Story#64
Coffee standing up
A coffee at the bar cost one euro and took ninety seconds. Sitting at the table cost three times as much. The barman explained this as if it were a law of physics.
Italy
More UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country, and a city built on a petrified forest.
11 entries · 5 stories, 6 fun facts
Italy at a glance
The practical numbers, before the stories.
- Capital
- Rome
- Currency
- Euro (EUR)
- Official language
- Italian
- Climate
- Mediterranean on the coasts, humid continental in the Po valley, alpine in the north.
- Best time to go
- April–June and September–October
- Time zone
- UTC+1 (UTC+2 in summer)
- Driving side
- Right
- Plugs and voltage
- Type C / F / L, 230 V
Worth knowing: Historic centres are ringed by ZTL restricted-traffic zones enforced by camera. Fines arrive by post months later.
Planning a trip to Italy
The decisions that determine whether the trip works, whichever country you are going to.
Italy holds more World Heritage sites than anywhere else, from Roman ruins to entire mountain villages. Venice stands on millions of alder logs driven into lagoon mud that petrified instead of rotting. Pompeii has been dug for over 250 years and roughly a third is still deliberately buried, left for archaeologists with better tools.
The entries here include the coffee that costs one euro standing and three sitting, the alley that ends in water with no bridge, and the two hours in February when it snowed on the Forum and the whole city stopped. Italy is best travelled slowly and eaten standing up.
Entries from Italy
Story#66
The alley that ended in water
We followed a map for eleven minutes and arrived at a wall of canal with no bridge. A woman leaning out of a window above us laughed, pointed backwards, and held up four fingers. Four turns later we were at the restaurant.
Story#70
Snow in the ruins
It snowed in Rome for two hours one February morning. The Forum went white, every phone in the city came out at once, and by lunchtime it was gone as if the city had imagined it.
Fun fact#72
Italy has the most heritage sites
Italy holds more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country, ranging from Roman ruins to entire mountain villages.
Fun fact#75
Rome throws coins by the tonne
Around a million euros in coins is fished out of the Trevi Fountain each year and donated to charity.
Fun fact#76
Venice is built on a forest
Venice stands on millions of alder logs driven into the lagoon mud. Starved of oxygen, the wood petrified instead of rotting.
Fun fact#79
Pompeii is still being dug
After more than 250 years of excavation, roughly a third of Pompeii remains buried, deliberately left for future archaeologists with better tools.
Story#311
A festival that found us
We arrived in a village for lunch and left at midnight. Nobody told us it was the patron saint's day, and nobody could believe we had turned up by accident.
Story#336
The gondolier's shortcut
He avoided the Grand Canal entirely and took us through back canals where the water was green and the walls were close enough to touch. He sang exactly nothing and it was better.
Fun fact#958
Venice has no street addresses as we know them
Venetian addresses use a sestiere and a number that can run into the thousands, which is why locals navigate by landmark.
Fun fact#991
Rome has a key hole with three countries
Look through the keyhole on the Aventine Hill and you see a garden in Italy, a dome in Vatican City and an avenue owned by the Order of Malta.
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Italy is one of 36 countries in the library. Read straight through a continent, or start from the map of everywhere we have written about.