The 17 Best Travel Experiences in Italy

The Amalfi Coast is a 50-kilometre stretch of cliffside villages, lemon groves, and impossibly blue Mediterranean sea along the southern edge of the Sorrentine Peninsula.

Perched villages like Positano and Ravello tumble down vertiginous hillsides in a cascade of pastel buildings.

Positano is the Amalfi Coast's poster child: a wall of peach, rose and terracotta houses stacked impossibly steeply between the cliffs and a dark-sand beach.

The classic view, the whole town glowing above Spiaggia Grande, is best from the coast path or from the ferry pulling out.

Below the view it's all lemon groves, boutiques and long seafood lunches.

Cinque Terre is a string of five centuries-old fishing villages clinging to the cliffs of the Italian Riviera, connected by scenic hiking trails above the Ligurian Sea.

Manarola, Vernazza, Corniglia, Monterosso, and Riomaggiore tumble down their respective cliff faces in a cascade of colourful buildings.

Between Florence and Siena, Chianti's rolling hills are stitched with vineyards, olive groves and cypress-lined roads that define the classic image of the Tuscan countryside.

Stone farmhouses and hilltop towns like Greve and Radda anchor a landscape barely changed since medieval times, and the black rooster on Chianti Classico labels marks the region's historic heart.

The Colosseum is the largest amphitheatre ever built and an enduring symbol of the power and ingenuity of ancient Rome.

Completed in 80 AD, it could hold up to 80,000 spectators who came to watch gladiatorial contests, animal hunts, and public spectacles that defined Roman entertainment culture.

For over a thousand years, Venice has marked the weeks before Lent with elaborate porcelain masks and Baroque-era costumes, worn by visitors who pose motionless along the canals and in St Mark's Square as if stepped from a painting.

The Flight of the Angel, where a costumed performer descends by wire from the Campanile into the square, opens the festival each year.

Brunelleschi's magnificent dome crowns Florence's skyline and remains the largest brick dome ever constructed.

Built between 1296 and 1436, the Duomo's terracotta-tiled dome and its ornate campanile have defined the city's silhouette for nearly 600 years.

The cathedral of Venice, a Byzantine pile of domes, marble columns and eight thousand square metres of gold mosaic gathered and looted over eight centuries.

The four bronze horses on the loggia were taken from Constantinople in 1204.

The Pala d Oro behind the altar is set with almost two thousand gemstones.

Restored 1920s and 1930s carriages, all inlaid wood, brass fittings and Art Deco marquetry, carry passengers between London, Paris and Venice aboard the most famous luxury train in the world, evoking the golden age of rail travel that inspired Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Formal dinner is required most evenings aboard.

Tuscany is Italy's most celebrated region, where rolling hills of vineyards and cypress trees, medieval hilltop towns, and Renaissance art create an idealised vision of the Italian countryside.

The Val d'Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with its pale golden hills, isolated farmhouses, and winding white roads, is the part most people have in mind when they think of Tuscany.

The last medieval bridge left on the Arno, lined with jewellers' shops that jut out over the water on timber brackets.

Vasari's covered corridor runs above the shopfronts, linking the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace so the Medici could cross the river without mixing with the city below.

Butchers occupied the shops until 1593, when they were evicted for the smell and replaced by goldsmiths.

The world's smallest sovereign state packs an extraordinary concentration of art and architecture into just 44 hectares.

The colonnaded embrace of St Peter's Square, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Raphael's frescoed Stanze make Vatican City unmissable for art lovers.

Europe's tallest and most active volcano, looming over Sicily's east coast and erupting regularly enough that lava flows are a near-yearly event visible from Catania on clear nights.

Cable cars and 4x4 tours climb partway up its barren, ash-grey upper slopes, where guided hikes reach steaming craters and fields of hardened lava from past eruptions.

Vineyards ring its lower slopes, producing distinctive wines grown in volcanic soil, a striking contrast to the desolation higher up.

Siena is a medieval city in the heart of Tuscany that has preserved its Gothic character more completely than any other city in Italy.

Its fan-shaped main piazza, the Piazza del Campo, is the venue for the famous Palio horse race held twice yearly, and its cathedral, the Duomo, is considered one of the finest Gothic buildings in Italy.

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest and best known of the four crossings of Venice's Grand Canal, a single stone arch completed in 1591 after a succession of wooden predecessors collapsed.

Two rows of shops run the length of its span, and the steps up either side open onto views down the canal in both directions.

The market on the San Polo bank has traded fish and produce for centuries.

The Duomo di Milano is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and took nearly six centuries to complete.

Its rooftop terrace, accessible by lift or stairs, offers a unique up-close view of its 3,400 statues and 135 spires against the Milan skyline.

Italy's largest and most visited theme park, set on the shore of Lake Garda with rides ranging from the classic wooden coaster Fuga da Atlantide to the wolf-themed Fuga di Fantozzi and a dedicated SEA LIFE aquarium.

It pairs naturally with a broader Lake Garda holiday, sitting a short drive from Peschiera del Garda's old town and the lake's beaches.

Newer additions, including a Jurassic Park-themed area, have kept it competitive with the bigger international parks despite a smaller footprint.