TURIN is the first stop and retains a freshly restored Baroque core, with galleries and museums. Many culinary products coming from Piedmont as truffles ( the white typology is the finest) wines (first of all the Barolo) and nuts, specialty undisputed Alta Langa. South of Turin, Alba is a good base for visiting the region's wine cantinas. Asti, to the southeast, comes to life during its famous medieval Palio, or horse race.

THE AOSTA VALLEY cuts across it, following the River Dora to the foot of Mont Blanc. Bordered by Europe's highest mountains, Mont Blanc, Mont Rosa and the Matterhorn, veined with valleys and studded with castles, the Valle d'Aosta region is picturesque and Aosta, the regional capital, makes an excellent staging post on the way to the mountain resorts.

GENOA the chief city of the region, it is an ancient, sprawling port often acclaimed as the most atmospheric of all Italian cities. The city of the great navigators of the past, a maritime republic and the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. During the Roman Empire, Genoa was the "gateway" to the Mediterranean Sea and nowadays it is still one of the main ports in Europe. It has a dense and fascinating old quarter that is complemented by a vibrant social and ethnic mix and a newly energized dockside district.

CINQUE TERRE with its romantic paths, the fortress-houses of Porto Venere and the square of Portofino. Nature has been very generous with this land, wonderful panorama with palms, pines, cypresses and olive-trees and flowers. The rustic and the elegant, the provincial and the chic, the small and the cosmopolitan town collide here in a sun-drenched blend that defines the Italian Riviera. Ask your Travel Consultant more information and you will be able to visit these beautiful villages in different ways.

MILAN It is one of the largest city of Italy and its most important economical center. Italy's powerful economic engine future and technology centre, home of the country's major finance and trade companies, corporate entities, trading houses and manufactures, as well as advertising, publishing and media industries. Italy lives in the present tense here and the Milanesi are proud of their city's creativity, hard work ethic and trendy lifestyle. Different styles all to be discover.

NORTHERN LAKES Lombardy's towns and cities retain medieval cores boasting world-class art and architecture, and the stunning scenery of the so-called Italian Lakes - notably lakes Maggiore, Como and Garda - never fails to seduce. Travelers from all over the world are attracted by the lakes of Como, Maggiore, Iseo and Garda, admiring the sumptuous villas by beautiful gardens, islands and small villages scattered along the banks.

MILAN'S LOWLAND NEIGHBOURS - Cremona and Mantua - flourished during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and retain much character. To the north, Lombardy is quite different, the lakes and valleys sheltering fewer historic towns, the cities of Bergamo and Brescia excepted. Great way to discover the Lombardy are the numerous food and wine tours to delve into the different histories of the major cities such as Pavia, Varese, Lodi, Cremona, Mantua, Brescia, Bergamo, Como, Lecco.

BOLOGNA The largest urban centre, and the main tourist draw, the site of Europe's first university - and today best known as the gastronomic capital of Italy. It's regarded as one of the country's most beautiful cities with a network of porticoes, medieval streets, a collection of restaurants. Ask your Travel Consultant to organize a cooking class where you will learn with an expert Chef how to make Pasta and Tortellini or how to prepare a real Bolognese sauce for your Pasta enjoying some good wine of the area.

MODENA, PARMA AND REGGIO EMILIA, each with their own charming historic centers and gastronomic delights, while to the east lies Ravenna, home to the finest set of Byzantine mosaics in the world. The Adriatic coast south is an overdeveloped ribbon of settlements, although Rimini, at its southern end, provides a spark of interest, with its wild seaside nightlife and surprisingly historic town centre.

The cities and towns here are as wildly dissimilar as one might expect. Trieste, the capital, is an urbanely elegant Habsburg creation. A little further west, Udine's architecture and art collections evoke Venice at its grandest, while UNESCO-listed Cividale del Friuli preserves a picturesque historic centre perched over the aquamarine Natisone River. The archeologically minded, however, head straight to Aquileia and the ruins of the Roman capital of Friuli, with its impressive basilica and huge paleo-Christian floor mosaic.

DOLOMITES The region is dominated by the barren, rough rock walls. Some of the most eye-catching peaks in Europe, these vast massifs abound in myths and legends and have been eroded over the last 200 million years into a weird and wonderful array of needles, towers and pinnacles. In 2009 the range was added to the UNESCO World Natural Heritage List for their unique geology and for their diverse ecosystem abundant in rare flora and fauna.

VENICE all the photographs you've seen of the Palazzo Ducale, of the Basilica di San Marco, of the palaces along the Canal Grande - they've simply been recording the extraordinary truth. As soon as you begin to explore Venice, every day will bring its surprises, for this is an urban landscape so full of things to do that you can't walk for a minute without coming across something that's worth a stop.

PADUA and VERONA are the main tourist attractions after Venice, thanks to their masterpieces by Giotto, Donatello and Mantegna. None of the other towns of the Veneto can match the cultural wealth of these two, but there are nonetheless plenty of places that justify a detour - the Palladian city of Vicenza, for instance, the fortified settlements of Castelfranco and Cittadella.