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Not a single square meter is ever wasted.
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Ziena, long arrival to Florence, is known as La Mata, the beloved.
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The ancient hilltop towns of Tuscany nestle, where fortresses once commanded the landscape.
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Once a busy commercial port, Pisa is now known for a 12th century bell tower
that began to lean only five years after it was built.
Now cables hold it in place.
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Galileo, a native of Pisa, stood atop the tower and discovered the laws of gravity.
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The walled cities of Umbria, modern as they are, have never lost their medieval aura.
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The new and the very, very old stand side by side in this constantly surprising place.
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This is a country that has always known how much to render unto Caesar and how much to render unto God.
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Assisi and the humble Saint Francis. It is impossible to think of one without the other.
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After so many centuries, it is amazing that the soil still has the power to turn the landscape so green.
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Grapes and tomatoes. Could there even be an Italy without them?
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Or without that world famous human warmth?
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But it takes more than a canal to make a town of Venice.
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In the whole world there is only one Venice,
La Serenissima, the serene one.
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Soaring over the Grand Canal is the moment of a lifetime,
matched only perhaps by a romantic midnight gondola ride under the Rialto Bridge.
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Even from this height we cannot begin to see
her 150 canals, her 400 bridges.
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The Po River cuts across the entire width of Italy
from the Adriatic to sources in the French Alps.
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For her entire length her waters nourish the land.
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Italian ingenuity also helps.
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More abundant than even the water is that other of life's necessities,
the sun, il sole.
Where else in the world would they have written a love song to it?
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In this country you can drive past an old farmhouse or climb over a fertile field
and be struck suddenly by the presence of the modern world.
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Genoa is Italy's largest seaport.
Through here pass goods from the great industrial cities of the north,
Milano and Torino.
She once ruled the Mediterranean.
From here explorers and traders departed and changed the history of the world.
Christopher Columbus was born here.
Where would we be without him?
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Speed is illusory when you are bound to the earth.
Ours is the freedom to go wherever we wish.
And that park over there, those wheat fields, the city beyond the river's bend.
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In old Verona one can still almost hear the clashing swords of Montagues and Capulets.
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Elegant Treviso is where the nobility vacationed when the hot moist summers of nearby Venice became unbearable.
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Grapes in La Provincia di Venezia will produce the favorite local wine, the Pinot Grigio.
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The roads narrow and begin to switch back on themselves.
These are the signs we are approaching l'Alpi Tirolesi, the Tyrolean Alps.
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Coming into Lake Como, Italy's northernmost lake, is a descent into another time.
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The villas that touch the water's edge have a dignity, a modest elegance not often seen in the modern world.
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We have seen Italy as few people ever have, and yet it is a beginning only. Like the aroma of a rich chianti before it is sipped, or the intriguing taste of antipasto, the first timid kiss between lovers.
To know Italy is to discover her soul, and that, fortunately, takes a lifetime.
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