Travel Italy: Vacation Packages, Tips, Tours of Italy

A tour including visits to St.Peter’s Basilica and other major Vaticano sights is the most important Sacred walk you can ever do.

Getting to Vaticano City: Subway Line A, stop at Ottaviano San Pietro, you walk Via Ottaviano toward Piazza Risorgimento, go straight to Via di Porta Angelica and you are at the entrance of Vaticano City.

Suggested sights:  Basilica of San Pietro, Necropoli of San Pietro (booking in advance required), Sacre Grotte Vaticane and outside the Vaticani Museums (cost € 14).
Also climbing the dome is an experience that should not be missed; from the top you enjoy a panoramic view of St. Peter square and of Rome. You have two options to climb the dome: elevator plus 320 steps (cost € 7), 521 steps on foot (cost € 4)

You can end this itinerary with a visit to Castel Sant’Angelo, located along the shore of Tiber river.
Built as Mausoleum for of Emperor Hadrian — Castel Sant’Angelo is also known as “Mausoleum of Hadrian”, this towering cylindrical building was later used also as a fortress and castle, and is now a museum.

View map of the tour.

With Umbria Jazz festival, the city of Perugia offers for ten days, from morning until late at night, music non-stop in some of the most beautiful settings of the old city.

(photo by mfluch - CC license)

Umbria Jazz features free open-air concerts — the part of the festival featuring more popular forms of music that have a more immediate appeal for young people and families, as well as a more traditional — more strictly, jazz, with concerts held at venues such as Perugia’s two historic theatres Teatro Morlacchi and Teatro Pavone.
It is a festival for attentive listeners — Umbria Jazz is regarded as one of the major jazz festivals in Europe, but there is also plenty of music for those who simply want to spend a peaceful holiday in Umbria with a soundtrack of jazz, soul, R & B, blues, gospel, pop and salsa. For details, browse Umbria Jazz official programme.
Umbria Jazz 2008 festival starts July 11 and runs through July 20.

See Perugia and Umbria on the interactive map.
Browse accommodations in Perugia and Umbria.

The 51st edition of the Spoleto Festival — aka Festival of Two Worlds, is taking place in the town of Spoleto, in Umbria. It runs through July 13.

This international event every year brings together prestigious names of the visual creation including major stars of theatre, opera, dance, visual arts, and cinema.
For programme and tickets reservation visit http://festivaldispoleto.com.

- When: June 27 through July 13
- Where: Spoleto (Umbria)
- See Spoleto on the map.
- Browse accommodations in Spoleto and Umbria.

A video of “Palio di Siena” held on July 2, 2007.
The most known of the historic horse races takes place in Siena, Tuscany, two times a year, on July 2 (Palio di Provenzano) and on August 16 (Palio dell’Assunta).

(via YouTube).

Via Appia Antica is one of the most famous roads of Ancient Roma. Along this road you can visit the Christian Catacombs, a network of underground burial galleries, dating back 2nd century A.D.

Among the other archaeolgical sites along the road, you have: Tomba di Cecilia Metella, the Villa di Massenzio, and Circo di Massenzio.

How to get there

1) From Circo Massimo station (subway Line B) take bus number 118.

2) However, the easisest way to get there is by Archeobus, a bus service taking you directly to the archaeolgical sites. It runs daily, holidays included, with departures every 20 minutes from 09:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. with terminus in Piazza dei Cinquecento (Termini Railway Station). Tickets cost € 13,00, have daily validity and a Stop&Go formula that allows you to hop on/off at any of the stops all day long. Info and reservation at Archeobus website

View map of the tour.