A complete guide to the regions of Italy
The Regions of Italy have evocative
names which induce such reveries that nobody can remember where they are. Well,
we know Tuscany , Sardinia
and Sicily ,
but what of the rest? Apart from Umbria ,
covered in detail on this page, here is a quick run-down:
Alto Adige
This largely German-speaking area of
northern Italy ,
squeezed up against the border with Austria ,
prefers to call itself Sud Tirol. Visitors come here for winter sports and some
of the best wines.
Abruzzo
On the east coast of Italy ,
directly east of Rome ,
this is one of the emptier, more marginal regions of the country. Having
festered for centuries as part of the Kingdom
of Naples ,
it lost most of its population to emigration. In recent years however, its most
important town, Pescara ,
has started to blossom as a coastal resort. Abruzzo is also the region that
gave us the word confetti (which here refers to colourful sweets).
This is the region that fills up Italy 's
heel. In ancient times it was a prominent Greek colony - indeed remnants of
Greek language can still be found here to this day. The largest city, Brindisi ,
is known to backpackers who ride the ferry to the Greek port
of Piraeus .
With delightful beaches on the Gargano Peninsular, exotic countryside, bizarre
conical domed houses (Trulli) and the beautiful Baroque city of Lecce , Apulia
deserves a long hard holiday.
This region in the Italian foot,
mid-way between heel and toe, takes positive pride in its obscurity. It has a
grim, deforested coast in the instep, and its capital city Matera
has made a curious tourist attraction out of its notorious poverty - the Sassi
are cave neighbourhoods where, until recently, peasants lived with pigs.
Adjacent to Basilicata ,
and right in the toe next to Sicily ,
this region has a beautiful name but a horrid history. After a brilliant
flowering of Greek culture in the sixth century BC, malarial mosquitoes
rendered most of the area virtually uninhabitable until just a few decades ago.
Enveloping the joyously, dangerously
chaotic city of Naples, there is enough in this region to keep most people
happy for a lifetime - from the flesh-pots of Capri and Ischia, to the ancient
cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the shadow of Vesuvius.
Another absurdly well-endowed region,
immediately to the northeast of Tuscany .
Here you'll find not only Italy 's
great sea-side resort of Rimini ,
but the cities of Ferrara
and Ravenna
which once usurped Rome as
capital of the ancient world. Trendy Bologna
completes the picture.
This untidily-named region is
sandwiched between Venice
and the Republic
of Slovenia
and is basically a conglomerate of peoples stuck on the edge of eastern Europe.
The peculiar neoclassical city of Trieste ,
for so long strangled by its cul-de-sac location, is now beginning to come back
to life with the opening up of Europe .
Lazio
This gloomy region is little other than
a large back garden for the nation's capital city. For two thousand years Rome
tended to tax the region dry; now it is having to subsidize a slow recovery.
The colourful Italian Riviera, a
continuation of the dull French Riviera to the west. The short trip by train
from Monaco to
Ventimiglia is a trip to heaven.
Most of Italy's wealth is generated up
here in the fast, nervous city of Milan, which has been making the world's best
clothes for a very long time (hence the English word "millinery").
This oddly named region to the east of Umbria is
underrated. As well as the snowy peaks of the Sibelline Mountains ,
it has beaches on the coast and charming renaissance towns in between,
including Urbino and Ascoli Piceno .
South of, and even more obscure than
Abruzzo, this rarely visited region has customs and a dialect that owe a debt
to the proximity of Albania
and the Croatian coast. The nearest thing to a coastal resort is Termoli though
you won't hear many English accents there.
This haughtily rich and powerful region
of the northeast, centred around the city of Turin ,
was the base from which sprung the drive for Italian unity in the last century.
Come here for skiing and high mountain scenery.
Trentino
High up in the western Dolomites, north
of Veneto ,
this area is mainly good for Alpine activities though the historic city of Trento is
also worth a visit.
This tiny area sandwiched between Switzerland
and France
comprises high mountains and ski resorts. The small regional capital, Aosta,
rimmed by mountains, is probably the best located in the country.
If any region can boast cities such as Verona , Vicenza
and Padua as
mere side-attractions, you might guess that its capital city would be Venice .
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