Italy Cruises Top 10 Ports of Call and Italy Cruise Shore Excursions

Italy cruises from Rome and Venice cruise around Italy to the Eastern Mediterranean with ports of call in Athens, Croatia, the Dalmatian Coast, Greek Isles, Turkey and even Egypt and Israel are often on the Eastern Mediterranean Italy cruise Itinerary. Italy cruises also cruise around the Western Mediterranean to France, Spain, Morocco, including ports of call in Barcelona, Valenica, Mallorca, the Italian Riviera , the French Riviera, the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and North Africa.

When considering a cruise from Rome or a cruise from Venice one should consider the shore excursions that each Italy cruise itinerary offers.  Cruising around Italy to the Eastern and Western Mediterranean is a delight and all the Mediterranean ports on a Italy cruise offer wonderful historic sights, culture and food. And many port cities are on the cutting edge of modern and contemporary design, all of which offers the Italy cruise tour traveler no shortage of history-themed and contemporary -themed shore excursions to choose from when on an Italy cruise.

Western civilization flourished on the shores of the Mediterranean so the ports of call on a Italy cruise are ports that have been welcoming visitors for thousands of years. It is lots of fun to arrive in the various Mediterranean ports because it affords a view of the city just like when the earliest cultures sailed around the Mediterranean trading spices, wine, herbs, and more.

We suggest that before or after an Italy cruise you do either an Italy pre cruise tour or Italy post cruise tour, or if your Italy cruise itinerary is a cruise from Rome to Venice or a cruise from Venice to Rome why not do both an Italy pre cruise tour and Italy post cruise tour in each city.

Below are our favorite ports of call for big ship Italy cruise itinerary. Smaller ships will fit into ports along the Dalmatian Coast, Italian Riviera and French Riviera that big ships will not.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Rome
A Rome pre cruise or Rome post cruise tour may be ranked top of the list of Mediterranean shore excursions. And as such, we suggest two nights or ideally four nights in Rome to get a taste of the eternal city.  There is so much to see and do in Rome that two nights will provide a nice overview and four nights will give you enough time to walk around the city taking in most of the sights. Of course, a lifetime in Rome may not be sufficient time for some Italy travelers but a Rome pre cruise tour or Rome post cruise tour is the next best thing to a lifetime in Rome.  After this Rome pre cruise tour and Rome post cruise tour you may want to plan a Italy vacation in the future. Or if you have time plan to spend a week or more in Rome - you'll never got bored in Rome.

When in Rome we suggest staying around the Piazza Navona and Campo de Fiori area in Rome's centro storico.  In this area you'll have access to Rome's fabulous sights including Piazza Navona, which is the center of Rome's centro storico and a must visit. With fountains by Bernini, caffes surrounding the piazza and some of Rome's most famous streets off of this piazza you will love this area. From Piazza Navona you may stroll less than 5 minutes to visit the Pantheon.  And from the Pantheon and Piazza Navona it is a 5 minute stroll to Campo de' Fiori. This golden triangle of Rome's centro storico is full of action. Around here there are plenty of place ot enjoy an espresso, a gelato, a pizza or a traditional Roman lunch or dinner. For shopping and restaurants a nice street to explore is Via del Governo Vecchio.

For a serene retreat, stroll the 148-acre Villa Borghese gardens, the second-largest public park in Rome. You’ll see sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, well-tended gardens and tranquil lakes. Within the park is the Galleria Borghese, an art museum featuring the works of Bernini, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian) and Raphael.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Venice

The Republic of Venice was a major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain and spice trade) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. There is nor shortage of things to do in Venice for a few days during your Italy cruise and you may consider a stay in Venice on a Italy pre cruise tour or Italy post cruise tour.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Naples Italy Italy Cruise Shore Excursion
A Italy cruise to Naples offers so much that if the cruise ship is in Naples for one day you must choose between the sights and natural beauty of the Amalfi Coast and Capri, visiting Pompeii, or exploring the hustle and bustle of Naples.  Regardless of the itinerary you choose you will not be disappointed around Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfui Coast thus we rank it #1 on our list of top Italy cruise shore excursions.

When visiting Naples and Amalfi Coast consider the following shore excursions:

• Naples Archaeology Museum 
• Spaccanapoli and Via Gregoria Armena
• Pompeii
• Capri
• Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast

Naples shore excursion secret tip: visit the ancient mansions in Stabiae for an authentic look at how the ancient Roman plutocrats lived.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Athens, Greece Italy Cruise Shore Excursion

This ancient city can be noisy and full of traffic congestion and provides too much hustle and bustle for some. Escape it all with a pleasing stroll up to the Acropolis, which offers a spectacular view over the city and the Mediterranean. Archaeological remains there include the Parthenon, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nike.

 Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Barcelona, Spain Italy Cruise Shore Excursion

The architect Antoni Gaudi left his mark across Barcelona. His most famous work is the enormous yet unfinished church of the Sagrada Família, which has been under construction since 1882. Art lovers can also explore the whimsical Park Güell, a garden complex with architectural elements designed by Gaudi. Check out the multicolored mosaic dragon fountain at the main entrance. He also built Casa Milà, a residential building with an amorphous shape based on an art style called biomorphism. 

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Istanbul, Turkey Italy Cruise Shore Excursion

Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural, economic, and financial center of Turkey. It is the largest city in Turkey and 5th largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.8 million, also making it the largest metropolitan city proper in Europe and the second largest metropolitan area in Europe by population. It is located on the Bosphorus Strait and encompasses the natural harbor known as the Golden Horn, in the northwest of the country. It extends both on both the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) sides of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents. During its long history, Istanbul had previously served as the capital of the Roman Empire (330–c.395), Byzantine Empire (c.395–1204 & 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Thereafter, the new Republic of Turkey, moved their capital to Ankara during the Turkish War of Independence.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Alexandria, Egypt Italy Cruise Shore Excursion

In ancient times, Alexandria was one of the most famous cities in the world. It was founded around a small pharaonic town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. It remained Egypt's capital for nearly a thousand years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (Fustat was later absorbed into Cairo). Alexandria was known because of its Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its library (the largest library in the ancient world); and the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, which began in 1994, is revealing details of Alexandria both before the arrival of Alexander, when a city named Rhacotis existed there, and during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Greek Isles

The Greek Islands are a collection of over 6,000 islands and islets that belong to Greece. Only 227 of the islands are inhabited, and only 78 of those have more than 100 inhabitants.  The largest Greek island by area is Crete, located at the southern edge of the Aegean Sea. The second largest island is Euboea, which is separated from the mainland by the 60m-wide Euripus Strait, and is administered as part of the central Greece periphery. After the third and fourth largest Greek Islands, Lesbos and Rhodes, the rest of the islands are two-thirds of the area of Rhodes, or smaller.


Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Dubrovnik Croatia














The prosperity of the city of Dubrovnik has always been based on maritime trade. In the Middle Ages, as the Republic of Ragusa, also known as the fifth Maritime Republic (together with Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice), it became the only eastern Adriatic city-state to rival Venice. Supported by its wealth and skilled diplomacy, the city achieved a remarkable level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries. Although demilitarised in the 1970s with the intent of forever protecting it from war devastation, in 1991, after the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was besieged by Serb-Montenegrin forces for 7 months and heavily damaged by shelling.

Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Messina Sicily

Founded by Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, Messina was originally called Zancle, from the Greek meaning "scythe" because of the shape of its natural harbor (though a legend attributes the name to King Zanclus). A comune of its province, located at the southern entrance of the Strait of Messina, is to this day called 'Scaletta Zanclea'. In the early 5th century BC, Anaxilas of Rhegium renamed it Messene in honor of the Greek city Messene. The city was sacked in 397 BC by the Carthaginians and then reconquered by Dionysius I of Syracuse.




Italy Cruise Top 10 Port of Call - Izmir Turkey

The city is one of the oldest settlements of the Mediterranean basin, dating to 7000 B.C.  The Greek settlement in Old Smyrna is attested by the presence of pottery dating from about 1000 BC onwards and the most ancient ruins preserved to our day date back to 725-700 BC.

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Italy Cruise guarantees the lowest rate on all cruises from Italy and shore excursions during your Italy cruise.  Italy cruise will always beat or meet the best rates, even beating the prices cruise lines rates if you shop direct. And we offer friendly service by an Italy cruise expert to guide you on a Italy cruise.  So before you buy direct, shop around then contact Italy Cruise for your next cruise from Italy.

Baroque and Renaissance Rome: Bernini's Vatican City - The Architect of St. Peter's

Bernini was called "The architect of St. Peter's" by Urban VIII (1623-44). And Bernini would have considered this quite a complement, as Bernini was one of a handful of artists in his time who would be come to known as a Renaissance Man due to his accomplishments in a variety of fields, including architecture, painting, and sculpture.

Popes Paul V and Gregory XV of the two great Roman families Borghese (see Cardinal Scipione Borghese the Pope's nephew) and Ludovisi (see Sant'Ignazio and Jesuits) respectively. It is these two Popes in the first two decades of the 17th century that created what is known as Triumphant Rome.

Truimphant Rome gets its name from the art and particularly the sculpture of that time, which had a triumphal role because it occupied a rhetorical position in the philosophy of the century. By the end of the 16th century theorists of New Science rationalized that the center of every operation is the man. In De sensu rerum et magi (1620) Tommaso Campanella writes: "Man is the epilogue of the whole World. The World is statue and image. It is the living Temple of God, where he has depicted his acts and written his own ideas. He adorned it with living statues, simple in heaven, mixed and feeble on earth; but from them goes the way to God."

