On the Grand Canal, among the magnificent palaces of Venice, there is a building that gondoliers often point out in a lowered voice. Its façade is narrow, slightly tilted and covered with circles of coloured marble. It is beautiful enough…
There is a path above Lake Garda where the mountain seems to fall directly into the water and the only way forward is to descend a staircase suspended against the rock. Below, hundreds of metres of blue water reflect the…
Somewhere in the Abruzzo countryside, surrounded by vineyards and gentle hills, there is a fountain from which red wine really does flow. It sounds like something invented for a film, an old folk tale or perhaps the dream of a…
In an age of satellites, diesel engines and computer-controlled ships, there is still a vessel whose heart beats with steam. Its hull is made of riveted steel, its machinery moves slowly enough for the human eye to follow, and its…
Every day, a few moments before noon, three soldiers take their positions beneath the panoramic terrace of the Janiculum Hill. One checks the time, another prepares the mechanism and the third waits beside an old artillery piece aimed harmlessly across…
There was a time when an ambulance did not necessarily look like a large, purpose-built emergency vehicle. In the Italy of the late 1960s and 1970s, the sound of a siren approaching through the narrow streets of a town might…
In the late 1960s, the future of the high-performance automobile appeared to belong to the mid-engined supercar. Lamborghini had stunned the world with the Miura, a machine so radical that many believed the traditional front-engined grand tourer had suddenly become…
High above the Lombard town of Olginate, surrounded by the green hills of Brianza and facing the sharp profile of Mount Resegone, stands one of Italy’s strangest ghost towns. A weathered minaret rises over a long Moorish-style gallery. Empty windows…
In the far north of Italy, only a few kilometres from the Austrian border, a medieval bell tower rises alone from the blue waters of an Alpine lake. There is no church beside it, no village square and no congregation…
Favignana is famous for transparent water, white beaches and ancient tuna-fishing traditions. Yet hidden away from its coastline is a place that seems to contradict everything we expect from this dry, windswept Sicilian island: a lush botanical garden growing inside…