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05_773417 ch01.qxp 2/27/06 6:28 PM Page 4 1 The Best of Northern Italy Northern Italy’s riches are vast, varied, and yours to discover, from art-packed muse- ums and mosaic-filled cathedrals to Roman ruins and hill towns amid vineyards that produce some of Europe’s best wines. You can dine at refined restaurants that casually flaunt their Michelin star ratings, or chow down with the town priest and police chief at osterie (small local eateries) that have spent generations perfecting traditional recipes. You can spend the night in a sumptuous Renaissance villa on Lake Como in the Alpine foothills where Napoléon once stayed (the Villa d’Este), or in a converted 17th-century Venetian palazzo where the room opens directly onto the Grand Canal but costs a mere $140 (the Hotel Galleria). Here’s a short list of the best of what northern Italy has to offer. 1 The Best Travel Experiences • Gondola Ride in Venice: Yes, it’s masterpiece of decoration. The isle of hokey. Yes, it’s way overpriced. But Burano is a colorful fishing village with when it comes down to it, there’s an ancient lace-making tradition and nothing quite so romantic after a houses in a variety of supersaturated long Venetian dinner as a ride on one hues. Nearby, lonely Torcello may have of these long black skiffs, settling been one of the first lagoon islands set- back into the plush seats with that tled, but it’s long been almost aban- special someone and a bottle of wine, doned, home to a straggly vineyard, sliding through the waters of Venice’s reed-banked canals, the fine Cipriani back canals guided by the expert oar restaurant, and a stunning Byzantine of a gondolier. See p. 83. cathedral swathed in mosaics (see “The • A Day Among the Islands of the Best Churches,” below). Time it right Venetian Lagoon: Venice’s ferry sys- and you’ll be riding the last ferry back tem extends outside the city proper from Torcello into Venice proper as the to a series of other inhabited islands sun sets and lights up the lagoon in the lagoon. First stop, Murano, a waters. See p. 83. village where the famed local glass- • Cruising the Brenta Canal: The lazy blowing industryCOPYRIGHTED began and where its Brenta MATERIAL Canal, lacing its way into the largest factories and best artisans still Veneto from Venice’s lagoon, has long reside. Not only can you tour a glass been the Hamptons of Venice, where factory (complete with a hard sell in the city’s nobility and merchant the display room at the end), but you’ll princes have kept summer villas. From discover a pair of lovely churches, the massive, palatial Villa Pisani, with one hung with paintings by Giovanni its elaborate gardens, to the Villa Fos- Bellini, Veronese, and Tintoretto, cari, designed by Palladio himself, the other a Byzantine-Romanesque most of these villas span the 16th to 05_773417 ch01.qxp 2/27/06 6:28 PM Page 5 THE BEST MUSEUMS 5 1 19th centuries and are open to visitors. trio of stout cables some 2.4km (1 ⁄2 In the past few years, a few have even miles) above the deep fissures of the been opened as elegant hotels. There Vallée Blanche glacier. It takes half an are two ways to tour the Brenta: on a hour to cross to Aiguille du Midi on leisurely full-day cruise between Padua French soil—the longest cable car ride and Venice, stopping to tour several in the world not supported by pylons. villas along the way with an optional From here, you can take a jaunt down fish lunch; or by driving yourself along into France’s charming Chamonix if the banks, which allows you to pop you’d like, or turn around to head into the villas you are most interested back into Italian territory, perhaps in—plus you can pull over at any stopping at the Alpine Garden two- grassy embankment for a picnic lunch thirds of the way back to Courmayeur on the canal. See p. 173. to sun yourself and admire the wild- • Driving the Great Dolomite Road: flowers. See p. 366. From the Adige Valley outside Bozen • Hiking the Cinque Terre: At the (Bolzano) across to the ski resort of southern end of the Italian Riviera lies Cortina d’Ampezzo runs 110km (68 a string of former pirate coves called miles) of twisting, winding, switch- the Cinque Terre. These five fishing backed highway, called the Great villages are linked by a local train line Dolomite Road, which wends its way and a meandering trail that clambers around some of the most dramatic over headlands, plunges amid olive mountain scenery in Italy. The groves and vineyards, and skirts cliff Dolomiti are craggier and sheerer edges above the glittering Ligurian than the Alps, and as this road crawls Sea and hidden scraps of beach. The around the peaks and climbs over the villages also share an excellent com- passes, one