Italy has held the top of the UNESCO World Heritage list for years, and the sites cover everything from single buildings to whole landscapes: the historic centres of Rome, Florence, Siena, Naples, Urbino and Matera; Pompeii and Herculaneum; the Dolomites; the Prosecco hills; the Amalfi Coast; the Val d'Orcia; the trulli of Alberobello; Su Nuraxi in Sardinia; and the Arab-Norman itinerary of Palermo, Cefalù and Monreale.
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If you only do 5 things on this theme.
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Pompeii A Roman town stopped mid-morning on 24 October AD 79 -
Matera A city carved into a ravine and lived in for 9,000 years -
Alberobello Fifteen hundred conical trulli, and a UNESCO site since 1996 -
Val d'Orcia The cypress-lined hills that are the Tuscany of every photograph -
Su Nuraxi di Barumini The finest of Sardinia's 7,000 bronze-age nuraghi, and a UNESCO site
Everywhere else on this theme
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Rome Three thousand years of city, still lived in at full volume -
Florence The Renaissance in one walkable square mile -
Venice A city on 118 islands, with no roads and no equal -
Naples Loud, layered and the birthplace of pizza -
Bologna 40 km of porticoes, the oldest university in Europe, and the best eating in Italy -
Palermo Arab-Norman palaces, street food and Sicily's rowdy capital -
Verona A Roman arena that still stages opera every summer -
Genoa A maritime republic's palaces above Europe's densest old town -
Siena A Gothic city built around the shell-shaped Campo -
Pisa The Field of Miracles, and a real city behind it -
Padua Giotto's chapel, Europe's oldest botanical garden and a student city - Vicenza Palladio's home town — an architectural textbook you can walk
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Ferrara A moated castle, Renaissance town planning and bicycles everywhere -
Modena Balsamic vinegar, a Romanesque cathedral and Ferrari next door -
Ravenna The best Byzantine mosaics outside Istanbul -
Catania Black lava baroque under Etna, and Sicily's best fish market -
Syracuse Ortigia's island old town and the greatest Greek theatre in Sicily -
Noto The set-piece of Sicilian late baroque, rebuilt after the 1693 quake -
Ragusa Two towns on two hills — Ibla is the beautiful one -
Agrigento The base for the Valley of the Temples — Italian Capital of Culture 2025 -
Assisi St Francis's town, and Giotto's frescoes above his tomb -
Urbino The ideal Renaissance court, and Raphael's birthplace -
Cortina d'Ampezzo The Queen of the Dolomites — and a 2026 Olympic host -
Bergamo A Venetian-walled upper town above the Lombard plain -
Brescia A Roman forum, a Lombard monastery and Franciacorta on the doorstep -
Mantua A Gonzaga capital on three lakes, with Mantegna in the palace -
Positano Pastel houses stacked down a cliff to a grey-sand beach -
Ravello Two garden terraces 350 m above the Amalfi Coast, and a summer festival -
San Gimignano Fourteen surviving medieval tower-houses on a Tuscan ridge - Pienza The first planned Renaissance town, in the middle of the Val d'Orcia
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La Spezia The practical, affordable base for the Cinque Terre -
Alba The Langhe's capital — white truffles, Barolo and a hundred towers once -
Aeolian Islands Seven volcanic islands off northern Sicily — one of them still erupting -
Palmaria & Portovenere The UNESCO bookend to the Cinque Terre, with three islands offshore -
Colosseum The largest amphitheatre ever built, and still the symbol of Rome -
Roman Forum & Palatine Hill The civic centre of the ancient world, and the hill Rome was founded on -
Pantheon The best-preserved building of ancient Rome — and still the largest unreinforced concrete dome on earth -
Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Seven kilometres of galleries ending at Michelangelo's ceiling -
St Peter's Basilica The largest church in the world, over the tomb of the apostle -
Villa d'Este, Tivoli Five hundred fountains on a hillside, all powered by gravity -
Hadrian's Villa An emperor's 120-hectare private city outside Rome -
Cerveteri Etruscan Necropolis A city of Etruscan tombs laid out with streets and squares - Tarquinia Painted Tombs Six thousand rock-cut tombs, two hundred of them frescoed
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Uffizi Gallery Botticelli's Birth of Venus, and the greatest Renaissance collection anywhere -
Florence Duomo & Brunelleschi's Dome The largest masonry dome ever built, raised without a supporting frame -
Pitti Palace & Boboli Gardens The Medici's later home, with the garden that set the model for Versailles -
Leaning Tower of Pisa A bell tower that started tilting during construction in 1173 -
Piazza del Campo The shell-shaped square the Palio is run around, twice each summer -
St Mark's Basilica Eight thousand square metres of gold mosaic, over a stolen apostle -
Doge's Palace The seat of the Venetian Republic, and the Bridge of Sighs -
Verona Arena A first-century amphitheatre that stages a full opera season every summer -
Scrovegni Chapel Giotto's complete fresco cycle of 1305 — the start of Western painting -
Villa La Rotonda Palladio's most copied building — the model for a thousand porticoes -
Prosecco Hills of Conegliano & Valdobbiadene Vertiginous vine terraces, a UNESCO landscape since 2019 -
Tre Cime di Lavaredo Three vertical towers of pale dolomite — the emblem of the range -
Alpe di Siusi Europe's largest high alpine meadow, under the Sciliar -
Brenta Dolomites The Dolomites' western outpost, and the birthplace of the via ferrata -
Val di Fassa & the Marmolada The Ladin valley under the Dolomites' highest peak and only glacier -
