Some very interesting points about SEO and online content from this London based blog. Copyworks leapt to our eye because of some mentions of Italian property and hotels, and some artfully worked keyphrases. There’s also a potted mention of the history of print (we’d have to say that in just 400 words it’s pretty difficult to do justice to Caxton, Gutenberg and the Apple Mac) but hey they give it a go.

The city of Piazza Armerina, almost dead in the centre of Sicily, is chiefly famous for the Villa Romana del Casale, with its extraordinary collection of Roman mosaics, the largest and finest still in existence. The Villa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, needless to say, any visit to Piazza HAS to take in the complex. There is much else to see besides though. The huge Cathedral was built during the 17th and 18th centuries over an existing church (of which the bell tower is a survivor), along with older Gothic-Catalan windows. The Duomo also has a museum of relics which might occupy an hour or so of your time. Other notable town buildings include the Palazzo Trigona, the Churches of Fundro (1613), San Giovanni Evangelista (14th century),St Martin of Tours (1163) and Santa Maria del Gesù (16th century), which is currently abandoned. There is the Baroque Church of St Roch, with its carved portal of tufa and the 12th century Hermitage of St Andrew. See too the Aragonese Castle (1392-96) and the Priory Church of Sant’Andrea (11th century). The city’s main celebration is the Palio dei Normanni, a costumed re-enacting of the entrance of Count Roger I to the city. An interesting idiosyncracy is the local dialect, which differs markedly from neighbouring towns. William II of Sicily repopulated the town with settlers from Lombardy during the latter 12th century, most of them from Monferrato and Piacenza. The northern Italian dialect still persists in this ‘Lombardic’ comune.

Italy’s smallest region, Valle d’Aosta is tucked into the north-west corner of the country, surrounded by the Alps, and bordered by France to its west, by Switzerland to the north, and by Piedmont (Piemonte) to the south and east. The region, which has an autonomous status within is also the least populous and the least densely populated. The history of Valle d’Aosta is inextricably linked with that of France (the region is bilingual) and in some of the valleys the old German-based dialect, which the early settlers brought with them from Switzerland, is still spoken.

Valle d’Aosta (the Aosta Valley) has tributary valleys which include the Italian sides of the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) and unsurprisingly winter sports are big here, with the ski resort of Courmayeur. This is also beautiful country for walking and hiking, kayaking and rafting during the summer months: much of Valle d’Aosta is covered by the Gran Paradiso National Park (Italy’s earliest national park) with the mountain of Gran Paradiso the highest peak. Once part of the Dukedom of Savoy, Aosta is linked to France (and the Savoy region) by the Mont Blanc Tunnel, with other connections via the Great St Bernard Pass and the Little St Bernard Pass. The nearest international airports are Turin Caselle (to the south) and Milan Malpensa and Linate (east), or there is Geneva (north west on the Swiss side).

Unsurprisingly, this mountainous region doesn’t have any really big towns, with the nearest city being Turin (Torino) in Piedmont to the south. Most of the towns are ranged along the base of the valley, and the main road that winds up from Turin to Courmayeur and the Mont Blanc Tunnel: the main town here is Aosta itself.

Others lie in the tributary valleys. These include Val Gressoney (where a dialect of German is spoken) and the town of Pont St Martin and the twon resorts of Gressoney St Jean and Gressoney La Trinite. The valley is more reminiscent of Switzerland than Italy, with Alpine chalets and Monte Rosa and its glacier at the head of the valley. Val d’Ayas is a lovely valley, with Monte Rosa at one end, and its slopes thickly wooded. The main ski resort here is Champoluc. Brusson has good Alpine walking. Valtourneche has the Matterhorn (Cervino in Italian) and the big ski resort of Breuil-Cervinia.

The town of Aosta is circled by the Alps, has good access to the Gran Paradiso National Park and to the ski resorts on Mont Blanc. This is an old Roman town and there is a scattering of remains, including the Roman Bridge and the Foro Romano. The 13 valleys that carve through the region have a scattering of medieval castles, which only enhance the fairytale atmosphere, including the Castello di Sarre and castles at Verres, Fenis and Challant.

The southern part of Valle d’Aosta comprises the Gran Paradiso National Park and there are very few villages. This is stunningly beautiful countryside, with ibex, chamois and golden eagles. This is a botanists’ dream too, with numerous rare and protected flowers in the park’s three valleys (Cogne, Valsavarenche and Val de Rhemes). Any development in the park is very carefully controlled, but there are good campsites and mountain refuges (rifugi and bivacci) for climbers and hikers. Villages to look out for include Cogne, Valnontey, Pont, Breuil and Degioz. Head west to the remote and beautiful valley of Valgrisenche and the village of Arvier (remarkably it has a rail station). Other villages include Valgrisenche itself and Bonne.

