Italy is one of the most popular destinations in the world for travelers. Famous cities – Rome, Florence and Venice – bring thousands of travelers to the country but many miss out on some Italian gems that are off the beaten track. Not far from Naples is a picturesque coastal town called Sorrento and not far off its shore is the famous island of Capri. This beautiful region is characterized by rocky cliffs and mountains overlooking the sea dotted with quaint towns and villages. Travelers do not forget the breathtaking views from these two Italian destinations. Grab your passport and join us on a journey to Italy!

Sorrento can be described as one of Italy’s best kept secrets. Just over 30 miles from Naples, Sorrento sits atop a stunning cliff overlooking the Bay of Naples. Lemons and olives are produced here and the vibrant trees can be seen all over town. In town, travelers can wander through the streets and piazzas to small shops, restaurants and cafes. Just a short drive away is famous Mount Vesuvius, a day trip that many take when visiting Sorrento.

The island of Capri is one of Italy’s most famous vacation destinations. Many recognize the well-known photos from the island’s Blue Grotto, a legendary cave just off Capri’s coast. Humans have traveled here to experience the beauty of the island since Roman times, when travelers bathed in the blue waters of The Grotto. A walk around the island takes visitors past beautiful gardens, chic shops and cafes and to various vista lookouts that provide stunning views of the island’s coast.

Visiting Italy & Sorrento on an Italian vacation are a must for any traveler who wants to escape the cities and experience Italy’s natural beauty. A visit here will create unforgettable memories that last a lifetime.

For one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Venice has certainly been featured in its share of melancholy movies: a morbid strain seems to flow through most of the films shot there. Perhaps this is an echo of the ambivalence felt by many 19th-century writers who came to Venice for spiritual rejuvenation but found the sumptuous decay of the city an inescapable reminder of mortality. Even the purportedly giddy Hollywood comedy Summertime (1955) has a bitter undercurrent, as Katherine Hepburn plays a lonely American spinster discovering an all-too-short romance in Venice.

The most haunting vision of the city is the art-house classic Death in Venice (1971), directed by Luchino Visconti from Thomas Mann’s famous novel. In the film, an ailing composer (Dirk Bogarde) comes to a grand hotel on Venice’s Lido beach in the early 1900s and becomes fixated on an angelic, golden-haired Polish boy. He finds himself obsessively wandering the crumbling, plague-ridden canals of the city, pondering his own lost youth and missed opportunities. A similar dark mood suffuses The Wings of the Dove (1997), based on the Henry James novel and starring Helena Bonham Carter. Here, a wealthy American heiress who discovers she has a fatal disease takes her friends to Venice for one last celebration of life, throwing herself into the carnival, a rented palazzo, and the joys of Italy before finally succumbing.

For many directors, the tranquil, picture-book quality of contemporary Venice seems to be a provocation to depict violence and criminal chaos. In Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), a murderer stalks Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, with bodies popping up in many a lovely canal. Naturally, Venice has appeared in three James Bond movies: From Russia With Love (1963), Moonraker (1979), and Casino Royale (2006), where an entire palazzo collapses into the Grand Canal, boiling like a Venetian fish stew, and the film’s heroine goes to a watery, if suitably picturesque, grave.

On a Venetian vacation, any traveler will be simply amazed by Venice‘s views of winding cobblestone streets, hundreds of bridges, colorful gondolas, and luxurious palaces. Discover the breathtaking views of one of Italy‘s most beautiful and unique cities–Venice!

A love that couldn’t be contained.

The only prisoner to ever escape from the famous Doge’s Palace in Venice was also the city’s most famous lover – Giacamo Casanova. The fashionable young man-about-town was arrested by the Venetian secret police in 1755 for making blasphemous jokes and thrown into its attic cells. The spurious charge was evidently trumped up by one of the elderly Venetian magistrates, who were enraged that Casanova was courting his mistress.

Although we remember Casanova for his Herculean love life, he was one of the most extraordinary and brilliant characters of the 18th century, and he immediately began to plot an escape. The first attempt, however, was an abject failure. He had found a metal bar in the courtyard during one of his brief exercise walks, smuggled it back to his cell and began to dig a tunnel under the floorboards. But after several months of painstaking work, the guards thought they would do Casanova a favor by transferring him to another cell that had a little more light and breeze. The nearly-completed tunnel was discovered, and Casanova was placed under closer watch.

His second plan was even more daring. Casanova somehow managed to keep the same metal bar and smuggle it to a disgraced monk in the cell next door, hidden inside a book. The monk, Martin Balbi, was under looser observation: One night he pried a hole in his ceiling, climbed up and helped Casanova out from his cell. Under cover of darkness, the pair forced their way through the lead tiles onto the roof. The fugitives then snuck downstairs and out the front gate, which was actually opened for them by guards outside thinking they were citizens accidentally caught inside the prison after visiting hours.

