Italy Experiences - 14 ways to see the country

In brief: Italy rewards travelers who mix the famous with the deeply local. Walk the Cinque Terre, linger in a Venetian square, follow Renaissance art through Florence, taste Chianti, and leave room for the everyday Italy of trains, trattorias, football and summer festivals.

14 essential Italy experiences

1. Hike the Cinque Terre

The Cinque Terre is a chain of five former fishing villages joined by scenic footpaths. The settlements seem to cling to the cliffs, with vineyards rising above and blue water opening below. The walk is as much about the changing view as the villages themselves.

2. People-watch in Venice

Piazza San Marco, also called St. Mark's Square, is one of the world's most atmospheric places to watch the city pass by. The Basilica di San Marco frames the square with its extraordinary facade, while the surrounding cafes, visitors and Venetians provide an ever-changing scene.

3. Shop in Milan

Milan is Italy's fashion capital. For the highest concentration of luxury designers, head to the Quadrilatero della Moda, the fashion district immediately north of the Duomo. Its polished streets make shopping part of the Milanese city experience even when you are only window-shopping.

4. See Assisi's frescoes

Peaceful medieval Assisi is home to the enormous Basilica di San Francesco. Inside, 28 frescoes tell episodes from the life of St. Francis, turning a visit to the Umbrian hill town into a concentrated encounter with medieval art and devotion.

5. Sail away to Capri

Off the coast of Naples, the fabled island of Capri has long represented glitz and glamour. Its appeal is also simpler: the island is a beautiful place to get away for a day or longer, with the sea creating a clean break from the mainland.

6. Ponder The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is in Milan, where restoration has brought back much of the painting's original clarity and luminosity. The work is delicate, so the visit is a focused one, but its renewed light makes the experience especially powerful.

7. See a medieval city in Siena

Siena is perhaps Italy's best-preserved medieval city. Its narrow streets are made for unhurried exploration, and the route naturally leads to Piazza del Campo, one of the country's most beautiful public squares.

8. Toss a coin in the Trevi Fountain

Rome's Trevi Fountain is a Baroque fantasy built around a triumphal arch. Sea creatures, shells and mermaids animate the composition, making the fountain an irresistible stop even for travelers who know it from countless photographs and social-media images.

9. Explore a hill town in San Gimignano

Walk the narrow, winding streets of the walled town of San Gimignano. Fourteen soaring medieval towers still define its skyline; the town once had more than 70. That surviving cluster explains why it is one of Tuscany's quintessential hill towns.

10. Visit the Vatican Museums

The Vatican is the home base of the Catholic Church and the papacy, and millions of visitors come each year to explore its museums and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The visit joins vast collections with one of the world's most recognizable painted interiors.

11. Taste wine in Chianti

Chianti spreads across 17,000 acres of vineyards in the hills south of Florence. Spending a day tasting your way through the region combines wine with the countryside that made this part of Tuscany famous.

12. Step back in time at Pompeii

Pompeii is often described as the world's best-preserved excavated site. Its commercial centre was frozen in place when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, allowing a walk through the remains of a working Roman city rather than only a collection of isolated monuments.

13. See Michelangelo's David

Michelangelo carved David from 17 feet of Carrara marble in the 1500s. The statue's fame can make it seem familiar before you arrive, but seeing that scale and the precision of the carving in person explains why David remains one of the world's most famous figures.

14. Stand in awe at Florence's Duomo

The magnificent Duomo dominates Florence's skyline and remains an architectural marvel. Almost 600 years passed between the beginning and completion of the cathedral complex, a timescale that makes its finished scale and detail even more remarkable.

Where to find the big experiences

Rome

Italy's capital is one of Europe's great cities: a large, busy metropolis living firmly in the present, yet unmatched for the force with which it evokes a storied and spectacular past.

Venice

Venice is one of the world's most unusual cities. Canals replace streets, and the atmosphere carries a distinctive sense of faded splendour that is inseparable from the lagoon setting.

Northern Italy

In the Veneto, green plains west of Venice lead to three of northern Italy's most artistically significant midsize cities, including Padua and Verona. Farther west, Milan is Italy's second-largest city and its business capital, home to the country's most renowned opera house and a world centre for fashion and design. The northern coastline continues along the Italian Riviera, including the Cinque Terre and its famous villages and trails. Many signature Italian foods come from Emilia-Romagna, with Bologna as an important cultural centre.

