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Florence, Venice, and Rome? Forget about it! Admittedly, these richly endowed (albeit over-touristed) Italian cities are destinations every traveler needs to visit at least once in a lifetime—probably more than once. But for those who want to experience smaller towns that still remain authentic and unvarnished by hoards of tourists, here are three...

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The Royal Palace of Capodimonte (in Italian, Reggia di Capodimonte) was built in 1738 by will of Charles VII king of Naples and Sicily, who made it his hunting lodge near Naples. It served as royal palace for the House of Bourbon as well as for French sovereigns Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, and finally for the Savoy family, who lived here un...

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“Is it okay,” I asked, “to put my hand here?” “Here” was Jesus’ brown hair, on a 700-year-old fresco of the crucifixion, in a cave church in Puglia, Italy. In the fresco, Jesus’ eyes were depicted as closed, giving the portrait an oddly serene feel. My task at the moment was to use a scalpel to scrape away calcium deposits on the right eye (a spide...

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Langhe and Roero, an area in the Cuneo province located only 70 kilometres from Turin offers a gastronomic delight that is unparalleled in the world. Though Langhe and Roero’s main draw has been food and grape beverage for years, culture, art, nature and outdoor activities are fast taking up second place. This diversification has allowed for an inc...

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Last year, we had some leftover airline credit on Norwegian Airlines. On the day it was set to expire, in a panic, I asked my four-year-old son, Holt, where we should go. “I love pasta!” he said. “But not with red sauce.”  In retrospect, perhaps I should not have organized an entire trip around trying to prove to my four-year-old that he did, in fa...

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The Civic Temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Crowned was built in a “lost” corner of Lodi, a suburb where love was sold for money and violent fights regularly broke out in the streets. One day in 1487, a miracle happened: a small 14th-century effigy of Mary, inside the local brothel, shed a tear for the human desolation that surrounded it, expre...

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The house was built in 1479 for aristocrat Giovanni Dario. His daughter Marietta and her husband Vincenzo later inherited the house. Vincenzo was stabbed to death, and Marietta died by suicide in the Grand Canal not long after. Shortly after these tragedies, their son Vincenzo Jr. was killed in Crete by assassins. The cursed house claimed another v...

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The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw Tuscany rise on textile manufacturing and trading along with the bankers of this region developing bookkeeping theories and practices that form the basis of modern banking. Siena, then the Republic of Siena, was one of the most-wealthy, self-governing city-states found in what is today a unified Italy. Si...

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Bomarzo is a town just over 42 miles northwest of Rome in the province of Viterbo that holds a surprise for the visitor willing to go against the grain of the average tourist. About 400 feet below the historic town center is a place here where creatures are gigantic, where mouths of monsters can swallow you alive, where a tilted house leans so far...

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The Apennine Mountains have been a place of passage for everyone from the Ancient Romans to Second World War soldiers. “Hiking in the Apennines is walking through living history,” says Veron McClure, founder of Italiaoutdoors. “The different ecozones and ancient routes offer a different perspective of Italy, a more authentic experience of history a...

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