Archive for 'Tourist Attractions'

There are many lovely and scenic parts of Italy. It is an incredibly beautiful place with a very varied landscape from the Alps to Mediterranean shores and everything in between. However, one of the most famously beautiful parts of Italy is the area in and around Lake Como, which has solidified its popularity as a holiday destination. In particular, the Parco della Val Sanagra, is a wonderful protected natural park that lies in this area. If you have found a vacation rental in Lombardy and are looking for somewhere to hike, breathe in the cleanest of fresh air, admire the beauty of nature, and enjoy a relaxed and healing natural setting, then it is absolutely ideal.

Many people, decades on, remain fascinated by the Kennedys and the style icon that was Jackie Kennedy, in particular. As a result, places that they visited, in both official and unofficial capacities, are tourist attractions in their own right today. If you have found a vacation rental in Ravello and you have an interest in the Kennedys, it may sweeten the whole thing for you to know that the First Lady once came for a long stay in this beautiful seaside city in Italy.

In honour of this famous visit, the city is putting on a documentary exhibition that recalls this moment in history. "Welcome Jackie" is the name of the documentary exhibition curated by architect Francesco Fortunato and it recalls the story of Jackie Kennedy's long stay in Ravello in the summer of 1962, upon the advice of the famous American writer Gore Vidal who was a distant relative of the First Lady and a frequent visitor to Italy who was particularly impressed by the beauty of Ravello.

The Tuscan Coast is dotted by lots of incredible surprises and little gems, among them being the vibrant seaside city of Viareggio in the Province of Livorno and its epic Carnival celebrations and the famous Elba Island, to which Napoleon was notoriously exiled. Not far from Elba is another, lesser-known delight, the island of Pianosa. One of the smallest islands in the Tuscan Archipelago, it is an almost entirely uninhabited beauty located in the glimmering Tyrrhenian Sea and is a must-see for those who have found a vacation rental on the Tuscan Coast and are interested in exploring the most interesting and lovely hidden corners of the area.

So incredibly flat that it is barely visible, and often described merely as looking like a darker blue line in the sea, Pianosa was first inhabited in the late Stone Age and then was a Roman settlement before Pisa and Genoa began to fight over the land in the 12th and 13th centuries. Variously inhabited by pirates, fishing colonies, and military officers, the island became a maximum security prison in 1868 and remained home to prisoners, with many particularly dangerous Mafia criminals among them, until 1998. Upon the closure of the prison, almost everyone left with just a few people remaining on the island today.

If you have found your perfect vacation rental in Veneto and are thinking about spending some time exploring the wider region and all that it has to offer, then you should definitely ensure to set aside a day to head the few kilometres just outside of the city of Verona to the Moreniche hills overlooking Lake Garda, where you’ll find the Parco Giardino Sigurtà. Often listed as one of the most beautiful gardens in the world and with good reason, it is a truly breath-taking place and a perfectly idyllic spot to get well and truly away from the humdrum surroundings of daily life to experience something utterly refreshing and rather extraordinary.

First established as a park all the way back in 1617 and now combined with a modern garden, the park was sold by its last owner, Dr Carlo Sigurtà, in 1941 and was then opened to the public in 1978. It extends over a whopping 600,000 square meters and is made up of a diverse landscape including woodlands, a medicinal herb garden, a grotto, 18 (yes, eighteen!) flowering ornamental lakes, incredible fields of flowers, a dog cemetery, the Hermitage, the Great Lawn, the Great Oak, a farm, and more. The scale and variety is utterly staggering and the whole thing is an amazing sight to behold with plenty to keep anyone more than occupied for a day (or several!).

Continuing our wedding series here on Italy Villas, we have been discussing some of our best wedding vacation rentals in Italy. These properties are beautiful, photogenic, can house larger crowds, and are already established as wedding venues. If you have been thinking about a destination wedding in Italy, these are the ideal rentals to pick as lots of the groundwork has already been done for you. In the last post, we spotlighted Palazzo Rosadi near Arezzo but another Tuscan gem that is just as lovely and perfect for a wedding is Villa De Ranieri. This beauty is more luxurious and boasts the most extraordinary gardens and interiors that will ensure that you will enjoy your time and that you will be able to capture the most stunning photographs to commemorate the wedding as well. If you are looking for an excellent vacation rental in Tuscany and want to escape to a perfect Tuscan countryside palace for your wedding in Italy, this is the perfect place to do just that….