<p>Rome by day is mysterious. By night, when the moon breathes new life into crumbling friezes and the murmur of fountains blends with the click of high heels on cobblestones, it slips into the mythical.</p><p>&ldquo;Nighttime doesn&rsquo;t stop the city. Instead it emphasises its most special possessions,&rdquo; says Lucia Silvestri, who has been jewellery creative director at Bulgari for 10 years and is the force behind the house&rsquo;s high jewellery collections.</p><p>From the use of antique coins to the iconic cabochon cut of gems, Rome has shaped the brand&rsquo;s identity throughout its history. In turn, Bulgari has contributed to the restoration of iconic monuments including the Spanish Steps, the Baths of Caracalla and the sacred area in Largo di Torre Argentina. </p>

<p>This symbiotic relationship is celebrated through photography and a display of the most iconic designs from Bulgari&rsquo;s 139 years in the Domvs Avrea, an intimate museum in the Via Condotti store.&nbsp;</p><p>Silvestri joined the gemmological department more than four decades ago as a fresh-faced biology student and was mentored by Paolo, Nicola and Gianni Bulgari, the grandsons of Sotirio Bulgari (who founded the jewellery house in 1884). As a native Roman, the city as muse extends far beyond her working hours. &ldquo;I love to take late night walks around the Eternal City, for me it&rsquo;s a way to rediscover its cinematic beauty from a new perspective,&rdquo; she says.</p><p>She goes on to highlight that moment when the sky turns &lsquo;navy&rsquo; and the city is once again lit up by ancient monuments such as the Pantheon, Castel Sant&rsquo;Angelo and Piazza Navona. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing to see the sensual darkness coexist with the constellations and illuminated landmarks. It&rsquo;s a sharp, intense contrast which is echoed by the way we combine sapphires with diamonds at Bulgari,&rdquo; she adds.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The brand&rsquo;s latest high jewellery collection, &lsquo;Mediterranea&rsquo;, includes several necklaces with this combination of gems including the Southern Sapphire, which took 1,650 hours to complete.</p><p>Silvestri believes being spontaneous is typical of Romans which is why they favour &lsquo;casually elegant day to night&rsquo; styles. &ldquo;Often evenings are organised at the last minute. I go for an aperitivo after work and it flows into dinner.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p><p>One of her favourite places for a classic spritz is Terrazza Caffarelli, a cafe bar owned by and adjacent to the Capitoline Museums. She also names Terrazza Borromini and the terrace of the newly opened Bulgari Hotel Rome as &lsquo;hotspots to enjoy the city&rsquo;s magnificent views&rsquo;.</p>

<h2>A twirl around three of Rome&rsquo;s most alluring rooftops</h2><h3>La Pergola, Rome Cavalieri</h3><p>One of few rooftops to have a waiting list for tables and the only one with three Michelin stars, La Pergola is the most exclusive &ndash; and expensive &ndash; restaurant in Rome. Luminous panoramas provide a backdrop for an experience defined by detail. A choice of 15 salts, 55 waters and 3,500 wines complement boundary-pushing Mediterranean plates from chef Heinz Beck.</p><h3>Aroma, Palazzo Manfredi</h3><p>Perched atop a 17th-century palazzo built on the remains of a gladiator barracks, with the Colosseum so close it seems one could touch it, this restaurant is a homage to timeless Roman elegance. Snowy tablecloths and discrete service compliment Giuseppe di Lorio&rsquo;s Michelin-starred tasting menu of reimagined Italian flavours.</p><h3>La Terrazza del Cesari, 9Hotel Cesari</h3><p>The red parasols and pots of geraniums on the intimate terrace of 9Hotel Cesari evoke the nostalgia of summer holidays spent by the Italian seaside. This family-owned spot sings at aperitivo hour when the Baroque Spires of St. Ignatius church blush and dangerously drinkable cocktails as well as an Italian-facing wine list come into their own.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The Dolomites rise out of the land like jagged gods. Some of their faces are more than 1000 metres of sheer rock,&rdquo; says Massimo Da Pozzo, a second-generation mountain guide and cofounder of Cortina 360 climbing school. </p>

