical tympanum, that draw the eye and spirits upward. Modern artists and …
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Via Chiaia
Join the perma-tanned locals for a fix of people watching, window shopping and palazzo gazing on this pedestrianised street. Linking Piazza Trieste e Trento with Piazza dei Martiri (and Santa Lucia with Chiaia), it’s a particular hit with evening flâneurs, not to mention home to the 16th-century Palazzo Cellamare at No 149. Built as a summer residence for Giovan Francesco Carafa, the palazzo later hosted Bourbon monarchy guests, including Goethe and Casanova. Towards the western end of the street you pass under what looks like a triumphal arch but is, in fact, a bridge built in 1636 to connect the hills of Pizzofalcone and Mortella. Past the arch, turn right into blue-…
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Necropoli di Banditaccia
You can get an hourly shuttle bus from the tourist information point to the Necropoli di Banditaccia, the tomb complex 2km out of town. The bus leaves seven to nine times per day starting at 8.20am and finishing at 6pm (earlier in winter). The trip takes five minutes and costs €1. Alternatively, follow the well-signposted road – it’s a pleasant 15-minute walk.
The 10-hectare necropolis is laid out as an afterlife townscape, with streets, squares and terraces of ‘houses’. The most common type of tomb is the tumulus, a circular structure cut into the earth and crowned by a cumulus – a topping of turf. Signs indicate which path to follow, and some of the major tombs, i…
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Villa Foscarini Rossi
Well-heeled Venetians wouldn’t have dreamt of decamping to the Brenta without their favourite cobblers, sparking a local tradition of high-end shoemaking. Today, 950 companies in the Brenta region produce 20 million pairs of shoes annually. The last-ing contribution of Brenta cobblers is commemorated with a Shoemakers’ Museum at the 18th-century Villa Foscarini Rossi, a multiroom dream wardrobe of 18th-century slippers, shoes worn by trendsetters Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn, and heels handcrafted in the Brenta for Yves Saint Laurent and Pucci. The building also has an impressive pedigree: among the many architects involved was Vincenzo Scamozzi (one of the …
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Necropolis
To see the famous painted tombs in situ, head for the necropolis. Almost 6000 tombs, of which 60 are painted, have been excavated since the first digs in 1489 – only a tiny section of the original area used for burying the dead, which stretched to the coast. Now protected by Unesco, the tombs have suffered centuries of exposure and are maintained at constant temperatures, and are visible only through glass partitions. There are some beautiful hunting and fishing scenes in the Tomba della Caccia e della Pesca; scenes featuring dancers, she-lions and dolphins in the Tomba delle Leonesse; and a surprising S&M scene of a man whipping a woman in the Tomba della Fustigazione (T…
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Musei di Villa Torlonia
With its oversized neoclassical façade – designed by Giuseppe Valadier – Casino Nobile makes quite an impression. Inside, in the luxuriously decorated interior, you can admire the Torlonia family’s fine collection of sculpture, period furniture and paintings. To the northeast, the much smaller Casina delle Civette is a bizarre mix of Swiss cottage, Gothic castle and twee farmhouse decorated in Art Nouveau style. Built between 1840 and 1930, it is now a museum dedicated to stained glass. Alongside the house’s original windows, which include works by leading Italian artist Duilio Cambelotti, there are more than 100 designs and sketches for stained glass, decorative t…
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Villa Widmann Rezzonico Foscari
To appreciate gardening and social engineering in the Riviera Brenta, stop just west of Oriago at Villa Widmann Rezzonico Foscari. The 18th century villa originally owned by Persian-Venetian nobility captures the Brenta’s last days of rococo decadence, with Murano sea-monster chandeliers and a frescoed grand ballroom with an upper viewing gallery. Head to the gallery to reach the upstairs ladies’ gambling parlour where, according to local lore, villas were once gambled away in high-stakes games. Ignore the incongruous modernised bathrooms and puzzling modern crafts displays in the bedrooms and head into the garden, where an albino peacock loudly bemoans bygone glories ami…
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Villa Floridiana
While the lush, manicured gardens are worth the trip for the lofty views alone (think city, sea and Capri), the cultural highlight here is the National Museum of Ceramics. Housed in the stately Villa Floridiana – a gift from King Ferdinand I to his second wife, the Duchess of Floridia – its 6000-piece collection features priceless Chinese Ming (1368–1644) ceramics and Japanese Edo (1615–1867) vases on the lower floor. The top floor is dedicated to European ceramics, including some sumptuous Meissen pieces, as well as a smattering of paintings from greats such as Francesco Solimena, Francesco De Mura and Vincenzo Camuccini. At the time of research, the middle floor and its…
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Padua Cathedral Baptistry
South of the palazzo is the city’s cathedral, built from a much altered design of Michelangelo’s and completely upstaged by the adjoining 13th-century Baptistry. This Romanesque gem is completely frescoed with luminous Biblical scenes by Giusto de’ Menabuoi, a Giotto follower and master in his own right for the cupola depicting hundreds of male and female saints posed as though for a school graduation photo, exchanging glances and stealing looks at the Madonna. The inside of the dome shows Christ Pantocrator holding an open book inscribed with the words Ego sum alpha et omega (I am the beginning and the end), and the rear apse wall illustrates his meaning with fresc…
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Anfiteatro Flavio
In its heyday, Italy’s third-largest amphitheatre could hold over 20,000 bloodthirsty spectators, who would pour in to cheer on mock naval battles (yes, the stadium was occasionally flooded for fun), and indulge in a little schadenfreude as lions chased those captive Christians. Planned by Nero and completed by Vespasian (AD 69–79), the ancient stadium’s best-preserved remains lie under the main arena. Wander among the fallen columns and get your head around the complex mechanics involved in hoisting the caged wild beasts up to their waiting victims through the overhead ‘skylights’. In AD 305 seven Christian martyrs were thrown to the animals by the emperor Diocletian. …
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Quartiere Garbatella
A favourite location for TV and filmmakers, Quartiere Garbatella is a wonderfully atmospheric district with its own idiosyncratic look. It was originally conceived as a workers’ residential quarter but in the 1920s the Fascists hijacked the project and used the area to house people displaced by construction work in the city centre. Many people were moved into alberghi suburbani (suburban hotels), big housing blocks designed by Innocenzo Sabbatini, the leading light of the ‘Roman School’ of architecture. The most famous, Albergo Rosso (Piazza Michele da Carbonara) is typical of the style. Other trademark buildings are the Scuola Cesare Battisti on Piazza Damiano Saul…
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Il Vittoriale degli Italiani
Its heyday is recalled at the fabulous estate Il Vittoriale degli Italiani. Italy’s controversial poet and ultranationalist, Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863–1938) retreated here in 1922 because, he claimed, he wanted to escape the world that made him ill. Visits to d’Annunzio’s house are by guided 25-minute tour only (in Italian, every 10 minutes). The Museo della Guerra (War Museum) records d’Annunzio’s WWI antics – one of his most triumphant and more bizarre feats was to capture a battleship from the fledgling Yugoslavia shortly after WWI, when Italy’s territorial claims had been partly frustrated in postwar peace talks. In July and August, classical concerts, balle…
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