The 15 Residenze Reali (Royal Residences), ascribed to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1997, are perfect highlights of art, culture and countryside and they are an artistic and cultural treasure, not only for the region, but also for the whole of Europe.

In Piemonte between castles, fortresses, gardens, palazzos and villas it is possible to discover a large number of itineraries and a region steeped in history and culture.
The exhibition “Castelli aperti” reaches its 14th edition and from April until October makes it possible to visit a hundred jewels of architecture of different epochs and styles, including places usually not accessible to the public.

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Posted by L’Acanto, Italian language school in Mesagne - Puglia.
Web site: www.lacanto.it

Puglia is rich in charming and ancient towns where Romans, Greeks, crusaders and other passed civilisations, left their imprint and much historical evidence on the people, towns and landscape. Coming here, you will feel as if you were taking a walk back in time through the pages of history.

Coming to Puglia, means the opportunity to discover a place unspoiled by tourists, full of long sandy beaches, rugged landscapes, vineyards, old olive groves, castles and local trulli (the unique coned houses, found no where else on earth). What else will you find in Puglia? Well, the answer is a slower pace of life to the one you’re probably used to. This means people have time to stop and chat, to share their hospitality, great Mediterranean food, folklore, passion for music and lively local dances from Puglia. All in all, a place that you can fall in love with.

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Posted by Sorrento Lingue, Italian language school in Sorrento.

Web site: www.sorrentolingue.com

Easter in Sorrento is a special emotion enveloping all the senses. Colors, scents, smells and flavors of this wonderful land characterize your journey in early spring marking the beginning of the tourist season. The guests will feel welcome tasting several cues for thought and pleasure.
Everything seems to be set in order to allow you to better appreciate the wealth of environmental, historical and gastronomic delights that the Sorrento peninsula can offer. We could start by describing the rituals of Holy Week, which are really suggestive in the Sorrento Peninsula.

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Carnival has always been the craziest party of the year and in Tuscany there are ample opportunities to let yourself be carried away by the mood of pranks, silliness and merriment of this special moment.

Tuscany boasts an exceptional tradition of parades and genuinely spectacular celebrations. What follows is a brief list of the main Carnival celebrations in this region.

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Posted by Sorrento Lingue, Italian language school in Sorrento.

Web site: www.sorrentolingue.com

Sorrento, the town where our Institute is located, gives a lot of importance to religious holidays year round. As the holidays begin you feel the spirit in the air as you walk through the streets because the holiday of Christmas is celebrated in a very intense and evocative way in a fascinating synthesis between the sacred and the profane.

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Monteveglio, Granarolo, L’Aquila, Lucca and Carimate are the first transition towns in Italy. But what are transition towns?
The Transition Towns movement was founded in England in 2006 in the town of Totnes by Rob Hopkins.
It is a cultural movement engaged in shifting the current economic model in our industrialised society, which is profoundly reliant on a large availability of cheap oil and the logic of resource consumption, to a new model characterised by respect for the environment, living without oil and a high level of flexibility.

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The National Chestnut Fair of Cuneo, that for four whole days will fill the historic town centre of this provincial capital with the tastes, smells and colours of the hundreds of exhibitors from all over Piedmont, and beyond.

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The International Rome Film Festival returns from October 15th to October 23rd 2009 with films, retrospectives, encounters, exhibitions, concerts and the attendance of great national and international stars.
The pulsating heart of the Festival will be the Auditorium Parco della Musica - designed by Renzo Piano - and the neighboring Cinema Village.

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The historic rooms of the Tamerici Spa in Montecatini Terme will give hospitality to the exhibition The New after the Sketch: origins and success of Tuscan Naturalism, from 16th July 2009 to 18th January 2010.

A hundred works of art have been chosen among the most famous and the never seen Italian public and private collections. These works will rebuild the creative itinerary of a particular period of a celebrated 19th century group of Italian artists (the Macchaiaioli), such as Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini and Cristiano Banti and others who, in the last quarter of the 19th century, took part in the process of the intellectual and artistic reform of the time and caused a proper aesthetic revolution.

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The National Park of the Valgrande Valley was founded in 1992. It extends in the heart of the Verbano Cusio Ossola province, just 100 Km away from Milan. It is the largest wild area of Italy, with a parched and scarcely reachable territory, a unique valley where endless woods, clear waters and undisputed silences walk everywhere with you. Anyway, the Val Grande is also history, it is the long account of a civilization made of shepherds and foresters that we can discover through the vestiges that have been left in centuries. This is why the Val Grande before being a park, is a valley of great emotions.

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