Cultural Journeys in Italy

37 Days Across Europe · Days 16–19 of 37 · Rome, Italy Six days in Rome. Three guided day tours. One Pompeii. One Sorrento. One Colosseum. And the quiet, accumulating realisation that Rome is a city you cannot finish, not in a week, not in a month, possibly not in a lifetime. Rome from the rooftops. Terracotta tiles, rooftop gardens, domes stacked behind domes. St Peter's visible in the middle distance. The orange pennant cuts through the grey sky. This is the Rome that exist

37 Days Across Europe · Day 15 of 37 · Vatican City & Rome Easter weekend. The world's smallest country, the world's greatest museum, and the mild chaos of arriving at precisely the wrong time. Still completely worth it. Cortile della Pigna, Vatican Museums. The giant first-century bronze pine cone — Pigna — in the courtyard of the Vatican Museums, housed in a Renaissance hemispherical niche. A lion at the base of the stairs. A completely improbable sky. This is Rome est

37 Days Across Europe · Day 14 of 37 · Rome, Italy A city where you turn a corner and find two thousand years of history stacked on top of each other — and the Spanish Steps are somehow still full of people checking their phones. Rome, from the rooftops. The view from the upper levels of the city's centre — terracotta tiles, rooftop gardens, scaffolding, domes. Michelangelo's St Peter's visible in the distance. The Rome that exists above street level is a different city

37 Days Across Europe · Day 13 of 37 · Florence, Last Day No agenda, no museums, no reservations. Just Florence doing what Florence does best — being completely itself, to anyone willing to walk slowly enough to notice. Acoustic Sound Unit, Piazza della Repubblica. A band setting up under the triumphal arch — djembe, guitar, the whole production laid out on the flagstones. The Pensione Pendini visible above, the Apple Store to the left. Florence, 9am. There is something

37 Days Across Europe · Days 11–13 of 37 · Siena · San Gimignano · Pisa A day out of Florence. Siena's medieval gravity, San Gimignano's towers, a wine lunch somewhere in between — and the obligatory lean. SIENNA Piazza del Campo, Siena. The Torre del Mangia at 87 metres against a moving Tuscan sky. Two figures cross the brickwork far below — everything in the right proportion. There is a version of the Tuscany day trip that a lot of travellers do from Florence. They book

Three nights in the cradle of the Renaissance. A detour to Pisa. And the greatest steak of the journey. A man on a bicycle cuts through Piazza San Lorenzo — five centuries of stone and a single moment of ordinary life. Milan talks loudly. It announces itself in tram bells and Aperol spritzes and the audacious marble of the Duomo. It wants to be seen, and it earns that. Florence does not announce itself. Florence waits. It lets you walk the first hour convinced you understand