JoKeTravel

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Italy

In general

If you say Italy one or more of the following associations will come to you: delicious pizzas or gelati, the leaning tower of Pisa, antiquities of the Romans, volcanoes Etna and Vesuvius, Pompei, the football club AC Milan where Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard sparkled in their younger years, not to mention the Vatican in Rome or the imaginative Florence.

Here are some facts to introduce the country:

  • Up until 1946 the country was a kingdom and now it is a republic
  • The capital Rome is nearly 3.000 years old
  • The south European country is devided into 20 regions that together comprise 107 provinces
  • Italy is the founder of the EEC together with Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, a forerunner of the EU
  • Italy is the seventh economy of the world and the third of Europe and is part of the G8
  • Their currency is the Euro
  • Italy is the country with the most laws of any country in the world
  • The language is Italian that derives from Latin, the language of the Romans
  • The flag consists of three vertical bands in the colors green, white and red
  • The country is one of Europe’s most densely populated countries, has about 62 million inhabitants and covers an area of 301,339 km2
  • Italy has more than 7,600 kilometers of coastline and has more than 450 islands
  • The highest point in Italy is the Mont Blanc with 4,765 meters
  • The longest river in Italy is the Po, 652 kilometers long
  • The country embraces 2 sovereign states, Vatican City and San Marino, but also has an enclave in Switzerland: Campione d’Italia
  • Most Italians have Roman Catholic roots
  • The country has a top 5 ranking in the list of the most visited countries in the world each year
  • The thermometer, the glasses, the piano, the violin, the cello, the Vespa, the espresso machine and the typewriter are Italian inventions and Opera was invented here
  • Italy has more than 500 types of pasta; the pizza was invented in Naples and is a word that is almost universal
  • The Italians invented the ice cream cone; however, ice originates from China
  • The Colosseum is the largest historical stadium in the world
  • Well-known Italian artists are Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rafael and many others
  • Well-known composers are: Puccini, Rossini, Verdi and Vivaldi
  • Finally, especially for Disney fans: In the thirties and forties, Mussolini tried to ban foreign words from Italian. Disney characters also had to pay for it: Donald Duck became Paperino, Mickey Mouse became Topolini and Goofy became Pippo. Huey, Dewey and Louie are called Qui, Qua and Quo, Daisy goes through life as Paperina and Uncle Scrooge is Zio Paperone.

In spring of 2018 we visited this country for the first time and discovered the Lago Maggiore. Below you will find some information about this together with our experiences.

Our travel experience

Spring 2018:

Lago Maggiore

Lago Maggiore, sinds jaar en dag een toeristenmagneet