The incredible story was recounted by Casanova many years later in a book called History of My Escape, which became a bestseller in Europe and made him a celebrity in royal courts from Madrid to Moscow. While some at the time believed that the tale was a fabrication and that Casanova had simply bribed his guard, records discovered by 20th century historians in the Venetian archives do report the incident, although without details; a prison official at the time described the escape as simply “prodigious.” After his 14 months of captivity in the Doge’s Palace, the young romantic fled Venice for the safety of France, where he resumed his career of romantic conquest.

OLD VENICE, VENETIAN STROLLING
Ask your Local Host about a walking route including Old Venice. Take in the oldest parts of the island around the Rialto Bridge. Try Venetian strolling—joining the locals where they take their evening promenade.

ST. MARK’S BASILICA
Travel to the top of St. Mark’s Bell Tower for an unrivalled view of Venice.

SQUERO DI SAN TROVASO
Enjoy a characteristic boatyard (squero) dating from the 17th century on the rio (little canal) of San Trovaso. In a particularly picturesque position, it is one of the last traditional squeri still constructing gondolas.

LIDO AND IL MONDO IN MINIATURA, SAINT ELENA ISLAND
For special family time, relax at the Lido beach. See Giovanni Moro’s hand-painted replicas of Venice’s historic buildings and churches in miniature, or stroll in the gardens and playgrounds of Saint Elena Island.

CICCHETTI, BACCARI, SPRITZ
Sample cicchetti and baccari appetizers and the local aperitif, Spritz. Or enjoy a small glass of fiery grappa at the end of your meal.

MUSEUMS: ACCADEMIA GALLERY, PEGGY GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, CA’REZZONICO VENETIAN MUSEUM, JEWISH MUSEUM
The Accademia Gallery contains works by Tintoretto, Bellini, and Carpaccio. In Peggy Guggenheim’s former home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal, see one of the most important collections of American and European Modern Art. Ca’Rezzonico, a beautiful Venetian palace and residence, is home to a collection of 18th-century Venetian furnishings and paintings. Visit the Jewish Ghetto dating back to the early 16th century. Its museum exhibits traditions of goldsmith’s and textile arts.

MURANO ISLAND AND TRADITIONAL GIFTS
Visit the center of the Venetian glass blowing industry for more than 1,000 years. Murano Island is also known for its Glass Museum and the Byzantine church of Santi Maria e Donato—with a beautiful mosaic floor dating back to the 12th century. Venetian shopping specialties include Murano glass crafts and glass pearls, lace, masks, and unique Christmas gift calendars.

LA FENICE THEATER
Visit the reconstructed La Fenice Theater. Famed for its acoustics, it stunned the world when it was destroyed by fire. Millions of dollars were raised and stars, such as Luciano Pavarotti and Woody Allen, offered their support, so it could be reconstructed.

VERONA, PADUA AND THE DOLOMITES
If you have already visited Venice and want to take advantage of its excellent location to visit mainland areas, Verona, Padua, and the Dolomite mountains are nearby.

VENETIAN MUSIC
Ask your Local Host about one of the many Vivaldi concerts in town.

It is no accident that one of history’s greatest explorers, Marco Polo, came from Venice. His hometown had been Europe‘s gateway to the East long before he set sail in 1271; the influence of the Orient could be seen in its art, its fashion, and its architecture, creating, in the words of one historian, “the most colorful, sumptuous, and sensually bewitching civilization that history has ever known.” Thanks to Venetian conquests in the eastern Mediterranean, 17-year-old Marco had the first leg of his travel route mapped out for him—he was able to island-hop through friendly territory as far as Constantinople; from there, he was seduced by China for more than 20 years.

When Polo returned to Venice in 1295 as a bearded middle-aged man, even his relatives did not believe he had been in China the entire time. After all, he and his companions (his father and uncle) were wearing poor-looking clothes, and they had no apparent treasure in tow. The three adventurers invited family friends to a homecoming banquet in their modest Venetian palazzo. After the guests were seated, Polo sliced open the hem of his outfit and hundreds of colorful gems poured onto the table—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds that the trio had smuggled back to Europe from the court of the Great Khan. The guests were agog at the marvelous wealth and took Polo’s stories more seriously.

Polo’s Venetian upbringing is also obvious in the famous book The Travels, which he dictated after his return. According to legend, Polo was imprisoned by the Genoese after a naval battle, but luckily was able to collaborate with a fellow inmate who was a writer. It contains very few personal, first-hand accounts of his adventures in China; instead, it is a rather dry description of the many cities and provinces he had seen, full of lists of the goods they produce. This is because it was written for the money-loving merchants of Venice as a sort of patriotic service to the Republic: his audience wanted blunt commercial information, not local color. Tradition holds that an early copy of the book was kept on a chain in the Piazza San Marco, where local businessmen could refer to it as a sort of mercantile guide book.