breathtaking panorama munal white wine. Though tourism is after another opens before you, discovering this magical corner of undulating to the distant Po plains to Italy, there are as yet no big resort the south and to the mighty Swiss hotels or overdevelopment; just trat- Alps to the north. See p. 234. torie on the tiny harbors and houses • Riding the Cable Cars over Mont and apartments converted into small Blanc: There are not many more dra- family hotels and short-term rental matic trips in Europe than this one, units. It takes a full, long day to hike where a series of cable cars and gondo- from one end to the other, or you can las rise from Courmayeur in the Valle simply walk the stretches you prefer d’Aosta to the 3,300m (10,824-ft.) (conveniently, the trails get progres- Punta Helbronner, from which the icy sively easier from north to south) and vistas spread over Mont Blanc’s flank use the cheap train to connect to the in one direction and across to Monte other towns. Pause as you like in the Cervina (the Matterhorn) in the other. osterie and bars of each town to sam- It is here that the true thrill ride begins ple the dry Cinque Terre white wine as you clamber into a four-seat and refresh yourself for the next enclosed gondola that dangles from a stretch. See p. 412. 2 The Best Museums • Galleria dell’Accademia (Venice): top museums was founded in 1750 The single most important gallery of and gorgeously installed in this trio of Venetian painting and one of Italy’s Renaissance buildings by Napoléon 05_773417 ch01.qxp 2/27/06 6:28 PM Page 6 6 CHAPTER 1 . THE BEST OF NORTHERN ITALY himself in 1807. (Napoléon swelled the all that scientists are still learning collections with altarpieces confiscated from him. See p. 219. from churches and monasteries he sup- • Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan): One pressed.) The works, spanning the 13th of Italy’s finest collections of art, through 18th centuries, include mas- from medieval to modern, is housed terpieces by all the local Northern Ital- in a 17th-century Milanese palazzo. ian greats—the Bellini clan, Paolo Venice’s Accademia may have a richer Veneziano, Carpaccio, Giorgione, collection of Venetian art, but the Brera Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, has a broader collection of masterpieces Lorenzo Lotto, Palma il Vecchio, Paolo from across northern and central Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo, Italy. As with the Accademia, the and Canaletto. See p. 135. Brera started as a warehouse for art- • Collezione Peggy Guggenheim works Napoléon looted from churches, (Venice): The Guggenheim family monasteries, and private collections. was one of the 20th century’s greatest There are masterpieces from Man- art patrons. Peggy not only amassed a tegna, Raphael, Piero della Francesca, stunning collection of modern art, she the Bellinis, Signorelli, Titian, Tin- even married Max Ernst. Her half-fin- toretto, Reni, Caravaggio, Tiepolo, and ished 18th-century palazzo on the Canaletto, and great works by 20th- Grand Canal is now installed with her century geniuses such as Umberto Boc- collections, including works by cioni, Gino Severini, Giorgio Morandi, Picasso, Pollock (an artist Peggy “dis- and Giorgio de Chirico. They even covered”), Magritte, Dalí, Miró, throw in some works by Rembrandt, Brancusi, Kandinsky, and Marini. See Goya, and Reynolds. See p. 267. p. 136. • Museo Egizio & Galleria Sabauda • Museo Archeologico dell’Alto (Turin): The world’s first real museum Adige (Bozen): Bozen’s major sight is of Egyptian artifacts remains one of a high-tech, modern museum crafted the most important outside Cairo and around one of the most important London’s British Museum. The his- archaeological finds of the past 50 tory between Italy and Egypt dates years. When hikers first discovered back to Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, the body of Ötzi high in the Alps though this collection of 30,000 at the Austrian border, everyone pieces was largely amassed by the thought he was a mountaineer who Piedmont Savoy kings. The exhibits succumbed to the elements. He range from a papyrus Book of the turned out to be a 5,300-year-old Dead to a full 15th-century B.C. tem- hunter whose body, clothing, and ple to fascinating objects from every- tools had been preserved intact by day life. But Egypt isn’t all; upstairs the ice in which he was frozen. The the Galleria Sabauda displays the Ice Man has done more to give us Savoy’s amazing collection of Flemish glimpses into daily life in the Stone and Dutch paintings by Van Dyck, Age than any other find, and the Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Hans Mem- museum does a great job of relaying ling, and Van der Weyden.