Worldwide 2024-25

EUROPE • ITALY
Discover Italy
The Italian peninsula is brimming with
romantic views, tempting delicacies,
soul-stirring music, ancient history, and
world-class art and architecture. Once
the centre of the Roman Empire and later
Europe’s Renaissance, modern Italy is a
land of contrasts, her regions the product
of the many peoples who have made their
home here over the centuries. From the
cured hams and cheeses of Emilia, said
to have arrived with the Lombards;
to the splendid Byzantine mosaics
in Romagna and the Norman castles
of Campania, Puglia and Sicily; Italy
offers visitors unparalleled cultural and
gastronomic variety.
Campania
Piazza del Popolo, Ravenna
Romance of the Amalfi Coast • Ruins of
Pompeii & Herculaneum
The Romans called it campania felix, meaning
‘fertile’ or ‘happy countryside’, and this region
of southern Italy still elicits ear-to-ear smiles.
The capital, Naples, seduces with its worldrenowned
food, its easy rilassato lifestyle,
not to mention its cinematic bay – one of
the great centres of classical Graeco-Roman
civilisation. Close by lie the ruins of Pompeii,
surely Campania’s headline attraction – though
Herculaneum, also entombed by Vesuvius,
warrants a visit. Stay in Sorrento for
postcard-worthy views over the Bay of Naples,
or the less-visited port city of Salerno with its
historic cathedral.
Sicily
Bay of Naples
Beautiful baroque towns • Smouldering
Mount Etna
The largest island in the Mediterranean,
Sicily has been ruled variously by the ancient
Greeks, Romans and Byzantines through
to the Normans, Arabs, French and British.
This long history is written into the fabric of
the towns and cities, whether it’s medieval
Taormina on the shimmering Ionian shore;
the Doric temples of Agrigento; the Norman
architecture of Monreale, Cefalù and Palermo;
or Val di Noto’s UNESCO-listed baroque towns.
As well as historical sites, natural beauty
abounds: picture azure seas lapping secluded
bays against a backdrop of blue skies and
the brooding Mount Etna – where slope-side
vineyards promise vino with a view. Saluti.
Temple of Juno, Valley of Temples, Agrigento, Sicily
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