On his deathbed, Polo was asked to correct his work, removing some of the stories about the East that seemed to be invented: the bejeweled splendor of the Great Khan and his palace; the terrors of the Tartar horsemen; the rigors of crossing the Gobi Desert. He replied that he had not recounted half of what he had really seen.

Even the most traveled travelers will be amazed by Italy’s alluring Northern city of Venice. Imagine walking down a winding cobblestone street past palaces, famous piazzas, and hundreds of bridges. You may prefer to sit back and explore Venice by boat through its network of canals. Or if you enjoy a view from above, admire the view from the Rialto Bridge as lovers and friends pass by below in colorful gondolas! Grab your passport and join us for an adventure to Venice!

We’ll take you along to all of Venice’s must see places. Marvel at the Doges’ palace, the ultimate symbol of Venetian power and wealth or be simply awestruck by the gold mosaics found covering the walls at St. Marks Basilica. Walk across the Bridge of Sighs and imagine the last view that Venetian prisoners saw before entering the palace prison.

Perhaps you’re a history buff or just love a good story, you won’t be disappointed by the tales that unfold along Venice’s winding canals. Some of history’s most well known figures come to life as we discover the stories of Marco Polo and Casanova’s Escape!

Once you’ve seen the sights and immersed yourself in Venetian history, take some time and wander along the city’s streets to take in Venice’s unique culture. Pick out a beautiful piece of Venetian glass or sit with the locals in a piazza to sip on a caffè. No matter what you decide to do in Venice, you will not forget your vacation to this one-of-a-kind city!

Throughout 2009 we provided you with countless must-see spots across the world.  When planning your Italy vacation we hope that these Rome must-see sights will make your Rome vacation more memorable.

Full-Day Excursion to Pompeii

A scenic drive along the Highway of the Sun takes you past the famous Abbey of Montecassino and Naples for a guided visit of Pompeii, both destroyed and preserved by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Roman Highlights

A guided walking tour takes you to some of the most famous monuments. Admire the Spanish Steps, Via Condotti, Piazza Navona, Parliament, and Pantheon.

Gelateria de Palme

All roads don’t lead to this tiny gelateria down a hidden alley. But after a taste of its addictive chocolate-chipped straciatella ice cream, a nightly pilgrimage to this off-the-beaten-track gem may be in order.

Monte Testaccio

When terracotta oil and wine shipping containers were no longer needed, the ancient Romans piled them up here. Now this grassy knoll built on the broken pottery is a hip enclave of artists, wine cellars and chic restaurants. Come experience how one man’s trash can truly be another’s treasure.

Bulgari

Andy Warhol called this posh boutique the “most important museum of modern art in Europe.” Since 1884, when Sotirio Bulgari arrived in Rome from Epirus, Greece, his store’s Renaissance-inspired jewelry has marked the pinnacle of Italian design.

Villa Ada

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Everybody and their dog (literally) frequent this sprawling 450-acre city park. Lush vegetation and rolling fields make this park a popular summer spot for outdoor concerts.

A memorable Italy vacation post from 2009!

If you were visiting Rome 2,000 years ago, you would have been awakened at dawn by the melodious bass of a copper gong resounding through the streets, announcing the opening of the thermae, or heated public baths.

To ancient Romans, their routine visits to the more than 1,000 bath houses in the Italian city were one of life’s ultimate pleasures. As one nobleman recorded on his tomb, “Wine, sex and the baths may destroy our bodies, but they make life worth living.” These thermae were far more than simple washhouses.

They were the Western world’s first full-service spas, combining the facilities of gymnasiums, massage parlors, restaurants and community centers. In their beloved halls, citizens of all classes would loll by the pools with their friends, play ball games, drink wine, flirt and even enjoy elegant candle-lit dinners. Like modern gyms today, Rome’s baths were unofficially graded: Some were chic, others déclassé. Some were expensive, others cost only a copper. Some, like the Baths of Caracalla and the Baths of Diocletian that can still be viewed in Rome today, were palatial structures, as large as cathedrals, decorated with multi-colored mosaics of Neptune and his dolphins.

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It was the most perfect experiment in the history of science.  Holding both a cannon ball and a small musket ball, the 30-something Pisa native Galileo Galilei scaled the steps of his city’s famous Leaning Tower, and held them dramatically over the edge.  Eight stories below, the town’s most learned scholars and priests were gathered as observers.  They watched as the two balls dropped to the ground at the same speed – disproving, with a single stroke, the ancient idea that objects fall at different rates depending on their weight and size.

This archaic concept, which had been espoused by the ancient Greek author Aristotle, had been accepted without question for more than 2,000 years, Galileo’s great innovation was to put it to a practical test of observation.

Unfortunately, this famous story is probably not true. Galileo never wrote about it himself – it was recounted in a late biography penned by his secretary, Vincenzo Viviani.  Most historians now believe that it was Galileo’s imaginative disciples who invented the Leaning Tower tale in order to make the theory so clear that even a child could understand it.

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