In short, God created the world by means of three great arts:

• Sculpture, because it is statuary;
• Painting, because it is image; and
• Architecture, because it is a Temple.

Men are thus living statues, sculpture in motion.

Bernini's aim was to unite painting, sculpture, and architecture in his work, which he mastered beautifully by the time of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa and the Cornaro Family, both inside the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Urban VIII was the Barberini Pope after Gregory XV, who with Innocent X (1644-55), and the Chigi Pope Alexander VII (1655-67), all erected churches and palaces around Rome and it was these Roman families who were the stimulus for many works by Bernini.

Today when you travel to Rome walk down Via dei Seminario, just off the Piazza Pantheon, to Sant'Ignazio where inside on the ceiling is painted an allegory depicting the nine arts battling for the Jesuit's heart.

Bernini took advantage of the Jesuit's new call for propaganda or "spreading the faith", such as the allegory on the ceiling of Sant'Ignazio by designing and building art around Rome that conveyed a universal and rhetorical message that is persuasive.

The idea of persuasion through images impelled the intellectuals of the time to rediscover the power and resources of rhetoric. The whole act of artistic creation could be viewed in a particular way through the lenses of the "Aristotelian telescope" (the title of a treatise on rhetoric by Emanuele Tesauro); viewed, that is, in terms of such rhetorical devices as antithesis, anastrophe, metonymy, ellipsis, hyperbole, oxymoron, and above all metaphor.

Under Innocent X Bernini created his most complex fountain conceived as an allegorical monument, the Fountain of Four Rivers (1648-51) in Piazza Navona, to the figure group as a theatrical vision in St. Teresa (1647-52).

Under Pope Alexander VII, Bernini busied himself with architecture: Sant'Andrea Quirinale, Colonnade in front of St. Peter's Basilica, sculpture Constantine inside St. Peter's, Daniel and Habakkuk in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, and the Chair of St. Peter in the apse of St. Peter's Basilica.

Bernini the architect designed St. Peter's Square and the colonnade, and inside St. Peter's Basilica Bernini the sculptor designed a number of works including the bronze and gold 95 foot tall Baldachine (1624-1633) over the High Alter of St. Peter's Basilica, which cost the papal-state 10% of its annual revenue. It was testament to Bernini that the Vatican's would spend that kind of money on Bernini. And it was a testament to triumphant Rome that the Pope and super-rich of the 16th and 17th centuries used their wealth and money, chariots, like today's Gulfstream V jets, for the artists to travel between Rome, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Istanbul, France and Spain for the artist's sole benefit. And 10% of the annual revenue of the papal state was enough to keep an artist living well for several lifetimes. Of course, rather than sit back and just play the game like today's NBA basketball players, the genius-artist of the 17th century went on working day by day despite millions and millions in today's money in the bank.

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Italy Vacations: Arts Guide for your Italy Travel

Italian Tourism Italy vacations should include a visit to a museum oin Italy. Whether you are on a Italy cruise vacation or a Italy tour do make time to visit Italy's fabulous arts on your Italy vacation.



The following is a city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:



ALBA - Fondazione Ferrero: Giorgio Morandi, The Essence of Landscape; 70 works; until January 16.



BARLETTA - Palazza Marra: Giuseppe De Nittis, 43 engravings; until January 16.



FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: French 18th-century still-life master Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin; 50 loans from major international museums in first-ever Italian show; until January 13.



FLORENCE ART- Palazzo Strozzi: 'Bronzino, Painter and Poet at the Medici Court'; 90 works in world's first monographic show; to January 23.- Palazzo Pitti: Vinum Nostrum. The Art, Science and Myths of Wine in Civilisation; from prehistoric winegrowing to Dionysus cult, Etruscan, Roman use; show features oldest surviving wine container, on loan from Georgia; until April 30.- Bargello: Giovanfrancesco Rustici and Leonardo, first show examining links of 15th-century sculptor with da Vinci, Verrocchio and others; until January 10. For the best deals on Italy travel to Florence visit Italian Tourism for its Florence vacation packages.



FORLI' - Musei Civici di San Domenico: 400 ancient Egyptian artefacts gound by great Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli (1856-1928) including works from Queen Nefertari's tomb; until January 9.



MAMIANO DI TRAVERSETOLO (PARMA ARTS) - Fondazione Magnani Rocca: Renato Guttuso, Passion and Reality, 65 works until December 8. Visit WebVisionItaly Parma video and when ready for a vacation visit Italian Tourism to plan the perfect Italy vacation.



MILAN Travel - Palazzo Reale: 'Salvador Dali', The Dream Draws Near'; 50 works, until January 30.- Museo Poldi Pezzoli: Sandro Botticelli, all of his works in Lombardy museums brought together for first time; until February 28.