<p>Located in the Veneto region, Cortina d&rsquo;Ampezzo became a high altitude playground for a fashionable set when it hosted the seventh Winter Olympics in 1956. Shots of the Unesco-listed scenery shrouded in snow lured stars such as Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren to the chic 19th-century hotels that still line the streets today.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The town&rsquo;s location on the border of the former Venice and Tyrol Republics and a 400-year-stint in the Austro-Hungarian Empire have left the region with a host of cultural quirks. A stroll along the Corso Italia reveals workshops where artisans stoop over age-old crafts such as filigree jewellery and takashi woodwork.</p><h2>Tasting the terroir</h2><p>With a mountain lineage stretching back too many generations to count, Da Pozzo is well-placed to comment on Cortina d&rsquo;Ampezzo&rsquo;s pastoral cuisine.</p>

<p>&ldquo;When I was four years old I escaped from daycare because I wanted to be with the cows and horses in the meadows&rdquo; he recalls.</p><p><em>Malgas</em>, and <em>rifugios</em>, their high-altitude equivalents with rustic rooms, are still typically family-run, serving mountain recipes that embody the region&rsquo;s history. <em>Canederli</em> (also known as <em>kn&ouml;del</em>) are German-style dumplings with a Parmesan tang, while <em>casunziei </em><em>all&rsquo;ampezzana</em> (moon-shaped beetroot ravioli) is flavoured with nutmeg, a spice introduced by Venetian merchants.</p><p>Flavour profiles remain true to the region&rsquo;s rural heart. Tasting menus include dishes like grass-fed beef with wild juniper and olive oil infused with pine needles, while local sommeliers favour native grapes such as schiava, a light-bodied red.</p>

<h2>Sports in all seasons</h2><p>Cortina is a magnet for skiers of all abilities. Located at an altitude of 1,226 metres, the resort has 120 kilometres (75 miles) of slopes across including beginner-friendly blue runs in the east.&nbsp;</p><p>Tofana hosted the Alpine World Championships in 2021 and will also be the focus of skiing for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.&nbsp;</p><p>Throughout the rest of the year, hiking and bouldering are the main draws for stressed urbanites seeking solitude. More than 400 kilometers of marked trails unfurl through the Natural Park of the Ampezzo Dolomites, revealing vistas of beauty spots such as the Giau Pass.</p><h2>A natural playground</h2><p>For all its fashionable and cultural appeal, Da Pozzo believes that Cortina d&rsquo;Ampezzo&rsquo;s natural wonders make it irresistible year round. In autumn, Alpine ibex lock horns in meadows speckled with rare Scarpetta Madonna orchids, while summer sees golden eagles swoop over the Lago di Sorapiss.</p><p>&ldquo;One of my favourite things about the Dolomites is their beautiful colours which range from yellow to black to red,&rdquo; he says, referencing a phenomenon known locally as <em>enrosadira</em> which sees the limestone peaks blaze at sunrise and sunset. &ldquo;This region really is a playground for all ages.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;For Romagnoli, love of food is in the blood,&rdquo; says Claudio Di Bernardo, executive chef of La Dolce Vita restaurant at Grand Hotel Rimini. Although born in Abruzzo, he has been an advocate of Romagna&rsquo;s cuisine since he began his career there in 1989.</p>

<p>Given that it is home to produce such as Parmigiano Reggiano, brands including Barilla, and FICO, the world’s first food-themed amusement park, it would be easy to assume better-known Emilia is the culinary heartland of Emilia-Romagna. Yet Romagna, which spans the south east of the region from the Apennines to the Adriatic, has its own generous serving of culinary clout.</p>

