My to-date photographic portfolio of Cinque Terre on these pages is the extreme example of “outsourcing” photo hosting to external services. I included a single picture of each village in the summary WH post, and revisited that only a couple of times within the intermittent “Postcards from” series (one picture…
One of my children has spent a few days in Florence this spring. Me, I haven’t been back there for over a dozen years now. My last visit took place right around the time that I rediscovered interest in photography. However, back then, my standard M.O. was to post minimal…
My flight back home was leaving in the afternoon, and with a few hours to kill before that, I always planned to add another tick to my World Heritage visited roster. It is a non-trivial drive from Milan to Ivrea and then back to Malpensa airport, but on a rainy…
On any given week-or-longer trip, my last full day practically never features formal targets on the itinerary. I prefer to leave that day for either catching up on a must-see that was not accessible earlier in the trip or simply for a bit of aimless wandering around a big city.…
To a certain degree, my visit to the sanctuary of Orta – the second part of my exploration of the serial Sacri Monti WH site – was coincidental with another target. Although I prioritize World Heritage properties in my itinerary, I also sprinkle in other destinations that I expect to…
From the late 15th century on through the early 18th century, Northern Italy built a number of sanctuaries as alternative places of worship in Europe to the Holy Land, which was becoming increasingly difficult for pilgrims to access owing to the rapid expansion of Islamic control over the Middle East.…
Here’s that “short days in November” conundrum again. Brescia always projected to take more than half of a day to see, and there was no reasonable way for me to fit something significant in the remaining couple of hours of daylight. All I could attempt at best was a walk…
As mentioned in the previous post about the Longobards World Heritage site, I was planning to acquaint myself with the city of Brescia in addition to my WH-chasing priorities. The Santa Giulia Museum and the archaeological site of Brixia Romana held my attention for nearly three hours combined. I wanted…
As I’ve been to Northern Italy many times in the past, I had covered most of the primary World Heritage destinations across Lombardy and Veneto on different trips. This most recent trip was about catching up on some of the lesser-known WH properties. One of them was the serial site…
You probably heard me say on these pages on several occasions that my traveling preferences are to explore places that I’ve never been to before. The most recent example was my sort of lament about the dearth of new discoveries on travels during the last year. And practically in the…
Genoa does not loom large in the imagination of visitors to Italy as a must-see destination. Even as far as Liguria goes, you are most likely to prioritize seeing Cinque Terre or Portofino before setting your sights on the region’s capital city. That goes some way to explain how, in…
Aside from a day trip to Turin several years ago, Piedmont has not featured on my itineraries in the past. This time around, I made plans to see a few of the highlights of the region. The first destination was the World Heritage property of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont.…
My plans for the Italian trip in November included a bunch of World Heritage sites that are accessible from Milan on day trips. A couple aligned with visits to interesting cities that I have not managed to visit before. A couple revolved around more rural destinations that were off the…
Every big city has its share of impressive architectural highlights and interesting museums. Milan is certainly not an exception to that rule, even though I have always viewed it as not really a top sightseeing destination on its own. It does not boast a significant number of must-see sights, nor…
Coastlines and beaches are Sardinia’s most impressive features. We explored the western coast fairly extensively, going to different beaches, taking scenic drives, and also spending large parts of two separate days on boating expeditions. The first of those took us along the coast between Bosa and Alghero, the subregion known…
Not without interest. This is my usual polite way to indicate that the town in question may have a few interesting features but in no way rises to the “must-see” category. If you are in the area, you probably should visit, but don’t lose sleep over not being able to…
San Gavino Monreale was specifically targeted on our Sardinian itinerary for its murals. It is one of the more frequently recommended mural villages on the island, for us very conveniently located just a few kilometers away from the base in Sardara. Unlike in Tinnura, where all major decorations are clustered…
As is often the case with larger – if not large in the absolute sense – towns, the provincial capital of Oristano has a relatively lively compact historic center and little of note beyond that. In fact, even in that central area, the small details – from the sundial clock…
Sardara is almost certain not to feature on Sardinian itineraries – its name did not come up even once in all of my pre-trip research of “things to see and do in Sardinia”. Its location, however, is rather convenient for the hub-and-spokes touring approach in the south of the island,…
Castelsardo, like Bosa, is one of the most colorful and attractive towns in Sardinia (and a fellow member of I Borghi più Belli d’Italia). Its relatively isolated location on the northwestern coast did not lend itself to a planned visit in our original itinerary, but the cancellation of Corsica plans…