Florence

Florence stood at the centre of the artistic revolution later called the Renaissance in the 15th century. That movement changed how people understood the world, and five centuries later it remains the central reason many travelers come to the city.

Tuscany and Umbria

Outside Florence, San Gimignano is the model Tuscan hill town, while Pisa remains famous for its Leaning Tower. The hills south of Florence form Chianti, a sublime wine country; farther south, towns such as Cortona offer broad countryside views. Siena remains one of Italy's most appealing medieval towns. North of Rome, Umbria rolls through historic hill towns including Orvieto and Assisi, the birthplace of Saint Francis.

Naples and the Amalfi Coast

Campania is the gateway to southern Italy. Spend a day or two dreaming on Capri or at one of the celebrated Amalfi Coast resorts, then turn to the archaeological ruins of Pompeii. Naples itself is a lively, chaotic metropolis with a strong personality.

Italy today

The Italy travelers meet is both enduring and changing. Food and wine keep deep regional roots, football remains a national obsession, and the country is expanding its protected landscapes. At the same time, demographic change, economic pressures and the legacy of old habits shape daily life.

• ✦Cuisine - regional food traditions are still strong, even as fast food, tourism and new restaurant styles change the market.
• ✦Calcio - football remains the national sport, with Serie A clubs and ultras followed around the world.
• ✦Demography - Italy's low birth rate, long life expectancy and 48.7 median age in 2024 are reshaping families, politics and culture.
• ✦Informal economy - receipt rules and the 3% EU budget-deficit limit sit alongside a large, hard-to-measure black market.
• ✦Protected land - 25 national parks now cover around 1½ million hectares, or about 6% of the country.
• ✦August - the old mass exodus is less complete, leaving more events and somewhat more space for visitors.
• ✦Milano Cortina 2026 - the Winter Olympics and Paralympics bring athletes from 93 countries to northern Italy in February and March.

Enduring cuisine

A familiar Italian saying imagines 75% of the country's food and wine as good and the remaining quarter as extraordinary. Even the supposedly ordinary portion has improved: ingredients once reserved for wealthy tables can now appear at reasonable prices in remote parts of the country, and dishes created around tough meat cuts or less-loved vegetable parts are often prepared with the finest ingredients.

There is also a counterargument. Fast-food outlets have multiplied, and rising tourism has allowed some restaurants, in Rome and other tourist centres, to charge more while delivering less. Traditional family trattorias with checkered cloths, familiar dishes and informal service are still common but slowly declining. In their place, nearly every town also has newer restaurants with coordinated flatware, a serious wine list and an inventive menu. Italy's traditional favourites still offer the reliable pleasures that make people return.

Italian wine follows a similarly positive pattern. Investment and experimentation are helping growers draw more from the country's vineyards, and Italy now makes more varieties of high-quality wine from a wider range of grape varieties than any other country in the world.

Soccer rules

Soccer is calcio in Italy, literally a game of the kick, and it remains the national sport. Critics worry that big-money influence and loose financial rules are damaging the beautiful game. Italy won its fourth World Cup in 2006, giving it more world titles than any country other than Brazil, and then won the UEFA Euro 2020 championship, played in 2021 because of COVID-19.

Italian clubs have recently been more competitive in Europe, but the dominance of foreign players leaves a smaller pool for the national team. More fixtures and a shrinking fan base have reduced stadium crowds, even though television audiences remain strong. Juventus, Inter and Napoli still attract worldwide attention, as do their ultras, the famously vocal supporters. Serie A therefore remains a global league even as the local match-day culture changes.

An aging population

Italy has Europe's oldest population when measured as a share of residents. A low birth rate combines with one of the world's highest life-expectancy rates; the median Italian age was 48.7 in 2024, and forecasts put the share of residents over 65 at 34.5% by 2050.

The population, once notably stable, is now aging and expected to contract. That puts pressure on pensions and on families, since retirement homes are uncommon and older relatives often live with children or grandchildren. Underfunding in the public health-care system leaves many older Italians vulnerable. The same demographic shift reaches politics, where older voters shape policy, popular culture, which increasingly addresses older consumers, and a powerful nostalgia: even younger people may speak about events from 50 or 60 years ago as though they happened yesterday.