<h2>The cradle of Italian cuisine</h2><p>Di Bernardo is well placed to comment on the area&rsquo;s cuisine. His creative fine dining plates are laced with nostalgia and have their roots in recipes passed down for generations. &ldquo;In Romagna there&rsquo;s a local saying, &lsquo;nobody beats mother's tagliatelle'. Everything is homemade,&rdquo; he says.</p><p>Romagna&rsquo;s most famous son is Pellegrino Artusi, author of the defining recipe collection &lsquo;La Scienza in Cucina e l&rsquo;Arte di Mangiar Bene&rsquo; (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well) which was published in 1891, two decades after Italy&rsquo;s unification. The first to gather traditional recipes from all 20 of Italy&rsquo;s regions, the book was so influential that Artusi is considered the father of Italian cuisine. This tome of 790 classic recipes can still be found in most kitchens, including Claudio&rsquo;s.</p>

<h2>A love letter to landscape</h2><p>&ldquo;The great seafood of the Adriatic is the real element that distinguishes Romagna&rsquo;s cuisine from Emilia&rsquo;s,&rdquo; reflects Di Bernardo. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a fan of <em>poveracce</em> (Adriatic clams) which open in the heat of a pan and are perfect with a drizzle of olive oil, parsley and white wine.&rdquo;</p><p>As well as the sparkling blue of the Adriatic, Romagna is bordered by the forested Apennine Mountains, famed for game such as boar &ndash; cured and used in rich ragus &ndash; and white truffles. Thanks to their slow drainage and high salt content, the plains south of the Po River nurture Riso Del Delta del Po, a protein-rich rice used in dishes such as artichoke risotto.</p><p>The hills that roll from the Rimini and Riccione coastlines to east of Bologna ensure the region is no slouch in the wine department either. Di Bernardo highlights Sangiovese as a firm favourite but there are plenty of lesser-known grapes to try including Albana, a tannin-heavy white with a honey hue.</p>

<h2>The story behind the star ingredients</h2><p>Biting into a juicy peach is one of the great delights of an Italian summer and Romagna has made a fascinating contribution to the story of this sun-drenched fruit. The countryside around Ravenna is rich with fragrant orchards and indeed the province was one of the first to introduce industrial fruit farming in the 1800s.</p><p>Today, more than 50 per cent of Italian nectarines and 20 per cent of peaches are grown in Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna, Forl&igrave;-Cesena and Rimini. The Pesche di Romagna and Nectarine di Romagna, born from crossbreeding yellow and white fleshed fruit, obtained PGI recognition in 1998.</p><p>Di Bernardo is particularly passionate about Romagna&rsquo;s dairy products including Pecorino di Fossa, a semi-hard cheese that was granted PDO status in 2005. Tradition has it that it began when farmers hid their food underground during the Saracen pirate raids of the 12th century.</p>

<h2>How to plan a gourmet trip in Romagna</h2><p>Romagna&rsquo;s culinary calendar is packed with events year round. Highlights include August&rsquo;s Taste of Salt, which sees the streets of Cervia transformed into a temple of all things saline, and October&rsquo;s White Truffle National Trade Fair in Sant&rsquo;Agata Feltria.</p><p>The Via Emilia from Rimini to Piacenza &ndash; completed by the Roman consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 187BC &ndash; practically cries out for a road trip, passing by medieval villages and romantic Renaissance gardens, as well as the farms and vineyards where 44 PDO/IGP products are produced.&nbsp;</p><p>Like the most memorable meals, a trip to Emilia Romagna is best savoured at a leisurely pace. As Di Bernardo observes: &ldquo;This region is a sort of Land of Cockaigne. It&rsquo;s hard to comprehend this many world-famous flavours were born and are still crafted along just 250 kilometres (155 miles) of road.&rdquo;</p>

