Vesuvio

Mount Vesuvio (around 1270 m high), glimmering above the bay of Naples, is the only remaining active volcano on the European continent. In 79AD, a tremendous eruption caught the citizens of Pompeii completely unawares. Since then, several eruptions have changed the shape of Vesuvio. The last great eruption was recorded on 20 March 1944. Mineral-rich lava made the mountainside soil very fertile so that, despite the threat of the next big bang, the slopes of Vesuvio are tilled for vegetables and wine grapes.  

Siena

Visitors to the Piazza del Campo will immediately be impressed by the elegant Palazzo publico (1287-1355) with its 102 m high Torre del Mangia on the left. Its architect had to swear a solemn oath that the building would not fall down in 2000 years. Notice the one-handed clock. In those days, all clocks had only one hand. The front of the Town Hall is emblazoned with a brass "Jesus" trigram commemorating Saint Bernard's sermons here in 1427. From 2 July to 16 August each year; the Piazza del Campo is the historic setting of the renowned "Palio", a folk festival with riders, horses, flag-dancers and period costume.

Calabria

Holidays in Calabria mean more than anything else, the sea. Because of the over seven hundred kilometres of coast washed by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas, extraordinarily near and opposing, a coastline that alternates long stretches of beaches and bays, cliffs and headlands of incomparable beauty. Indeed, we can boast of having about a tenth of the entire coastal profile of the Italian Peninsula and in few other regions can you feel such a strong sensation of being close to the sea as in Calabria. 

Yet, despite such a strong marine character, Calabria is also much more. Its mountains ranges, with alpine scenery, forests and solemn highlands, endless coniferous woods, higher up, glades and woods of beech trees in muffled silence, together with superbly fascinating lakes and watercourses, offer surprisingly Nordic scenery.

There are still vast expanses of uncontaminated nature with rare species of wild flora and fauna, like wolves and many migratory birds. The protected areas are the most precious: Calabria has a network of parks and reserves - land and marine - that have no equal in the South and that aims at becoming completely functional. 

But the Region also holds art and  cultural treasures equivalent to the role of a crossroads of peoples that it has always covered throughout its history. A borderland between East and West and between North and South, it has always been a compulsory stopover, a place of transit and encounter, for Italy, Europe, the Mediterranean. 

Maybe in no other land have Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs, Suevians and Normans, Byzantines, Spanish and French, not forgetting Albanians and Piedmontese, left in such relatively small confines so many traces of their presence. In some ways the entire region is an uninterrupted park of archaeological findings and cultural heritage. 

Ans so also the language and traditions and folklore, handcraft and cultivations, widely testify that in Calabria there has been a stratification and mixture of influences, culture and traditions, mostly still alive and flourishing, and in some cases, still to be discovered. 

The same can be said for the food and wine: Calabria is, even from the gourmet point of view, the land of contrasts and identity, and today still offers, despite the overwhelming pressure towards standardisation, so many occasions for surprise and wonder. 

So here one can still savour the taste for being, not so much tourists, but travellers, explorers. Paraphrasing our land's great writer Corrado Alvaro who upheld that the Calabrians want to be spoken, one may declare that Calabria wants to be travelled.