Feste, fair and pageants abound as they do in all regions of Italy. Some of the most noteworthy include the following. In January, Pont Saint Martin Verres has its historical parade and Roman carnival, complete with chariot race. In February, Courmayeur has its carnival, welcoming Spring, Nus has an historical carnival and Saint Vincent the children’s carnival. March sees the snow carnival at Pila. In April, Brissogne has the Rebatta competition (a large spiked ball hurled through the air), while Pollein has its Tsan tourney (a nascent form of rounders). In May, Nus has its wine festival, complete with al fresco banquet. June sees the Festival of St John in Gressoney Saint Jean. July has the Ham Festival in Saint-Rhemy-en-Bosses. August in Gaby sees the Polenta Picnic, and the Shepherds’ Festival in La Thuile. September has the Grape Festival at Chambave, October the Apple Festival in Gressan. December has the spectacular hot air balloon exhibition in Aosta (including flights up Mont Blanc). There are numerous living nativity scenes around the region, and Cervinia is of special note, with the marvellous torchlit procession on skis.

Gallura is the northernmost tip of Sardinia and in the middle ages was one of the four ‘giudicati’ which formed the governance and administration of the island. A largely historic term now, with the area forming part of the modern province of Olbia-Tempio (Tempio and Olbia being the two main administrative centres) but it’s an historically interesting (as well as remarkably beautiful) part of the island. It has its own dialect too, tricky for visitors already struggling to reconcile their text book Italian with the rather harsher sound of Sards speaking their own language (Sardinian has ‘praza’ rather than the Italian ‘piazza’, ‘abbas’ rathern than ‘ague’ for waters for starters). The northern diasystem of Gallurese muddies the phonetic waters further, though you’ll get by in either Italian or indeed English.

The coast here is lovely, incredibly windy, with countless little bays and inlets, beautiful islands offshore (including the Parco Nazionale dell’Archipelago di La Maddalena) and the stunning Costa Smeralda unwinding down the north-east flank of the island, with good beaches at Cappricccioli, Rena Bianca and Liscia Ruia, and the main coast town at Porto Cervo.

Check out too the Golfo di Arzachena and the lovely wooded parkland of Caprera (with the house once inhabited by Giuseppe Garibaldi. There’s a museum here dedicated to the hero of Italian independence and the Risorgimento. You have the airport and port at Olbia, and main towns are Olbia , Tempio Pausania , La Maddalena , Arzachena and Calangianus. The area’s economy is largely agricultural and fishing, with granite and cork traditional mainstays.

The second largest of the seven islands that make up the Aeolian group (Lipari is the largest), Salina is, nonetheless, no giant. A mere 27 square kilometres in size, the island is formed of six extinct volcanoes, with the vast bulk of the the island comprising the two largest peaks of Monte dei Porri and its big sister Fossa delle Felci. Around the two cones lies a fertile land (all that rich volcanic matter) on which are grown capers and the grapes for white Malvasia wine. Visitors should pack their walking shoes as this is superb hiking country, with great views down over the volcanoes and onto the ocean. There are good trails, one linking the main town of Santa Marina di Salina with the peak of Monta Fossa delle Felci (962 metres asl), the Madonna del Terzito sanctuary and on to the port at Rinella.

The modern name of the island comes from the salting works that were the main employer on the island until quite recently. This ’salina’ (salt lagoon) is at Lingua on the east coast. Dominated by the lighthouse, the salt flats are an important habitat for birds migrating to and from AFrica.

The other main towns are Malfa and Leni, with smaller settlements (all coastal of course) being Lingua, Capo Faro, Pollara, Valdichiesa and Leni though the island has a scant population of 2300 people. The little port of Rinella is the arrival point for most visitors, with ferries and hydrofoils being met by buses on the quayside. The island is, like so much of the Italian Mediterranean, much invaded. Inhabited since the Bronze Age, the island population fled or was killed during the 1544 war of Spain on France, when Barbarossa laid waste to Naples. The island was repopulated by immigrants from Spain, Sicily and Italy over the years. After the two World Wars, the island’s depopulated once more, as many thousands left for the dreams of an easier life in Australia and America, though the descendants of many are now returning to the island, which is slowly repopulating.

Large parts of Salina have been a nature reserve since 1981. The thick vegetation is a habitat for hawks, falcons and barn owls. Vegetation includes the vineyards and caper bushes of course, peaches, plums, apricots, almonds, and orange and lemon groves. The weather is very singular. Reliably sunny and calm during the day, the island has dramatic night storms. Check out the traditional buildings during your time on the island: painted in pink, ochre, turquoise and white, they have flat roofs to catch the sparse rain. Cuisine herer is fish of course, salcicciate (hand made sausage flavoured with wild fennel seeds). There is the Festa di San Giuseppe, with pasta and chickpea dishes, and a number of other festivals or ’sagre’.

Excellent website about Salina [http://www.estateolie.it/salina.htm] and the other Aeolian Islands, though it is in Italian.

