Italian Holidays: Travel Notes

On the cannon whose sound does not elicit fear, but rather, enchants. On the ceremony awarding the keys to the city to a rather exceptional governor. On that boy from Genoa who dreamed of sailing across seas, his quest for funds, his unlikely crew, and the impossible ocean storms. On the most beautiful road in the world, today a UNESCO World Heritage site. On Fra Girolamo Savonarolas government in Florence during Medicean times. On the Venetian rooms of the Inquisition and Tintorettos painting. On the apostles words in Leonardos painting of the Last Supper. On rotating banquet halls: the coenatio rotunda of the imperial Domus Aurea. On the locations of the Roman Holiday movie and the story of a young Roman noblewoman of the 1600s. On the black tulip in the gardens of Cardinal Scipione Borghese. On how the stadium was closed for ten years in 59 CE, after the match between Pompeii and Nuceria. On the water features of a villa built in the 1500s.