Italy - Matera

Matera is a town and a province in the region of Basilicata, in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Matera.

Matera has gained international fame for its ancient town, the "Sassi di Matera" (meaning "stones of Matera"). The Sassi originate from a prehistoric (troglodyte) settlement, and are suspected to be some of the first human settlements in Italy.

The Sassi are houses dug into the calcareous rock itself, which is characteristic of Basilicata and Apulia. Many of these "houses" are really only caverns, and the streets in some parts of the Sassi often are located on the rooftops of other houses. The ancient town grew in height on one slope of the ravine created by a river that is now a small stream. The ravine is known locally as "la Gravina".

In the 1950s, the government of Italy forcefully relocated most of the population of the Sassi to areas of the developing modern city. However, people continued to live in the Sassi, and according to the English Fodor's guide: "Matera is the only place in the world where people can boast to be still living in the same houses of their ancestors of 9,000 years ago."

Until the late 1980s this was considered an area of poverty, since these houses were, and in most areas still are, mostly unlivable. Current local administration, however, has become more tourism-oriented, and has promoted the re-generation of the Sassi with the aid of the European Union, the government, UNESCO, and Hollywood. Today there are many thriving businesses, pubs, and hotels.

One of the benefits of the ancient city, is that there is a great similarity in the look of the Sassi with that of ancient sites in and around Jerusalem. This has caught the eye of film directors and movie studios.

Italy - Agrigento - Valle dei Templi

Agrigento is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, and capital of the province of Agrigento. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas (also known as Acragas in Greek, Agrigentum in Latin and Kerkent in Arabic), one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden age of Ancient Greece.

The Valle dei Templi (Valley of the Temples) is an archaeological site in Agrigento (ancient Greek Akragas), Sicily, southern Italy. It is one of the most outstanding examples of Greater Greece art and architecture, and is one of the main attractions of Sicily as well as a national monument of Italy. The area was included in the UNESCO Heritage Site list in 1997. Much of the excavation and restoration of the temples was due to the efforts of archaeologist Domenico Antonio Lo Faso Pietrasanta (1783-1863), who was the Duke of Serradifalco from 1809 through 1812.
The term "valley" is a misnomer, the site being located on a ridge outside the town of Agrigento.

Italy - Pompei

Pompei is a partly buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in 79 AD. The eruption buried Pompeii under 4 to 6 meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for over 1,500 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1599. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with approximately 2,500,000 visitors every year.

Italy – Pisa – Campo dei Miracoli

The Piazza del Duomo (“Cathedral Square”) is a wide, walled area at the heart of the city of Pisa, Tuscany, Italy, recognized as one of the main centers for medieval art in the world. Partly paved and partly grassed, it is dominated by four great religious edifices: the Duomo, the Leaning Tower (the cathedral’s campanile), the Baptistry and the Camposanto.

It is otherwise known as Piazza dei Miracoli (“Square of Miracles”). This name was created by the Italian writer and poet Gabriele d’Annunzio who, in his novel Forse che si forse che no (1910) described the square in this way:

L’Ardea roteò nel cielo di Cristo, sul prato dei Miracoli.

which means: “The Ardea rotated over the sky of Christ, over the meadow of Miracles.”

In 1987 the whole square was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Italy - Duino Castle

Duino Castle, lies in the coastal village of the same name, north of the city of Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in Italy.
It was built during the 14th century on the orders of the Waldsee family on the ruins of a Roman military outpost, called Castellum Pucinum.
In the 15th century the castle was nearly completely destroyed by the Turks. In 1483 its owner Ramberto III of Waldsee died and the castle passed to the House of Austria. After having fallen into Venetian hands the castle was reconquered in 1508 by the Emperor Maximillian who donated it to Giovanni Hofer. The square keep was built in the 16th century. In the 17th century the castle went to the princely Von Thurn und Taxis family whose descendants still own and reside in the castle.
From the 17th up until the 20th century this family played host to a lot of very renowned guests in their castle; Johann Strauss and Franz Liszt, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi), the Habsburg Archduke Maximillian and his bride Charlotte of Belgium, the Counts of Chambord, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Mark Twain, Rainer Maria Rilke and more recently the British Prince Charles.
During World War II the castle was used by the Germans who, in 1943, contructed a bunker in the rocks next to the castle to defend the nearby naval base of Sistiana to a possible Allied attack. After the war the British used the bunker as a fuel store.

Like other ancient castles, Duino too had its own legend. In our case it is the legend about the White Lady. At one time a knight lived at Duino fort. He was a very nasty man, who disdained his consort, because she was very graceful and virtuous. His dislike for her turned into hatred, and one evening he attracted her to a rock above the sea, so that he could descend her into the depth. Horrified the chatelaine looked toward the sky, and tried to cry out, but something hindered her to express her horror and she remained petrified in her great pain. Since then, towards midnight, the White Lady gets up from the cliffs and begins to wander about in the castle's rooms, until she finds the cradle, in which once upon a time her son slept. There, she remains in silence until daybreak. Then, she returns to the rock, where the pain transforms her anew into the stone.The rock called White Lady is to be found under the ancient Duino castle, which was erected on a rocky hill somewhat lower in respect to the present-day castle. Only the ruins remained from the castle. Because of its whiteness, this rock is called Dama Bianca and when the fishermen are active in the Gulf of Trieste, it serves them as an orientation sign, when an unexpected tempest surprises them at sea.