Places to see in Italy

Palermo's oldest and loudest street market, running through the Albergheria — produce, fish, and the fried street food the city is known for, shouted rather than sold. Mornings are the real thing; by evening part of it turns into somewhere to drink. Go hungry.

An estate above Greve with formal Italian gardens behind the house and vines below them, producing wine since the fourteenth century. Visits are by arrangement rather than drop-in, which keeps it calm. Worth calling ahead for.

A fortified estate above Greve with vineyards falling away on three sides — one of the cluster of castle wineries on the northern stretch of the Chiantigiana that take visitors. Closer to Florence than Brolio, which makes it the practical choice on a day trip rather than a stay.

Striped black and white inside and out, with a marble floor of fifty-six inlaid panels that is uncovered only for part of the year, and the Piccolomini library off the nave frescoed in colours that look freshly mixed. Denser and stranger than Florence's cathedral. An hour and a half with the museum next door.

A Greek theatre rebuilt by the Romans, cut into the hillside so that the stage opens onto Etna and the coast below — the setting is the reason to come rather than the ruin. Still used for summer performances. Go at opening or late; the middle of the day is very hot and very full.

A sea cave lit from below through an underwater opening, which turns the whole interior a strong blue. Entered lying flat in a rowing boat through a gap barely a metre high, so it closes whenever the sea is up — and it often is. Short, expensive and genuinely unlike anything else.

The fourteenth-century fort at the top of Montalcino, with ramparts you can walk and an enoteca inside the walls pouring the Brunello the town is built on. The view runs across the whole Val d'Orcia. The obvious place to end an afternoon of driving.

Forty metres under the old centre: Greek quarries, Roman aqueducts, and the cisterns the city sheltered in during the bombing. Guided only, about an hour and a half, and one optional passage is narrow enough that it is honestly not for everyone. Cool underground whatever August is doing above.

Six hundred years in the building and carrying more statues than any other church in the world. The interior is free and surprisingly dim; the reason to buy a ticket is the roof, where you walk among the spires and buttresses with the Alps visible on a clear day. Lifts and stairs are priced separately. Shoulders and knees must be covered.

The island's summit, reached by a single-seat chairlift from Anacapri in about twelve minutes, with the whole bay of Naples on one side and the open sea on the other. The best view on Capri by a distance. Go early — the light is better and the day-trip crowd has not yet arrived.

The doge's palace of the Genoese republic, now the city's main exhibition space, opening onto the central square at one end and the old town at the other. Worth checking what is on rather than visiting for the permanent collection. The tower gives a view over the roofs.

One of the Rolli palaces on Via Garibaldi — the street of merchant houses so grand that the republic used them to lodge visiting heads of state, now collectively a world heritage site. Van Dyck portraits of the family that built it, and a roof terrace over the city. Ticketed with Palazzo Bianco next door.

The largest open-air market in Europe, running most mornings across several squares — produce outdoors, fish and meat in the halls, and a genuinely mixed city doing its shopping. Saturday is the big day.

The civic centre of the ancient city — law courts, temples and the road every triumph came down, now a long field of columns and foundations. Rewards a guide or an audio tour more than almost anywhere else in Rome, because very little of it explains itself. Enter from Via dei Fori Imperiali and climb out onto the Palatine.

The largest church in the world, and the reason most itineraries give the Vatican a morning of its own. Free to enter with a long security queue; the dome climb is separate, paid, and gives the definitive view over the square and the city. Shoulders and knees must be covered — enforced at the door, without exception, in any weather.

A garden at the edge of Ravello ending in the Terrace of Infinity — a balustrade lined with marble busts, four hundred metres straight above the sea and nothing in front of it. The single best view on this coast. Ticketed, and worth arriving for opening before the coaches reach Ravello.

Imperial bath ruins on a scale that is hard to believe until you stand in them, and a fraction of the crowds of the Forum because they sit twenty minutes' walk south of it. Brick vaults, mosaic floors and open lawns. Used for opera in summer. The right choice on a second Rome trip, or a first one that wants space.

Early Christian burial galleries cut into the tuff, frescoed from the second century onward, and far roomier than the word catacomb suggests — these are wide corridors rather than crawlspaces. Guided, run by a local cooperative, and easily paired with Capodimonte on the same hill.

An open-air gallery of funerary sculpture from the 1860s onward, laid out like a small city and free to walk. Unexpected, uncrowded, and one of the more memorable hours in Milan for anyone who likes sculpture or a camera. Twenty minutes north of the centre by tram.

The city's lighthouse and its oldest symbol, standing since the twelfth century in its present form and still working. Reached on foot along a walkway from the ferry terminal, with a small museum and a climb to the lower terrace. Out of the way, and quiet for it.

A patrician house museum of Neapolitan painting, inlaid furniture and porcelain, with a garden running out to a terrace above the sea. Rarely busy. The best hour in Sorrento that is not spent on a boat or a bus, and the obvious wet-afternoon answer.

The papal palace at the centre of Pienza — a village a Renaissance pope rebuilt from scratch as an ideal town, which is why the whole place is a world heritage site. The hanging garden and the loggia look straight down the valley. An hour, and Pienza itself takes another.

The cathedral's own museum, holding Duccio's Maestà — removed from the high altar and now shown alone, which is how it should be seen. The climb up the unfinished nave wall at the end gives the best rooftop view in the city and comes as a surprise to most visitors.

Where the emperors lived, above the Forum and quieter than it. Gardens, imperial palace ruins and the best free view down over the Forum from the Farnese terraces. Included with the Colosseum ticket, and the part of that ticket most visitors run out of energy for — go here first if you would rather see it properly.

Florence's sculpture museum in a former prison, and the quiet alternative to the Accademia — Donatello's David, Michelangelo's early work, and a courtyard worth sitting in. Rarely busy even in August. An hour, and a good pairing with Santa Croce five minutes away.

An English-style garden along the water at Bellagio, flatter and calmer than the other two and walkable straight from the village. Plane trees, a Japanese garden and a chapel. An hour, and the least crowded of Como's three famous gardens.

A twelfth-century abbey alone in a valley of olives below Montalcino, built in pale travertine that turns gold late in the day. Almost nothing around it, which is the point. Free, and if the hours align the monastic chant in the nave is worth arranging a day around.

The taller of the two leaning towers, just under a hundred metres, climbed by nearly five hundred wooden steps with no lift and no shortcut. The view over the red roofs is the reward. Numbers are capped and slots timed; the tower has closed for structural work before, so it is worth checking it is open before building a day around it.

Open on Piazza San Marco since 1720, which makes it the oldest café in Italy still trading. Sitting outside with the orchestra costs what it costs; the point is that it has been doing this for three hundred years.

A street market threading the Capo quarter, less visited than Ballarò and just as loud — fish, offal, fruit and fried things eaten standing. Mornings, and closed by early afternoon.