Emilia-Romagna

For mosaic lovers, Ravenna is an earthly paradise. Spread out over several churches and baptisteries around town is one of the world's most dazzling collections of early Christian mosaic artwork, enshrined since 1996 on Unesco's World Heritage list. Wandering through the unassuming town centre today, you'd never imagine that for a three-century span beginning in AD 402, Ravenna served as capital of the Western Roman Empire, chief city of the Ostrogoth Kingdom of Italy and nexus of a powerful Byzantine exarchate. During this prolonged golden age, while the rest of the Italian peninsula flailed in the wake of Barbarian invasions, Ravenna became a fertile art studio for skilled craftsmen, who covered the city's terracotta brick churches in heart-rendingly beautiful mosaics.

If reincarnation ever becomes an option, pray you come back as a Parmesan. Where else do you get to cycle to work through streets virtually devoid of cars, lunch on fresh-from-the-attic prosciutto and aged parmigiano reggiano, quaff crisp, refreshing Lambrusco wine in regal art-nouveau cafes, and spend sultry summer evenings listening to classical music in architecturally dramatic opera houses?

Starting from its position as one of Italy's most prosperous cities, Parma has every right to feel smug. More metropolitan than Modena, yet less clamorous than Bologna, this is the city that gave the world a composer called Verdi and enough ham and cheese to start a deli chain. Stopping here isn't an option, it's a duty.

Fiats might be functional, but to appreciate the true beauty of Italian artisanship, you must visit the small triangle of land between Modena and Bologna – sometimes called ‘Motor Valley’ – where the world’s finest luxury cars, namely Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani, are made. Here, serious aficionados can bliss out for a day or two touring the region's six motor-vehicle museums, two devoted to Ferraris – including the Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena – and two to Lamborghinis, among others.

Museo Ferrari

Mudetec

Museo Ferruccio Lamborghini

Museu Horacio Pagani

Museo Ducati

If Italy were a meal, Modena would be the main course. Here, on the flat plains of the slow-flowing Po, lies one of the nation's great gastronomic centres, the creative force behind real balsamic vinegar, giant tortellini stuffed with tantalising fillings, and sparkling Lambrusco wine. It boasts backstreets crammed with some of the best restaurants no one's ever heard of, and one, Osteria Francescana, that everybody's heard of – it was awarded top spot on the coveted 'World's 50 Best Restaurants' list in 2016, and again in 2018, the first Italian restaurant to nab the honour.

For those with bleached taste buds, the city has another equally lauded legacy: cars. The famous Ferrari museum is situated in the nearby village of Maranello. Modena is also notable for its haunting Romanesque cathedral and as the birthplace of the late Italian opera singer Pavarotti, whose former home is a worthwhile museum just outside town.

Fusing haughty elegance with down-to-earth grit in one beautifully colonnaded medieval grid, Bologna is a city of two intriguing halves. One side is a hard-working, high-tech city located in the super-rich Po valley where suave opera-goers waltz out of regal theatres and into some of the nation's finest restaurants. The other is a bolshie, politically edgy city that hosts the world's oldest university and is famous for its graffiti-embellished piazzas filled with mildly inebriated students swapping Gothic fashion tips.

No small wonder Bologna has earned so many historical monikers. La Grassa (the fat one) celebrates a rich food legacy (ragù or bolognese sauce was first concocted here). La Dotta (the learned one) doffs a cap to the city university founded in 1088. La Rossa (the red one) alludes to the ubiquity of the terracotta medieval buildings adorned with miles of porticoes, as well as the city's long-standing penchant for left-wing politics.

Romagna's storybook medieval village is cinematically set on the slopes of the Tosco-Romagna Apennines, cradled by pastoral green hills peppered with vineyards and olive plantations. Founded in the 12th century, Brisighella is defined by its trio of iconic hilltop structures: La Rocca (The Rock), La Torre (The Tower) and Il Monticino, the three of which overlook the sunset-hued rooftops of one of Italy's most picturesque villages. In town is one of the country's unique sights: a wonderfully photogenic 700-year-old walkway that evolved from the town's first defensive wall into a commercial thoroughfare used mostly by cart-pulling donkeys – hence its name, the Via degli Asini (Donkey's Street).

Today, Brisighella is best known for its award-winning olive oils which, of course, go down mighty fine alongside the local cuisine, which you can enjoy in a village that is still lightly touristed by international travellers.

A heavyweight Renaissance art city peppered with colossal palaces and still ringed by its intact medieval walls, Ferrara jumps out at you like an absconded Casanova (he once stayed here) on the route between Bologna and Venice. But, like any city situated in close proximity to La Serenissima ('The Most Serene' Venetian Republic), it is serially overlooked, despite its Unesco World Heritage status. As a result, Venice avoiders will find Ferrara's bike-friendly streets and frozen-in-time palazzi relatively unexplored and deliciously tranquil.

Historically, Ferrara was the domain of the powerful Este clan, rivals to Florence's Medici in power and prestige, who endowed the city with its signature building – a huge castle complete with moat positioned slap-bang in the city centre. Ferrara suffered damage from bombing raids during WWII, but its historical core remains intact. Of particular interest is the former Jewish ghetto, the region's largest and oldest, which prevailed from 1627 until 1859.

In the late 1980s Italy had half a dozen national parks. Today it has 25. One of the newer additions is Parco Nazionale dell'Appennino Tosco-Emiliano, a 260-sq-km parcel of land that straddles the border between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. Running along the spine of the Apennine mountains, the park is notable for its hiking potential, extensive beech forests and small population of wolves.

In 2015 the park achieved Unesco's Man and Biosphere Reserve status.

Roman relics, jam-packed beaches, hedonistic nightclubs and the memory of film director and native son Federico Fellini make sometimes awkward bedfellows in seaside Rimini. Although there's been a settlement here for over 2000 years, Rimini's coast was just sand dunes until 1843, when the first bathing establishments took root next to the ebbing Adriatic. The beach huts gradually morphed into a megaresort that was sequestered by a huge nightclub scene in the 1990s. Despite some interesting history, Fellini-esque movie memorabilia and a decent food culture, 95% of Rimini's visitors come for its long, boisterous, sometimes tacky beachfront.