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Is there any country on earth that wears its history as lightly as Italy? Roman ruins sit cheek by jowl with Renaissance palazzos, while modern skycrapers cast their long shadows over neoclassical cathedrals. But there are many more reasons why this is the fifth most visited country in the world – the rolling landscapes of Tuscany, the sandy beache...

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Her streets may be thronged with tourists, but Venice is alive with those who live and work here — simply rise at dawn and wander through the fish markets behind the Rialto, or have a quiet coffee with the locals in a backstreet cafe before they head off to work to realise how many people live in this place of no cars. Despite once boasting an Empi...

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The Bridge of Sighs is a very pleasant solution to a very grim problem. In 1600 Venice’s prisons for common criminals were being moved from the ground floor of the Doge’s Palace to a building across a narrow canal from the Palace. The question was how to get the inmates who had just had confessions wrung out of them in the torture chamber into the...

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An illustrated presentation on why Venice’s artistic patrimony must be saved and the preservation efforts of Save Venice, Inc. Among the sites to be toured virtually are the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on the island of Torcello and the church of San Sebastiano. About the presenter: An expert of European art of the Renaissance and Baroque, C. D....

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Stanley Tucci is getting back to work on his hit show! The 60-year-old actor went for a gondola ride while filming season two of his CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on Thursday afternoon (October 16) in Venice, Italy. Stanley appeared in great spirits as he took in the sights during his ride around the canals. Earlier this year, CNN r...

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Venice has no equals in all of Europe. In this city floating on a lagoon, streets are canals and crossings are bridges. Everything, from churches to palaces, speaks of more than a thousand years of history in which the Pearl of the Adriatic dominated the seas and grew wealthy on commerce. On top of that, there are world-famous art exhibitions, roma...

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Who is not able to picture the image of the gondolier wearing their sailor shirt and straw hat as they sing a serenade? The gondola is undoubtedly the symbol of Venice. In a city where moving around mainly happens on the water, this elegant boat fits perfectly in the narrow canals. Up to the development of motor vehicles, it was the most popular bo...

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In Veneto there is a clear distinction between the province of Verona and the rest of the region, determined not so much by culture or commercial needs as by the historical distribution of different grapes, which led the eastern provinces to embrace international cultivars, while Verona has remained bound up with its traditional varieties, both whi...

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 The Italian glassblowers of Murano have survived plagues and pandemics. They transitioned to highly prized artistic creations to outrun low-priced competition from Asia. But surging energy prices are shattering their economic model. The dozens of furnaces that remain on the lagoon island where Venetian rulers transferred glassblowing 700 years ago...

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Visiting Venice right now is the opportunity of a lifetime. The city, which invented quarantine -- quaranta giorni, or "40 days," referred to the wait-time for disembarking travelers from distant lands during the Great Plague -- would not have been on my list at any other time. The throngs of humanity -- pre-Covid -- had just about destroyed the ex...

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