Italy
Italy, Italy · Rome · Venice · Milan
23 places pinned — click any one for its story.
The place
Italy is where so much of the Western world was invented — Rome's empire, Latin, Roman law and roads, and a thousand years later the Renaissance that remade art and science. A unified country only since 1861, it's really a patchwork of fiercely distinct regions, each with its own food, dialect, and thousand-year history. Over several trips we've covered it end to end — imperial Rome, the canals of Venice, Renaissance Florence, fashionable Milan, the ruins of Pompeii under Vesuvius, and the cliffside Amalfi Coast.
Places I visited
History & facts for each spot — with a “then & now” archival photo where one exists. Every one has its own page; open it for the full write-up and all the photos.
1Rome
Nearly three thousand years stacked in one city — the Forum, the Colosseum, Bernini's fountains and St Peter's dome, all still functioning as streets and squares people live in.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Colosseum te Rome 4222. ROMA (serietitel), RP-F-00-461 — Wikimedia Commons
A hundred-odd islands in a lagoon, built on driven timber piles — a republic that ran the eastern Mediterranean for a thousand years and still has no roads at all.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Panorama of Venice 1870s — Wikimedia Commons
Italy's money and fashion capital, with the most extravagant Gothic cathedral in the country at its centre and Leonardo's Last Supper on a refectory wall nearby.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Panorama from the cathedral, Milan, Italy-LCCN2001700885 — Wikimedia Commons
Where the Renaissance started — Brunelleschi's dome, the Uffizi, and the Medici money that paid for most of it, packed into a few walkable streets on the Arno.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Firenze, Piazza del Gran Duca (3611137125) — Wikimedia Commons
Buried by Vesuvius in AD 79 and dug out from the 1700s onward — streets, shops, graffiti and bodies preserved exactly as the ash left them.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Excavations of a house in Pompeii at the End of the 19th Century — Wikimedia Commons
6Pisa
A maritime republic that rivalled Genoa and Venice — the leaning campanile is only the famous corner of a whole marble square of cathedral, baptistery and cemetery.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Pisa GiocoPonte 29061935 — Wikimedia Commons
A glacial lake shaped like an upside-down Y under the Alps, ringed with villas and gardens since the Romans first came up here to escape the heat.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Bellagio, general view, Lake Como, Italy LOC 4712017686 — Wikimedia Commons
Hill towns, cypress lines and vineyards between Florence and Siena — the landscape that trained the eye of half the painters of the Renaissance.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Byways in southern Tuscany (1919) (14783602915) — Wikimedia Commons
The great Flavian Amphitheatre of AD 80 — the largest ever built, where 50,000 Romans watched gladiators. The enduring symbol of Imperial Rome.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Flickr - …trialsanderrors - The Colosseum, Rome, Italy, ca. 1896 — Wikimedia Commons
The heart of ancient Rome — the ruined temples, basilicas, and arches of the Forum below the Palatine, where the city was founded and its emperors lived.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Roman Forum from Palatine Hill LCCN2007663213 — Wikimedia Commons
The centre of the Catholic world — Michelangelo's dome over the tomb of St Peter, Bernini's colonnade embracing the square, and the Sistine Chapel next door.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: St Peter’s Basilica- 1842 — Wikimedia Commons
- 12
Pantheon
The best-preserved building of ancient Rome — Hadrian's temple of AD 126 with its vast unreinforced concrete dome open to the sky through the oculus.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Exterieur van het Pantheon in Rome The Pantheon (titel op object), RP-F-F01143-X — Wikimedia Commons
The grandest of Rome's fountains, a Baroque wall of Neptune and sea-horses finished in 1762 — toss a coin to be sure of returning.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Fontana di Trevi MET DP155016 — Wikimedia Commons
The sweep of 135 steps of 1725 climbing from Piazza di Spagna to the church of Trinità dei Monti — the meeting-place of the Grand Tour.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Italienischer Photograph um 1850 - Blick auf Rom von der Piazza SS. Trinità dei Monti aus (Zeno Fotografie) — Wikimedia Commons
The heart of Venice — the golden Byzantine domes of St Mark's, the Campanile, and the arcaded piazza Napoleon called 'the drawing room of Europe.'
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Flickr - …trialsanderrors - Piazza San Marco ^ Basilica, Venice, Italy, ca. 1895 — Wikimedia Commons
The pink Gothic palace of the rulers of the Venetian Republic, linked to the prisons by the Bridge of Sighs.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Doge's Palace and piazzetta, Venice, Italy, 1890s — Wikimedia Commons
The oldest and grandest bridge over the Grand Canal — a single marble arch of 1591 lined with shops, at the mercantile heart of Venice.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Naya, Carlo (1816-1882) - n. 012 - Venezia - Ponte di Rialto — Wikimedia Commons
Santa Maria del Fiore — Brunelleschi's astonishing 1436 dome, the largest brick dome ever raised, over a cathedral of green, pink, and white marble.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Flickr - …trialsanderrors - The Duomo viewed from the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Tuscany, Italy, ca. 1897 — Wikimedia Commons
The medieval bridge over the Arno lined with goldsmiths' shops since the 16th century — the only Florence bridge the Germans spared in 1944.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Gezicht op de Ponte Vecchio te Florence, RP-F-F07076 — Wikimedia Commons
The civic heart of Florence — the fortress town hall, the Loggia's open-air sculpture, and a copy of Michelangelo's David where the original stood.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Giuseppe Zocchi - The Piazza della Signoria in Florence - WGA25992 — Wikimedia Commons
The greatest collection of Renaissance painting in the world — Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael — in the Medici's own offices.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Philpot, John Brampton (1812-1878) - n. 496 - Firenze - Portico degli Uffizi e Piazza della Signoria — Wikimedia Commons
The freestanding bell-tower of Pisa's cathedral, tilting since construction began in 1173 — the improbable star of the Piazza dei Miracoli.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Dom van Pisa met links de scheve toren Pisa. Campanile (titel op object), RP-F-F01125-90 — Wikimedia Commons
The vast Gothic cathedral of Milan, five centuries in the building, bristling with 135 spires and 3,400 statues under the golden Madonnina.
Full history & photos →Archival photo: Flickr - …trialsanderrors - Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), Milan, Italy, ca. 1895 — Wikimedia Commons
Where we ate
La Salumeria
RomeRoman deli / salumeria · Stopped by more than once
Di Noto
RomeGelato
Pizzeria Il Pulsigno
RomePizza
Pantha Rei
RomeItalian
Caffè Fernanda
MilanCafé · Inside the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery
Nautilus
MilanSeafood
L'Altro Luca e Andrea
MilanItalian
Pizzeria S. Andrea
AmalfiPizzeria