Castel del Monte (Italian for “Castle of the Mountain”; Barese: Castìdde du Monte) is a 13th-century citadel and castle situated on a hill in Andria in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. It was built during the 1240s by KingFrederick II, who had inherited the lands from his mother Constance of Sicily. In the 18th century, the castle’s interior marbles and remaining furnishings were removed. It has neither a moat nor a drawbridge and some considered it never to have been intended as a defensive fortress; however, archaeological work has suggested that it originally had a curtain wall. Described by the Enciclopedia Italiana as “the most fascinating castle built by Frederick II”, the site is protected as a World Heritage Site since 1996. It also appears on the Italian version of the one cent Euro coin. read more…
Mondello is a small borough of the city of Palermo in the autonomous region of Sicily in Southern Italy. Its beach lies between two cliffs called Mount Gallo and Mount Pellegrino. The town was originally a small fishing village situated on marshland, but at the end of the 19th century it grew into a tourist destination. A number of Liberty style villas on the seafront promenade have made it one of the gems of Art Nouveau in Europe. read more…
Muggia is an Italian town and comune in the extreme south-east of the Province of Trieste in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia. Lying on the eastern flank of the Gulf of Trieste in the northern Adriatic Sea, Muggia is the only Italian port town in Istria. The town’s architecture is marked by its Venetian and Austrian history, and its harbour hosts a modern 500-berth marina for yachts (Porto San Rocco). Muggia lies in northern Istria. Its territory, limited on the sea-side by a shoreline of more than 7 kilometres (4 mi) featuring a coastal road and on the border side by a hill system, Monti di Muggia, including Mt. Castellier, Mt. S. Michele, Mt. Zuc and Monte d’Oro, that dominate over a vast landscape of Triestinian and Istrian coast, is characterized by a rich sub-continental vegetation of both Karstic and Istrian type. It has a border crossing, known as San Bartolomeo, with Slovenia and the extreme east of the comune at Lazaretto. The Slovenian border crossing is called Lazaret in the Municipality of Koper. read more…
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It was the capital of the former Province of Gorizia and is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin town of Nova Gorica has developed on the other side of the modern-day Italian–Slovenian border. The entire region was subject to territorial dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia after World War II: after the new boundaries were established in 1947 and the old town was left to Italy, Nova Gorica was built on the Yugoslav side. Taken together, the two towns constitute a conurbation, which also includes the Slovenian municipality of Šempeter-Vrtojba. Since May 2011, these three towns have been joined in a common trans-border metropolitan zone, administered by a joint administration board. The name of the town comes from the Slovene word gorica ‘little hill’, which is a very common toponym in Slovene-inhabited areas. In 2025 both cities will be the European Capital of Culture together as one. read more…
Pordenone is the main comune of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. The name comes from Latin Portus Naonis, meaning ‘port on the Noncello River’. The town has many mansions and palaces, in particular along the ancient “Greater Contrada”, today Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (wonderful example of Venetian porticoes and called by some small “waterless Grand Canal”). The urban conglomerate of Pordenone is characterized by the presence of the ruins of the industries dating back to the nineteenth century, examples of industrial archeology. read more…
