Italy
Italy is located in southern Europe on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sicily and Sardinia; it also shares its northern boundary with the likes of France and Austria. Vatican City and San Marino lie just on the Italian Peninsula. Italy has been the home of a number of European cultures over time such as the Romans.
Italy was also the birthplace of the Renaissance that originated in Tuscany and eventually spread all over Europe. Italy is also one of the major players in the development in modern science and astronomy. Rome was originally the centre of Western civilisation, but today they are a well developed country with their way of life have been rated the 8th best for quality of life. Italy is seen as a major country of having cultural significance with them holding 44 sites that are under the World Heritage Sites bill. Italy is also a founding member of the EU and the G8 having the world's seventh largest GDP. They are also members of the World Trade Organization and hold the world's seventh largest defence budget with a share in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Italy has an extremely rich history with a number of its cities being massively popular with tourists to visit from Rome to the fashion city of Milan to snowing in the Alps or a romantic trip to Venice, Italy really does have everything to offer. Below are or reviews of just a very small amount of what you could visit in the stunning city of Italy;
The Colosseum - is your traditional amphitheatre, the largest of which has ever been built in the Roman Empire, in the centre of Rome and is the greatest work of Roman architecture and engineering. Building of the Colosseum started way back in 70 AD under the reign of Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Emperor Titus. During Domitian's reign in 81-96 AD further changes were also made. The Colosseum was able to seat 50,000 people and was a venue in which people would go to watch gladiatorial games, re-enactments of famous battles and other social events such as animal hunts. However during the early medieval era the use of the Colosseum became a lot less but started to get used again for a number of things such as workshops, housing and for religious uses. During the Colosseum's years it has be estimated that around 50,000 people and around a million animals have died within its walls! Sadly the Colosseum has suffered from earthquakes which have seen some of its walls break down, it still stands as one of the most iconic structures in both Italy and the world. The Colosseum is also seen as a highly religious symbol in Italy as every Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit procession around the numerous levels of the theatre.
Leaning Tower of Pisa - is the freestanding bell tower of the cathedral in the city of Pisa, and is third eldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral square. The tower wasn't set to be leaning and first start leaning towards the southeast after it was built because of the poor foundations, the Tower currently leans towards the southwest. The Tower stands at 55.86 metres away from ground level and has 296 steps. It took around 177 years for the work to be completed on the tower, having first started in 1173 the ground floor got completed, then in 1178 when the third floor was being built the tower started to sink, the work on the tower was then stopped for around a century due to the Pisan's being in numerous battles, which proved good for the tower as if work had carried on then it would most likely have sunk due to the major weakness of the foundations - which is only a tiny 3 metres! Work started again in 1272, at which point they built floors which had one side taller than the other in order to prevent the tower from tilting even more - because of this it actually means the tower is curved. The seventh floor was finished in 1319 and the ball chamber was added in 1372.
The Grand Canal - is a canal which runs through Venice and is used as one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city with public transport being offered in the form of water taxis and water buses'. The canal had an average depth of 5 metres and is around 3,800 metres long and 30-90 metres wide, the canal runs from Saint Mark Basin and leads to the lagoon near Santa Lucia railway station between the two ends the canal makes an 'S' shape. Along the canal are around 170 buildings some if which date as far back as the 13th to 18th century. The Canal originally only had one bridge that crossed it, the Rialto Bridge, however there are now four that cross over it, the other three bridges have been added since the 19th century, they are the Ponte degli Scalzi and the Ponte dell'Accademia. The fourth and very controversial bridge the Ponte della Costituzioneis the most recent bridge to be added to the canal, the bridge was controversial due to it connecting the train station and to the vehicle open area of Piazzale Roma. You are also still able to take ferry to go across Venice's Great Canal by getting on at their deck Traghetto!
Tourism