The black-market economy

The scale of Italy's black-market economy is unknown, although experts agree that it is massive. A shop or restaurant transaction without a printed receipt, tobacco sold without a tax seal, or a product exchanged for another service is unrecorded, unreported and untaxed. Those small transactions are eclipsed by the amounts some professionals conceal by failing to declare all of their income.

A growing parks system

Italy has 25 national parks covering around 1½ million hectares, or 5,800 square miles. Together they account for about 6% of the country's surface area, more than twice the protected area of 25 years ago.

An expanding environmental movement has pressed the government to add undeveloped land to the parks system and protect it from construction. For visitors and nature lovers, the result is access to large stretches of relatively unspoiled territory.

Staying home in August

Italy once offered the clearest version of Europe's August exodus: city residents left for the coast or mountains and urban streets nearly emptied. The pattern is less complete now because economic pressure keeps more companies operating through August.

For visitors, the loss of one shared national holiday brings advantages. Beaches and mountains can have slightly more space, while cities create programmes for residents who stay: outdoor concerts, theatre, longer museum hours and local festivals are now part of the summer calendar.

Winter Olympics and Paralympics 2026

In February and March 2026, thousands of athletes from 93 countries are due in northern Italy for the Milano Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Events will use mountain ski slopes, ice-rink venues and lively off-piste areas. Milan's Stadio San Siro and Verona's Roman Arena are set to host the opening and closing ceremonies.

Best museums in Rome

MACRO

The former Peroni brewery in Rome's Repubblica district now houses MACRO, a museum devoted to Italian art from the 1960s to the present. French architect Odile Decq gave the building a striking red structure and glass walkways, and the architecture itself is a good reason to visit.

Musei Capitolini

The Capitoline Museums are second in size in Rome only to the Vatican Museums and are considered the world's first public art museums. Their two buildings on Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio trace art from ancient Rome to the Baroque, including Caravaggio's St. John the Baptist.

Palazzo Colonna

Rome's grandest private palace, used as a setting in Roman Holiday, contains works by Poussin, Tintoretto and Veronese. Look up at the gallery ceiling fresco depicting the Battle of Lepanto, then find Annibale Carracci's The Beaneater, whose solitary figure sits ready with a spoon and missing front teeth.

Galleria Borghese

It is difficult to imagine a more beautiful villa for a collection of works by Bernini, Caravaggio, Raphael, Rubens and Titian. Cardinal Scipione Borghese built the Renaissance villa in 1612 for his collection, although the building has changed considerably since then.

Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia

The pre-Roman Etruscans reached Italy around 2000 BC, though their original homeland remains unknown. Villa Giulia, built for Pope Julius III in the mid-1500s, offers the place to investigate their history through the museum's collection.

Palazzo Doria Pamphilj

For an introduction to aristocratic Rome, enter the Doria Pamphilj family's 15th-century palazzo just south of Piazza di Spagna. The Hall of Mirrors follows the model of Versailles, but the palace's Old Master paintings deserve equal attention.

Musei Vaticani

The Vatican palaces and museums form one of the world's largest museum complexes, with roughly 1,400 rooms, galleries and chapels. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is the best-known attraction, but the Raphael Rooms are a close second for essential Renaissance work.

Palazzo Altemps

Part of the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps contains some of the world's finest ancient Roman marbles. Its restrained exterior gives little warning of the splendour that opens around the palace's grand courtyard.

Palazzo Barberini and Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica

This splendid 17th-century Baroque building holds a collection that includes Raphael's La Fornarina, the luminous portrait of the artist's lover. Other highlights include Guido Reni's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, beheaded in Rome for patricide in 1599, and Caravaggio's dramatic Judith Beheading Holofernes.

Architectural wonders in Venice

Ponte di Rialto

Completed in 1591, the Ponte di Rialto crosses the Grand Canal with a broad arch, a central portal and a Renaissance arcade. Its proportions are so balanced that the design would surely have met Palladio's approval.

San Francesco della Vigna

Two Renaissance masters worked together here, producing a harmonious church in a quiet neighbourhood. The combination makes San Francesco della Vigna a useful retreat when the central sights become crowded.

Hilton Molino Stucky

On the western end of Giudecca, this neo-Gothic building stands out on Venice's skyline. It was once a flour mill and pasta factory; it is now the Hilton Molino Stucky hotel, a conspicuous piece of industrial architecture on the lagoon.

