Female nude statue at Fontana di Nettuno, Piazza Navona

One of the seven wonders of the world in the aptly named “Field of Miracles”.

Vernazza perched on rock, Cinque Terre, Liguria

The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian, inaugurated by Titus in 80 A.D. and completed by Domitian. Located on marshy land between the Esquiline and Caelian Hills, it was the first permanent amphitheater to be built in Rome. Its monumental size and grandeur as well as its practical and efficient organization for producing spectacles and controlling the large crowds make it one of the great architectural monuments achieved by the ancient Romans.

The amphitheater is a vast ellipse with tiers of seating for 50,000 spectators around a central elliptical arena. Below the wooden arena floor, there was a complex set of rooms and passageways for wild beasts and other provisions for staging the spectacles. Eighty walls radiate from the arena and support vaults for passageways, stairways and the tiers of seats. At the outer edge circumferential arcades link each level and the stairways between levels.

Umbria has such a monumental and artistic component that the concept of "historical center" seems to be inadequate and restrictive. Gubbio, rich in Franciscan memories and full of monuments of medieval and Renaissance time. Beautiful places with incredible monuments, palaces, churches of important artistic value.

Land of mountains, of extraordinary views, of forests, of waterfalls and meadows. And a land of castles: where there reigns a distinctive atmosphere which you discern as soon as you go through the massive entrance of a recently restored manor house, walk through the lists where tournaments were once held and enter frescoed rooms where the shadows might cloak the presence of figures from distant legend; castles whose ruins, encountered unexpectedly on walks through the countryside, radiate mystery, their square stones bringing to life the shouts of soldiers who once guarded the walls, the loud cries of the grooms in the stables and the soft voices of the knights keeping a vigil in the castle chapel.