<p>For many, the phrase &lsquo;Italian art&rsquo; brings to mind frescoes and classical sculptures lining the halls of elegantly faded palazzi. In a country so steeped in tradition, it&rsquo;s unsurprising that visitors tend to stumble from antiquity to the Renaissance to the Baroque, barely aware that in the 20th and 21st centuries Italy birthed artistic movements &ndash; Futurism and Arte Povera to name but two <em>&ndash;</em> that continue to shape contemporary art around the world today.</p><p>Contemporary Italian artists such as <a href='https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/450757/history-of-night-and-destiny-of-comets/'>Gian Maria Tosatti </a> (who represented Italy at the Venice Biennale in 2022) are seeing intense interest from global galleries. One contributing factor has been the evangelicalism of private patrons including Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, whose 1,500-strong collection is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Another has been the wave of radical &ndash; and visually dazzling &ndash; institutions that have opened in Italy in the last 15 years.</p><p>>Aside from their progressive approach to curation, galleries such as MAXXI in Rome, Fondazione Prada in Milan and Naples&rsquo; Art Stations share another uniting factor: buildings that make as much of a statement as the works within them.&nbsp;</p><p>While contemporary art often reflects the chaos of modern life, deconstructive architecture suggests infinite possibilities by playing with expectations of public space. When the two are in direct dialogue, the results are electric.</p><h2>Rome goes radical at the MAXXI</h2><p>One of Zaha Hadid&rsquo;s most referenced quotes is &ldquo;There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?&rdquo; The Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI) &ndash; Rome&rsquo;s first significant contemporary art institution &ndash; embodies this philosophy.</p><p>From the outside its concrete form merges discreetly with the 20th-century apartment blocks of the drowsy Flaminio district. Inside reveals a series of canyon-like spaces inviting the viewer endlessly upwards, suspended steel staircases and walls that swerve like a velodrome encourage a continuous drift from gallery to gallery.</p><p>A permanent collection of more than 400 works appears alongside one-off exhibitions. Enzo Cucchi&rsquo;s genre-defying paintings (a retrospective is showing until September 24) are even more enigmatic in a space that offers multiple physical perspectives.&nbsp;</p>

<h2>Milan embraces modernity at Fondazione Prada</h2><p>As the creative engine that drives Italy&rsquo;s design scene, Milan is a natural mecca for contemporary art. When it hosted Expo 2015, the event attracted 21mn visitors.&nbsp;</p><p>Fondazione Prada opened its first permanent venue on Largo Isarco the same year. This Rem Koolhaas-designed citadel of 10 buildings &ndash; a 20th-century gin distillery, 60-metre tower, and mirrored cinema &ndash; blends old and new with casual elan.&nbsp;</p><p>In a statement made when the gallery opened, Koolhaas described it as &ldquo;Somewhere art and architecture will benefit from each other&rsquo;s challenges due to the complexity of the space.&rdquo; Eight years later it delivers on this promise with aplomb.</p>

<p>The gold-clad Haunted House radiates butter-hued light on a permanent project that includes installations by Robert Grober and Louise Bourgeois, while each of the tower&rsquo;s floors celebrates a different era in the foundation&rsquo;s history.&nbsp;</p><p>One of the gallery&rsquo;s most surprising spaces is <em>Le Studio d&rsquo;Orphée</em>, a reconstruction of French film director Jean-Luc Godard&rsquo;s recording and editing studio at his home in Rolle, Switzerland. Viewers can watch some of his most famous works on a computer monitor perched atop a rickety chest of drawers.</p><h2>Naples&rsquo; Art Stations are truly underground</h2><p>Alongside its Baroque excess and operatic, tattered beauty, Napoli has another draw: one of the most egalitarian art scenes in Italy. It follows that its most famous gallery is a collection of 15 metro stations (known as the Art Stations) housing more than 250 pieces by both local and international names.</p>

<p>By drawing these works out of their usual context, the subterranean gallery aims to question accessibility within the art world as a whole. For the price of a train ticket (from &pound;1.30), passengers are immersed in buildings from the likes of Gae Aulenti, Dominique Perrault and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and a permanent collection of 200 pieces.</p><p>Designed by Spanish architect Oscar Tusquet and often topping &lsquo;most beautiful metro in the world&rsquo; lists, Toledo station boasts an atrium adorned with William Kentridge mosaics that leads to an escalator with a marine-inspired light-show coordinated by Robert Wilson.</p>

