What to visit in Italy ?

Italy runs by its own rules of time: an espresso is drunk standing at the bar in three minutes, but a Sunday meal can last four hours without anyone glancing at a watch. That particular relationship with slowness and care - in cooking, in craftsmanship, in conversation - is what really sets the country apart, far more than its museums or ruins.

The peninsula covers very different realities depending on where you are. The North takes in the Alps, the Po plain and cities like Turin, Milan or Bologna, with a dense industrial and food culture. The Centre, around Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches, offers countryside worked over centuries. The South - Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata - and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia run on a different logic, slower, drier, often ignored by classic circuits.