Santa Maria della Salute

One of Venice's most beloved churches, Santa Maria della Salute was built to mark the end of the plague of 1630, which killed almost 50,000 Venetians. Its position at the meeting of the Grand and Giudecca Canals gives the memorial church an especially strong presence.

Punta della Dogana

A Sea Customs House has stood between the Grand and Giudecca Canals since the 15th century, although the building visible today dates from a design of the 1860s. Above its entrance tower, two Atlases lift a bronze sphere topped by Fortune.

Arsenale

For centuries the colossal Arsenale combined shipyards, warehouses and armouries in what was Europe's largest military-industrial complex. Much remains a military zone, but the southern side opens to the public during the Biennale Arte e Architettura.

Jewish Ghetto

The name recalls the foundry that once occupied the site - geto in the local dialect. Both the architecture and the atmosphere remain distinctive: Venetian palazzi and houses rise higher here than elsewhere, with extra storeys stacked to make the most of limited space.

Palazzo Ducale

The Doge's Palace presents soaring Gothic arches beneath an ornate columned arcade, giving it a delicate, almost confectionery appearance from Piazza San Marco and the Bacino di San Marco. A palace has occupied this site since the 9th century; the present pink Verona marble and Istrian limestone building follows the vision of Filippo Calendario, who lived from 1315 to 1355.

Madonna dell'Orto

This red-brick Gothic church carries elaborate marble decoration. It was dedicated to St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, until a Madonna statue was discovered in a nearby orto, or kitchen garden. Tintoretto's local church is where he developed his craft; look for the forceful Martyrdom of St. Paul, where a Roman soldier's violent movement contrasts with Paul's calm beneath holy light.

Ca' da Mosto

The Grand Canal has palaces more immediately eye-catching than Ca' da Mosto, but few with its endurance. The crumbling Byzantine-style palace dates from the 13th century, and its ground and first floors preserve the idea of a casa-fondaco, a combined house and warehouse. A restoration and renovation from 2019 to 2021 turned it into an exceptionally luxurious and expensive hotel with innovative design and interesting artworks.

10 museums and churches in Florence

Palazzo Pitti

Florence's rich and powerful once walked the corridors of Palazzo Pitti. Today the gallery rooms and royal apartments retain the lavish atmosphere expected of a palace and hold more than 500 paintings, mostly from the Renaissance, including works by Raphael and Titian.

Bargello

The fortress-like Bargello has served as a family palace, government building, prison and execution site, the last on its patio. It is now part of the Museo Nazionale and has Italy's finest collection of Renaissance sculpture. Weapons, armour and Medici medals recall the building's harder past, while Donatello's bronze David and Michelangelo's marble Bacchus are the major draws.

Galleria degli Uffizi

Giorgio Vasari designed the former offices of the Florentine magistrates in 1560, and the building now contains one of Florence's and the world's most visited art collections. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera share the galleries with Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation and works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Giotto and Caravaggio. Book through the official Uffizi site to avoid the longest lines. The newly reopened Vasari Corridor leads from the Uffizi to the Boboli Gardens across the Ponte Vecchio.

Galleria dell'Accademia

The queue down Via Ricasoli points to Michelangelo's David, 17 feet of Carrara marble shown in the pose before the battle with Goliath. After the main gallery, explore early- and late-Renaissance works by Sandro Botticelli and Andrea del Sarto, Florentine Gothic paintings and the collection of musical instruments. An advance ticket is particularly useful in high season.

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

When Santa Maria del Fiore, its baptistery and bell tower were completed in the 1400s, the complex was the largest church in Europe. Its decoration involved many of Italy's celebrated artists. Some original masterpieces, including Lorenzo Ghiberti's bronze Gates of Paradise, took 27 years to finish and are now protected in the museum rather than exposed to the elements. A seven-year renovation completed in 2015 made the museum one of Florence's most modern.

Museo Salvatore Ferragamo

This palazzo museum follows the work of southern Italian-born shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo, who lived from 1898 to 1960. The permanent archive includes a gold-and-Technicolor rainbow wedge sandal designed for Judy Garland in 1938 and a cross-strap ballet flat made for Audrey Hepburn's slim feet in the 1950s, still one of the label's signature shapes. Temporary exhibitions often connect film, art and culture with fashion history, reflecting Ferragamo's reputation as a creator for the stars.