A good month for ‘feste’ with the grape harvest (vendemmia) coming in. The Montecarlo wine festival in Tuscany’s Lucca province stretches from the end of August into the first week of September. Greve in Chianti has its Rassegna del Chianti Classico, celebrating the harvest in enormous style. Food is never far from Italian’s minds, and September sees Camaiore’s Celebration del Lardo, and Pienza its Fiera del Cacio (Pecorino Cheese Festival). Bivigliano has its Festival of the Finocchiona (a traditional sausage), and Vetulonia its Gastronomic Festival. See too the Sagra del Cinghiale, Capalbio’s Wild Boar festival. Pietra Santa has the Feast of Wine

The lovely medieval city of Lucca also has the Luminara, a parade in honour of the Volto Santo crucifix, and taking place on 13 September. On the 5th, Lucca has the parade celebrating the Liberatinon of the City, and there is a series of concerts featuring, inter alia, the music of son of Lucca Puccini. We have ‘Meeting Lucca by Night’ with a run around the city walls … a whole month of festivities in fact.

Everyone knows the Palio (or rather Palios) of Siena, but other cities boast there historical horse race/joust tourneys. Check out the Palio of San Rocco in Florence’s Figline Valdarno. Impruneta has its own scamper through the streets on horseback, in the Festival of San Luca. Pisa too has its Palio degli Contrade, and Impruneta the Feste of San Luca, a horseback race through the streets. Other palios are in Lari, Cortona and Signa. Check out Nozzano’s Il Castello Rivive, where the ‘castle comes back to life’ with fire eaters, jugglers, music, wine, parades and other Renaissance costumed fun. The pick of these events is in Volterra, with the Astiludio, with demonstrations of archery and flag throwing.

One of Florence’s oldest feste is the Feast of Rificolona , over the 7th and 8th.

A brief roundup of the various feste in Abruzzo this month, from the traditional, to the modern, and the frankly bizarre! As ever, we endeavour to get dates right but they CAN change. So please check before you go. 4 September in Pacentro sees the Day of Madonna di Loreto, a celebration dating back to the 1500s, with the young folk taking part in the traditional barefoot race of the ‘corsa degli zingari’. Liscia has its patron saint’s festival early in the month, with a parade of floats.

The grape harvest (or Vendemmia) sees grape festivals all around, including those at Sulmona and L’Aquila. There is the grape and wine festival at Giuliano Teatino mid month. The first Sunday in September sees the Mullet festival in Ortona (fried fish rather than dodgy haircuts). A big communal fish fry in the open air, plus fireworks and live music. The 8th sees Lanciano’s Madonna del Ponte day, with the marvellous Parade of Donativi, where local peasants carry traditional copper basins on their heads. Castiglione Messer Marino has Saint Maria del Monte’s Day (combined with the chicken festival) on the 11-12 September. Ripateatina has its saint’s day, plus hog roast on the second Sunday of September. Altino has Saints Cosma and Damiano’s Day with its traditional parade on 26-27, and Forcella its Mercy Festival and Ballo dell’Insegna on the 24th. Vasto has San Michele’s Day (fireworks) on 28-30th.

Major dates in the month of September in Italy include the start of the hunting season.

Surely one of the shortest lived museums of all time, the Museum of Erotic Art in Venice (Museo d’Arte Erotica) to give it its Italian sobriquet fell foul of the all-powerful Catholic Church and a certain prissiness by the Venetian authorities. Now there are sex museums all over the world, including the Museum of Sex on Fifth Avenue in New York City, Berlin’s Beate Uhse and St Petersburg’s sex museum, which boasts the mummified penis of Rasputin. Many mainstream collections, such as the British Museum, have their own ’secret’ collections of erotic arcana, for which you need speical visiting rights. This is even the case of Italy, where the Naples Archeological Museum (the Museo Archelogico Nazionale Napoli) has the Secret Cabinet, a collection of erotic Roman art.

You’d think Venice would be the ideal place, with so many erotic writers being associated with the place - Casanova comes to mind, as do Pietro Aretino, Veronica Franco and Giorgio Baffo, who specialised in bawdy sonnets. But Venice appears to wish to live down its sexy past, with both the city and region tourist bureaux having refused to give the museum any publicity. When it finally closed in December 2006 after just ten months, the Church nodded its approval, saying the museum had been an assault on the ‘dignity’ of the city.

Could we be witnessing a ’sea change’ (sorry but we use the phrase the way Shakespeare and Prospero intended) in Italian corporate responsibility? Over the last weeks the leasing company Banca Italease went from bank to junk bank as its shares plummeted following a disastrous foray into derivatives bets that didn’t pay off. Untangling itself from the fiasco has cost Italease €610m. Now the Bank of Italy (Italy’s central bank, based in Milan) has ordered all the directors to resign. If this were the US there would be a very long trial, if it were Japan, the suits would probably opt for hara kiri, as it’s Italy they’ll probably ignore it and carry on regardless … but we wait with interest.

Italy isn’t the only European country prone to scare stories about overwhelming numbers of migrants. Rightly or wrongly, many Italians fear the dilution of their distinctive culture by new arrivals. An unarguable statistic is that the Italians just aren’t having many children - the birthrate for arrivals from Eastern Europe, for example, tends to be higher per couple. But wait … amid all the racist rhetoric from the right wing parties (one scarcely believable demand was that the Italian Navy be employed to sink immigrants’ boats in the Adriatic before they could make landfall), there is one uncomfortable statistic … the number of immigrants into Italy this year actually FELL. Could it be that the Bel Paese doesn’t look so Bel to incomers after all?