Welcome to another gallery of glorious photos from Italy – all of them captured by Italia! readers for our monthly competition… This month’s winner: “Strolling through the beautiful historic town of Susa, Piedmont, we were taken by surprise when a herd of donkeys came careering down the main shopping street towards us. They were eventually […]
Looking out into the Tyrrhenian Sea from Sicily’s Zingaro National Park… a view that has mesmerised mankind since time immemorial Sicily’s Riserva naturale dello Zingaro is a spectacular place. The park includes land, sea and beaches and is home to many varieties of endemic flora and fauna. Here also is the Grotto dell’Uzzo, one of the […]
It’s summertime and we’re dreaming of sunny days in Italy – our readers have captured some spectacular photos from across the peninsula… This month’s winner: “A photo of Cremona Cathedral at night, the day before sitting in the square drinking red wine and people watching. This is a lovely small town full of dog walkers. […]
La Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte climbs to the church of St Mary of the Mount in Caltagirone, Sicily The Church of Saint Mary of the Mount in Caltagirone dates back to the 12th-century; its staircase is early 17th-century; but the majolica tiles that have made the staircase famous today were only placed […]
The cactus greenhouse at the Giardini Esotici Pallanca in Bordighera, where just some of the Garden’s 3,000 succulents are kept… Giacomo Pallanca left the olive oil trade in 1861 to work with the German botanist Ludwig Winter. His son Bartolomeo inherited his passion and in 1910 established the Pallanca Exotic Garden at Bordighera, a nursery […]
We love seeing your photos and this month we’ve got some fantastic snapshots from all over the Italian peninsula – enjoy! This month’s winner: “Modica 2013. Cathedral San Giorgio Cathedral with wedding.” by Jim Mabon, Stirling And more of our favourites this month… “Lago di Mergozzo is a small lake in northern Italy just […]
St Peter‘s (La Chiesa di San Pietro) in Portovenere stands on a promontory overlooking the Gulf of Poets Saint Peter’s at Portovenere is built on the site of a 5th-century church, and before that an earlier, pagan temple dedicated to Venus. It was consecrated in 1198 but its bands of black and white Carrara marble (the […]
The Devil’s Bridge is one of Italy’s most beautiful, and most strange… The Ponte della Maddalena, otherwise known as the Ponte del Diavolo, straddles the Serchio river at Borgo a Mozzano, in Lucca, Tuscany. No one knows for sure who built it, but the legend goes that it was St Julian, who required the help […]
The transhumance of livestock in Italy is a tradition that dates back centuries, even millennia… Transhumance, the act of moving livestock ‘across ground’ to new pastures, has been practised in Italy – and other parts of the world – for longer than anyone can remember. Recently, Italy, supported by Austria and Greece, asked to […]
The medieval castle of Santa Severa faces out to sea on the Lazio coast, just 40 minutes north of Rome The Castle of Saint Severa is named after a young girl whose entire family was martyred. Her father was a Roman military commander who converted to Christianity and was put to death for refusing to renounce […]