Palazzo Strozzi

Unlike the Uffizi and other municipal museums, Palazzo Strozzi is run by an independent foundation. Its exhibitions can therefore move from a survey of cinquecento Florentine art to avant-garde projects such as The Florence Experiment, a 65-foot spiral tunnel, or Marina Abramovic's The Cleaner, controversial for its use of nude performers. Banker Filippo Strozzi commissioned the palace but died before its completion.

Palazzo Vecchio

Also called Palazzo della Signoria, this monumental medieval building has housed Florence's city government since the Renaissance. A copy of Michelangelo's David stands outside; inside, opulent marble stairs lead to rooms with gold-highlighted, frescoed ceilings and walls. The Salone dei Cinquecento is one of the city's grandest spaces, designed and painted by Giorgio Vasari.

Santa Croce

Florentine churches function as museums, and Santa Croce is considered the largest Franciscan church in the world, traditionally said to have been founded by St. Francis of Assisi. 16 chapels were decorated by important families. Giotto frescoed the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels, Andrea della Robbia made a terracotta altarpiece, and the basilica contains the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli.

Santa Maria Novella

Dominican monks founded Santa Maria Novella in the 13th century. Leon Battista Alberti, born in Genoa, designed the green-and-white marble facade, while the interior holds major Renaissance works. Masaccio's Trinita fresco, painted in the 1400s, was covered and rediscovered in the 1800s and remains an early landmark of Renaissance perspective. Giotto's Crucifix probably dates from the late 1200s, and Ghirlandaio's late-1400s Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes narrate the life of the Virgin Mary. Next door, the cathedral-like Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella sells its famous lemon-scented hand cream, perfumes and candles.

What to watch and read before or after Italy

Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino

In 1956, the Cuban-born writer raised in Liguria published a remarkable collection of around 200 traditional folktales from across the Italian archipelago. The 800-page Fiabe italiane uses simple but evocative prose, and its stories work for young and old readers alike. Kings, princesses, saints and peasants move through fantastical moral tales of love, loss, revenge and adventure, making the book an ideal bedtime or beach companion.

Amarcord, directed by Federico Fellini

Amarcord means 'I remember' in the Romagnol dialect and draws on Fellini's adolescence in 1930s Rimini. Titta and his friends meet a gallery of comic authority figures - pompous teachers, frustrated fathers and cruel Fascist officials - as well as the voluptuous hairdresser Gradisca. The 1973 film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and offers dreamlike, often absurd insight into Italian psychology, family life and the interwar years. Nino Rota's wistful score deepens the nostalgia.

The Italians by John Hooper

This 2015 book by longtime Rome correspondent John Hooper examines the complexity of contemporary Italy and asks what drives the Italian character. Alongside everyday subjects such as food, sex and weather, it explores an amaro, or bitter, side of social life. The force of famiglia and chiesa, furbizia or cunning, and raccomandazioni or favours all become part of Hooper's cultural vocabulary.

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Il Gattopardo is set in Sicily during the upheavals of the Risorgimento, from the 1860s into the early 20th century. Lampedusa, the last in a line of minor princes, wrote the novel during a long depression; it appeared in 1958, one year after his death. The story follows Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, and his family as an old order loses influence, a new society takes shape and the Mafia begins to appear at the edges. Its central political insight is that preserving the appearance of stability may demand radical change.

Cosa Nostra by John Dickie

Journalist and academic John Dickie packs a great deal of grim detail into this fast-moving history of the Mafia. He traces Cosa Nostra from its Risorgimento origins through its infiltration and corruption of the First Republic, examines Corleone's notorious role, follows the organisation's birth and growth in America, and covers the Mafia Wars and the more recent crises tied to Italy's corrupt political system.

The Conformist, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Bertolucci's stylish psychological thriller is set in Fascist Italy in the 1930s and is widely regarded as a postwar cinematic classic. The 1970 film examines conformity against the cruel, febrile political climate created by Mussolini and his followers. Its dark subject is matched by beautiful lighting, vivid colour, elaborate costumes and atmospheric locations. The film influenced directors including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and the Coen brothers.