Leonardo's Last Supper A wall in a refectory, seen 35 people at a time by advance booking only -
Bergamo Città Alta A walled upper town reached by funicular — Venetian walls, UNESCO-listed -
Herculaneum Smaller than Pompeii, buried deeper — and with the upper floors still standing -
Mount Vesuvius The only active volcano on mainland Europe, with a walkable crater rim -
Amalfi Coast Fifty kilometres of terraced cliff, lemon groves and hairpin corniche -
Paestum Three Doric temples better preserved than almost anything in Greece -
Cilento National Park Mountains, an empty coast and the birthplace of the Mediterranean diet -
Certosa di Padula One of the largest monasteries in Europe, with a 350-column cloister -
Reggia di Caserta The largest royal palace in the world by volume, with a 3 km water axis -
Castel del Monte Frederick II's octagonal puzzle of a castle, alone on a Puglian hill -
Gargano & the Foresta Umbra An ancient beech forest on the spur of Italy, above sea stacks and coves -
Monte Sant'Angelo A cave sanctuary to the Archangel Michael, on the pilgrim road since 490 -
Murgia Materana Park The ravine opposite Matera, with 150 rock-cut churches in it -
Valley of the Temples Eight Doric temples on a ridge above Agrigento, built from 510 BC -
Mount Etna Europe's highest and most active volcano, at around 3,350 m and rising -
Monreale Cathedral 6,500 m² of Byzantine gold mosaic in a Norman cathedral above Palermo -
Cappella Palatina The Norman kings' chapel — Byzantine mosaics under an Arab wooden ceiling -
Cefalù A Norman cathedral, a crag and a beach — all in one small town -
Ortigia & the Neapolis of Syracuse A baroque island old town, and the largest Greek theatre in Sicily behind it -
Villa Romana del Casale 3,500 m² of Roman floor mosaic, preserved by a landslide -
Ravenna's Byzantine Mosaics Eight UNESCO monuments — San Vitale and Galla Placidia above all -
The Two Towers, Bologna Asinelli and Garisenda — the survivors of a medieval skyline of a hundred towers -
Comacchio & the Po Delta Canals, eel fisheries and Italy's biggest wetland bird reserve -
Langhe, Barolo & Barbaresco UNESCO vineyard hills, the white truffle capital, and Italy's greatest reds -
Reggia di Venaria Reale A Savoy hunting palace the size of a town, restored after decades as a barracks -
Cinque Terre Five cliff villages joined by footpaths, terraces and a railway - Palazzi dei Rolli, Genoa Forty-two Renaissance palaces that took turns hosting visiting heads of state
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Basilica of St Francis, Assisi Two churches stacked over the saint's tomb, frescoed by Giotto and Cimabue -
Ducal Palace, Urbino Federico da Montefeltro's court, with Piero della Francesca's Flagellation -
Aquileia Basilica The largest early-Christian floor mosaic in the West, laid around 320 AD -
Cividale del Friuli Julius Caesar's foundation, and the Lombards' first Italian capital
The regions that deliver on it
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Piedmont Barolo, white truffles, royal Turin and the Alps at the foot of the plain - Liguria The Italian Riviera — Cinque Terre, Portofino and pesto's home port
- Lombardy Milan, the great lakes and the Alps of Valtellina
- South Tyrol German-speaking Italy under the Dolomites
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Trentino Dolomite valleys, Lake Garda's northern tip and Italy's alpine lakes - Veneto Venice, Verona, Palladio's villas and the Dolomites of Cortina
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Friuli Venezia Giulia Habsburg Trieste, Roman Aquileia and Italy's finest white wines -
Emilia-Romagna Parmigiano, prosciutto, Ferrari and Ravenna's mosaics - Tuscany The Renaissance, the Chianti hills and the coast most visitors miss
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Umbria The green heart of Italy — Assisi, hill towns and no coastline -
Marche Renaissance Urbino, the Conero cliffs and the Sibillini mountains - Lazio Rome and the Vatican — and Etruscan tombs, volcanic lakes and a coast
- Campania Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and the islands of the bay
- Puglia Trulli, baroque Lecce, whitewashed towns and two seas
- Basilicata Matera's cave city, the Lucanian Dolomites and a sliver of Tyrrhenian coast
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Sicily Greek temples, Arab-Norman Palermo, Etna and its own archipelagos - Sardinia Caribbean-clear water, 7,000 nuraghi and a mountain interior
Other ways to travel Italy
- Art & culture More UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country on earth
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Food & wine Regional to the point of parochial — and all the better for it -
Coast & islands 7,900 km of coastline and around eighty inhabited islands -
Italian lakes Como, Garda, Maggiore — the Grand Tour's original destination - Mountains & the Dolomites The Dolomites, the western Alps and the wild Apennines
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Borghi & villages The hill towns that carry I Borghi più belli d'Italia and the Orange Flag -
Nature & national parks 25 national parks, from alpine glaciers to volcanic islands - Spirituality & pilgrimage Rome, Assisi, and the pilgrim roads that connect them
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Thermal baths & wellness Volcanic Italy's other output — hot water, since the Romans -
Sport & the outdoors Dolomiti Superski, the Giro's climbs and Garda's windsurfing -
Shopping & markets Milan's Quadrilatero, Florence's leather and the weekly market habit - Events & festivals The Palio, Carnevale, the Biennale and an opera season in a Roman arena
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Luxury Italy Portofino, the Costa Smeralda, Capri and the great lake villas