My Ideas & Notes
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Activity
Piazza Campidoglio and the Capitoline Museum
Designed by Michelangelo in the 1550s, the Piazza Campidoglio is one of Rome's most elegant piazz...
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Food & Drink
Enoteca Pinchiorri
Gourmands genuflect at the mention of this temple to high gastronomy. In a region long known for...
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Food & Drink
Osteria del Caffè Italiano
With the inviting combination of a casual wood-paneled wine bar in front and slightly more seriou...
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Food & Drink
Fuori Porta
Florence's most popular wine bar is found just outside the city's 14th-century ramparts and the S...
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Food & Drink
Caffè Rivoire
It's cozy inside when cold weather dictates this historic cafe's specialty of bittersweet hot cho...
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Activity
Palazzo Medici
The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi was built by Michelozzo in 1444 for Cosimo de' Medici il Vecchio; it'...
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Activity
Palazzo Pitti and the Galleria Palatina
Built by wealthy Florentine merchant and banker Luca Pitti in the late 15th century, the Pitti Pa...
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Activity
The Uffizi Galleries
Here, in a palace designed in 1560 by architect Giorgio Vasari for Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici, ...
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Activity
San Miniato al Monte
High atop a hill, its gleaming white-and-green facade visible from the valley below, San Miniato is one of the few ancient churches of Florence to survive the centuries virtually intact. San Miniato was an eastern Christian who settled in Florence and was martyr...
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Activity
Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio
The civic center of Florence for more than 700 years, the Piazza della Signoria is now a popular ...
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Activity
Battistero (Florence Baptistery)
In choosing a date to mark the beginning of the Renaissance, art historians often seize on 1401, ...
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Activity
Basilica di San Lorenzo & Cappelle Medicee (Med...
Forming part of the monumental San Lorenzo complex (the Medicis' parish church, worth seeing but ...
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Activity
Galleria dell'Accademia (FLR)
Founded in 1784 as an artists' academy, the Accademia has been the home since 1873 of Michelangel...
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Activity
Church of Santa Maria Novella
Built for the Dominican order in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, Santa Maria Novella is t...
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Activity
Il Duomo (The Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiori)
Designed originally in 1296 by Arnolfo di Cambio, Florence's Duomo was actually the work of sever...
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Activity
Museo Nazionale del Bargello (Bargello Museum)
Housed in a Gothic palazzo built as an arsenal and fortress in 1255, the bargello later served as...
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Activity
Vivaldi's Church (Church of La Pietà)
Officially called the Church of La Pieta, this was the site where local Baroque maestro Antonio V...
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Activity
Scuola Grande di San Rocco
Built in 1515 as the home of a religious and social confraternity (one of many in Venice at the t...
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Activity
Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists)
For generations of Venetians epic fist fights atop neighborhood bridges were a celebrated traditi...
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Activity
Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) & Ponte dei Sosp...
Between the Basilica di San Marco and St. Mark's Basin sits the palace from which the dukes ruled...
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Activity
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
One of the world's great collections of modern art, housed in a palazzo on the Grand Canal that w...
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Activity
Isola di San Michele
Originally a prison island, Napoleon's occupying forces decreed that Venetians could not bury the...
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Activity
Gallerie dell'Accademia (VEN)
Venice's largest museum, the Accademia contains the most extensive collection of Venetian masters...
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Activity
Biblioteca Marciana (Library of San Marco)
The Library of San Marco was begun in 1537 to house the famous manuscript collection of Carninal ...
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Activity
Basilica di San Marco
Sitting at the eastern end of the Piazza San Marco, the basilica was originally built as the fina...
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Food & Drink
Castello Banfi
Castello Banfi appears on the Tuscan horizon like a pink hilltop castle straight out of a fairy t...
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Activity
Fontana Dei Matti
This 16th century fountain, known as the "Fountain of the Madman," is situated in the I...
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Activity
Campanile di Curon
Flooded by the waters of Lago di Resia, situated in Val Venosta in the Trentino-Alto Adige region...
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Activity
La Colce Vita Wine Tours: Slow Food Festa
Bookended by October's annual truffle market in Alba and the Salone del Gusto in Turin, a bi-annu...
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Activity
Snorkeling for Roman Ruins
In Italy, Roman ruins sprinkle the landscape like Parmesan cheese on pasta. In a twist of the typ...
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Lodging
Antica Locanda Montin
100 Hotels Under $150 - 75 euros (shared bath); 100 euros (private bath)
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Activity
Village of Craco
After surviving the black plague and bands of marauding thieves for more than 1400 years, a lands...
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Activity
Terme di Saturnia
The average hot tub costs around $2500. Throw in maintenance costs, a new swimsuit and a privacy ...
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Lodging
Castle of the Four Towers
This 807-year-old castle made of red brick has a commanding view of Siena from its hilltop positi...
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Activity
Capo Testa
Capo Testa, on the Northern coast of Sardinia, allows for the imagination to wander. Taking a hik...
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Lodging
Tenuta Montanello
A winery with a glorious view, and a storied past Fifth-generation winemaker Alberto Racca left ...
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Lodging
Casa Isabella
Heirlooms and art in a renovated hillside house When architect Monica Barattieri and her husband...
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Lodging
Cascina Sant'Eufemia
A rustic farmhouse where everyone is welcome to get their hands dirty If there's a hospitality g...
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Lodging
Tetto Garrone
An ecofriendly labor of love where florals go mod When Tetto Garrone celebrated its opening in 2...
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Lodging
La Traversina
A quirky retreat with a communal table for home-cooked meals Rosanna Varese's grandfather gamble...
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Activity
The Catacombs of San Sebastian
Known as one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome, the Catacombs of San Sebastian have long attr...
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Activity
Lazzareto Nuovo
In 2005, while uncovering mass plague graves on Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, workers made a strange discovery: The skull of a woman, with a brick jammed into her mouth.
The hundreds of skeletons unearthed were to be expected, but this skull was someth...
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Food & Drink
Il Gelato di San Crispino
It may look modest, but this could be the best gelato in Rome... When we’re in Rome, we like t...
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Activity
Giant Pink Bunny
In 2005, residents of Artesina were surprised to look out their windows and see a new addition to one of the many 5,000 foot high mountains that dot the countryside in Northern Italy. Almost overnight, a gigantic pink bunny had taken its place atop the hill, sta...
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Lodging
Castello di Vicarello
Where: Italy's Maremma region in Cinigiano, about 45 minutes from Siena The Details: Seven sui...
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Activity
The Sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel
The real sword in the stone is found not in England, but in an Italian chapel The legendary sw...
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Activity
La Vucciria, Palermo, Italy
In a gritty part of Palermo, and reflecting Sicily’s heady ethnic brew, the boisterous atmosphere of La Vucciria is more Middle Eastern than European. Musicians bang drums and sing Arabian-infused ballads, the smell of barbecued sausages and kebabs permeates the...
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Activity
Temple of Damanhur
Massive subterranean temple built in secret It has come to be known as the eighth wonder of th...

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