Delizia! by John Dickie

This gastronomic history travels through Italy's regions and centuries, from pastasciutta in 12th-century Palermo to the modern Slow Food movement in Turin. One memorable stop is a 1529 Ferrara banquet whose starters included 105 soused sea bream and 15 large salted eels, followed by 104 roasted capon livers and sweet pastry tarts filled with the spleens of sea bass, trout and pike. The book changes the way a traveler reads an Italian menu.

The Great Beauty, directed by Paolo Sorrentino

Although its director is Neapolitan, this Oscar-winning 2013 film is set in Rome and works as a contemporary counterpart to La Dolce Vita. Jep Gambardella, played by Toni Servillo, is an aging hedonistic journalist who longs for his former glory and begins to see through his bourgeois world. After a raucous rooftop party for his 65th birthday, Roman ennui sends Jep searching for beauty beyond the vanity around him.

The Neapolitan Novels

Elena Ferrante's four novels, published from 2012 to 2015 and adapted into an HBO series, portray postwar Naples beyond postcard beauty. Their rough rione, or district, is grim and violent as well as vivid. Across the four books, friendship and Italian society become inseparable, and the pseudonymous author follows the lifelong bond and inner lives of Elena and Lila through palatial and squalid settings in Naples and elsewhere in Italy.

1992, 1993 and 1994

The 10-episode political series 1992 and its follow-ups 1993 and 1994 originally aired in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Together they follow six intertwined lives during the upheaval of early-1990s Italy. The Mani Pulite, or Clean Hands, investigation led by prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro helped bring down the First Republic; the Tangentopoli, or Bribesville, scandal shook the country, while marketing man Stefano Accorsi sees an opening for an outsider. Silvio Berlusconi and his populist Forza Italia party then enter the story.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (2021-22)

In this CNN production, Italian-American actor Stanley Tucci travels through the regions on a culinary and cultural journey. The first series visits six regions, their cities and productive hinterlands. Around Naples and the Amalfi Coast he visits a San Marzano tomato farm in Vesuvius's shadow and watches mozzarella being made. In Rome he tastes imaginative quinto-quarto offal as well as rigatoni all'amatriciana and carbonara rich with guanciale. Tuscany, Bologna and Milan bring bistecca alla Fiorentina, highly sought-after Parmigiano-Reggiano and a stylish Milanese aperitivo. The series ends in Sicily with young female vintner Arianna Occhipinti.

Making the most of your euros

Transportation

Italy's state-backed rail network now faces a private rival. Italo concentrates on major high-speed links such as Rome-Naples, Florence-Venice and Milan-Bologna, rather than local routes. Competition between Italo and Trenitalia has produced price battles that benefit passengers: depending on the departure time and how far ahead you buy, high-speed tickets can be remarkably good value.

The regionali are different. These trains connect cities, carry many commuters and reach less-visited towns, but they are habitually late and almost always crowded. The combination is hardest in high season, when patience becomes an essential part of the journey.

Food and drink

Bars usually charge one price when you stand and another when you sit. Standing is cheaper; sitting costs more but gives you time to relax and watch the world go by. For lunch, Italians often choose a simple sandwich. Popular panino shops can signal quality through a long queue, while a salumeria will make a fresh sandwich from bread, cheese and/or cold cuts without expensive extras.

Sights

Italy has plenty of excellent free sights. Book the Vatican Museums, the Uffizi and Florence's Accademia ahead whenever possible, but remember that many artistic treasures are in churches and most churches can be entered without a charge. Some of Caravaggio's best work is in Rome's churches. Official audio guides help when you want a route through a collection, while museum guidebooks offer a useful alternative to joining an organised tour. Walking through centri storici, or historic centres, is free and rewarding: seek out piazzas, climb towers and look for views.

Lodging

High season generally runs from Easter to mid-October. Florence can feel almost private in November or February, while most Italian cities are very busy over the Christmas holiday, which starts around Christmas and runs to January 6. Hotels in cities may offer bargains in July and August because many residents leave for the coast or mountains, but the savings come with intense heat and very large crowds. If you choose those months, access to a pool and/or air-conditioning matters.

Airbnb and similar home-sharing stays can still help a budget: options range from a sofa to a private room, sometimes with an en suite bathroom, or an entire apartment or house. Prices have risen in recent years, and a popular location can cost more than a hotel, but refrigerators and kitchens can reduce the need to eat out for every meal. Whatever type of lodging you choose, book sooner rather than later because earlier reservations often bring better deals.