Ciao Bella!

 

Cultural heritance

Above all Italy is a country full of art and cultural history. There are few countries that have so much to offer in this area. In fact Italy is just one big museum and the country has great difficulty in maintaining this vast amount of cultural heritage for future generations. Naturally Roman remains can be found scattered all over but in the centuries that followed the Roman reign Italy was a centre for art, often at the command of the ecclesiastical leaders. The frescos in Assisi, the mosaics at Ravenna, the sculptures in Rome and the complete cities of Florence and Rome are art treasures of incredible worth. And not only for the tourists.

 

The founder of tourism

Besides its art treasures, Italy has another unique feature: it is known as the oldest holiday destination in Europe. Even before the word tourist was invented, rich people from England and Germany travelled to Italy for the art, culture, mountain sports and its pleasant climate.

Many of the villas to be found around Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore once belonged to well known royals, artists and politicians who were, in fact, the first tourists in Italy. They have since been converted to campsites in Italy. The wants of the modern tourist does not differ so much from their illustrious predecessors. Camping in Italy still comes up trumps. The mountains and lakes of the north, beaches in all shapes and sizes, the incomparable Tuscany, historic cities full of architectural highlights and, above all, a wonderful climate – camping in Italy has it all. It can get quite warm in southern parts during the summer and those from the north say the south is its poor relative but camping is lovely there too..

Campsites in Italy »
 

Ladies boot

Italy is a large, yet fairly narrow, country shaped like a ladies boot. Is it just a coincidence that the shoe industry and everything to do with design and fashion flourishes in Italy? The distance from Milan to the most southern point of the boot is greater than the distance from Milan to London. It is therefore natural to expect a vast variety of scenery, climate zones and inhabitants.

However there’s yet another difference between north and south. The wealth of the Italian economy is to be found in the prosperous north whereas the south, by comparison, sometimes resembles a third world country. The divide lies just below Tuscany with Rome included in the northern territory. Naples however is a ‘poor area’, along with the island of Sicily, which is found at the point of the boot. No small wonder that the exodus of Italian immigrants at the start of the 20th century came mainly from these areas. Sometimes it seems that almost every American Italian has a grandmother

 

Campsites in Italy »