<p>Certain destinations loom large in our collective imagination. Taormina, a tangle of lemon-scented hilltop streets on Sicily&rsquo;s east coast, is one such place. Despite a population of little over 10,000 its contribution to the arts throughout its 2,000-year history has been colossal.&nbsp;</p><p>Creative titans as diverse as Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dal&igrave;, Ezra Pound and Tennessee Williams have all found solace and inspiration during stays there &ndash; and that&rsquo;s just in a single house (now a museum), Casa Cuseni.</p><p>The town remains a reference point in contemporary popular culture. In 2012, Dolce &amp; Gabbana presented its first Alta Moda collection in the echoing cloisters of the former San Domenico convent. In 2022, season two of HBO&rsquo;s hit series &lsquo;The White Lotus&rsquo; attracted 4.1mn viewers as much for its snatches of Sicilian life as the satirical plotlines.</p><h2>The story behind the stories</h2><p>Despite its diminutive size, Taormina has always had global allure thanks to its strategic position on Mount Tauro with sweeping views over the Ionian Sea.</p><p>The world&rsquo;s great conquerors repeatedly snatched it from one another since its founding in 358BC. Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Byzantines, Normans, Swabians, French and Spanish all came, conquered and contributed influences from their own arts scenes.</p>

<p>In the 18th century, Taormina became a must on the Grand Tour thanks in part to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who visited in 1787. &ldquo;We are looking down from a small terrace, looking over this beautiful seashore, seeing roses and hearing nightingales,&rdquo; he wrote in his &lsquo;Italian Journey&rsquo;.</p><p>In the 19th century, the arrival of Queen Victoria&rsquo;s cousin, Lady Florence Trevelyan, ensured the town remained popular with fashionable writers including Oscar Wilde, and later Truman Capote and D.H. Lawrence. Her garden, now the Villa Comunale public park, is a tapestry of semi-tropical plants and Arabesque follies that still seduce photographers.&nbsp;</p><h2>The curtain continues to rise</h2><p>The remains of the horseshoe-shaped Greek Theatre have been the lodestar of Taormina&rsquo;s cultural scene since the 2nd century. Having such an extraordinary venue &ndash; hewn into the milky limestone of Mount Tauro with staggering views over the smoking spire of Mount Etna &ndash; has played a pivotal role in the town&rsquo;s progressive cultural approach.</p>

<p>&ldquo;The Greek Theatre has been acquiring sediments of art and history for centuries,&rdquo;says Antonella Ferrara, director of the town&rsquo;s literary festival, TaoBuk. </p>

<p>Other events also extend beyond traditional museum and gallery venues. Palazzo Ciampoli &ndash; a medieval mansion rebuilt after a bomb attack in 1943 &ndash; and Arabic fortress Palazzo Corvaja host art exhibitions, while a Gothic library has an usual collection of folkloric artefacts.</p><h2>Unmissable diary dates</h2><p>Between June and September every year, the town&rsquo;s cultural scene reaches its zenith with a host of festivals under the umbrella of Taormina Arte. Cross-discipline collaborations are given additional drama by the settings themselves.&nbsp;</p><p>Every year TaoBuk brings art exhibitions, gigs and scientific workshops to multiple venues including a palace built into the town&rsquo;s medieval walls. The Taormina Film Festival (which saw its 69th iteration in June, the first for artistic director Barrett Wissman) includes premieres at the Greek Theatre.</p><p>&ldquo;As caretakers of Taormina&rsquo;s cultural scene, we come back to the past with an awareness of the present and continuously plan for the future. This magnetic city is emblematic of Sicily&rsquo;s unique genius loci as well as a shared heritage across many Mediterranean cultures,&rdquo; reflects Ferrara.</p>