One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Italy

That's the name of a book Little M. grabbed a week ago in the library. She just picked it from one of the lower shelves.
Well, this girl got some taste, I'm telling you!
And to think she was able to carry it.
One Hundred and One Towns (in short..) is actually 279 large square pages with very heavy covers!
Anyway, thanks to the little I discovered this admirable book.

Italy is my long-time-heaven-on-earth.
The combination of great landscapes, some of the most beautiful cities in the world, the people, the best kitchen and - of course - the wine, all combines together to be my most beloved country.
One of the things about living in Australia is that you feel so far from the world and in a way - isolated (OKay, that's a little price for living on an island!).
So this book was very refreshing for me and is a great way to recollect with all the wonderful places we once visited and the many others we would like to dwell in one day.

The writing on the cover says this book covers "2 of the most popular reasons to visit Italy: Shopping and the artisanal products for which Italy is famous for".
I don't know. Maybe some people do go to Italy to shop.
But for me Italy is one of the most inspiring places I've visited.
And this book has the same magic.

The book is organized like a travel book, covers the different regions from north to south and features in each region the most interesting towns with the greatest array of handcrafted items.
Diverse just like Italy itself, the handcrafted products it produces are remarkably varied. Shaped and influenced by the different geography, climate and history.

Paolo Lazzarin, the author, is a journalist and a photographer who is lucky enough to travel and take pictures all over Italy as part of his job. 3 of his books are available in English but he had published numerous books on photography, tourism and sports as well as encyclopedias in Italian.

Every town get a double-spread (or more for bigger towns), with information, the local specialità, good advices for traveling around and of course a taste of the local goods in brilliant photos.
Lazzarin also included an appendix with lots of helpful details of hotels, restaurants, wineries and shops you probably wouldn't find any other way.

Now, the last image got something that warmed my heart.
On our honeymoon, The Man and I spent 20 wonderful days in Italy.
We started at Rome, spending 5 days in this magnificent city, than took a car and drove all the way down to Palermo.
The street you can see on the left (Via dei Cappellari) is just 3 little alleys from the street where our rented apartment was located (Via del Governo Vecchio) and the restaurant in the lower middle right page, is where we had a dinner one night.

We finished our honeymoon trip in Palermo just after spending 3 terrific days in Syracuse so I will finish my post here after these 2 last photos.

Other than these 11 pages I shared with you, the book contains more than 200 pages full of fabulous and inspiring photos and some of the most desirable handcrafts you can imagine.
I can only wish I will have the chance to explore more of the towns it mentions so next time I will write about Italy it will be accompanied with my own photos.... :)





*** All photos from the book One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in Italy: Shops and Crafts are copyright © 2007 by Paolo Lazzarin.
Publisher: Rizzoli (May 29, 2007)