PADUA ART - Palazzo Zabarella: "From Canova to Modigliani, the Face of the 19th Century"; 100 portraits and sculptures; until February 27. Looking for vacation to Veneto and Venice then vist Italian Tourism Venice vacation packages or for a Italy cruise click Venice cruise.



PASSARIANO (UDINE) - Villa Manin: 'Edvard Munch and the Spirit of the North'; 122 works; until March 6.


PERUGIA - Galleria Nazionale: 'Theatre of Dreams from Chagall to Fellini', 100 works; until January 9. For more Umbria visit WebVisionItaly Umbria travel channel. Looking for a Umbra vacation check out Italian Tourism Umbria vacation packages.

RIMINI - Castel Sismondo: The Marvelous Years: Impressionism; 100 works from international museums including Monet and Pissarro, Sisley and Degas, Bazille and Renoir, Cezanne and Guillaumin, Morisot and Fantin-Latour, Gauguin and Van Gogh; until March 27.- same venue: Caravaggio's first religious painting, The Ecstasy of St Francis, back in Italy for first time in 25 years from Wadsworh Museum, Hartford, as well as several contemporaries; until March 27.



ROME ARTS - Palazzo Venezia: The Two Empires, The Eagle and the Dragon; more than 400 works on Roman (up to Trajan) and Chinese (Qin and Han) empires, spanning second century BC to fourth century AD; marks Year of Chinese Culture in Italy and is paired with other section at Roman Forum; until January 9.- Palazzo delle Esposizioni: The City of the Gods, 450 artefacts from ancient Mexican site of Teotihuacan (2nd-century BC to 5th-century AD), once the largest city in pre-Columbian Americas; until February 27.- Musei Capitolini: Michelangelo 'Two Wrestlers' loaned from Casa Buonarroti in Florence; until December 5.- Galleria Borghese: Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Other Renaissance; 45 works from major international museums; until February 13.- Chiostro del Bramante: Greats from the Veneto, 15th- 18th Century; Bellini, Lotto, Titian, Veronese, Tiepolo, Canaletto; 80 works from Accademia Carrara in Bergamo; until January 30.- Vittoriano: 'Vincent Van Gogh, Timeless Landscape, Modern City'; 110 masterpieces in first major Rome show in 22 years; until January 30.- Scuderie del Quirinale: '1861: The Painters of the Risorgimento', war scenes, Garibaldi's Red Shirts, leaders' portraits; to January 16.- Curia Iulia, Roman Forum: 'The Two Empires, The Eagle and the Dragon'; 450 works; until January 9.- Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi): The Risorgimento in Colour: Patriot Painters; to January 9.

SAN MARINO - Palazzo Sums: 25 Impressionist works including Monet, Cezanne and Renoir; until March 27, in tandem with Rimini show.

SAN SEVERINO MARCHE - Pinacoteca Civica, Palazzo Servanzi Confidati and Chiesa della Misericordia: 'Baroque Marvels', 90 works including Bernini, Guercino, Pomarancio, Orazio Gentileschi, Valentin de Boulogne, Baciccio: until December 12.

TURIN - Palazzo Reale, Palazzo Chiablese, Castello di Racconigi: "Vittorio Emanuele II: The Gentleman King"; new documents, pictures on life of Italy's first post-unification king; until March 13. Visit Turin with an Italian Tourism Italy vacation.

VENICE ARTS - Fondazione Cini: 'The Arts of Giambattista Piranesi - Architect, etcher, antiquarian, vedutista, designer'; 300 original prints plus 33 photos by Gabriele Basilico of Rome sites in 1960s; until November 21. Visit the arts of Venice like the Doge's Palace and the Basilica of St. Marks. Looking to visit Venice click for complete listing of cruises from Venice and click Venice vacation packages for a land-based Venice vacation by Italian Tourism discount Italy vacations.

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Rome Holidays: Ancient Rome Forum Opens Temple of Venus and Rome

Ancient Rome's most imposing shrine, the Temple of Venus and Rome, has reopened after a restoration lasting almost 30 years in welcome news for a government under pressure since last weekend's collapse of Pompeii's Gladiator School.

Facing East and West to symbolize the sweep of the empire, the temple was built in the second century AD by Hadrian on the vestibule of Nero's Golden House, shifting the Colossus of Nero close to the Flavian Amphitheatre so that it got its better-known name, the Colosseum.

"We have restored to Rome one of the most powerful symbols of the power and greatness of the Roman Empire," said restoration chief Claudia Del Monti, who has been on the job for all but three years of its 26-year duration.

"My project was aimed at reading the temple as far as possible in its entirety," she said, recalling that it had once been split in two and was used as a car park until the 1980s.

Rome's archeological superintendent, Anna Maria Moretti, said the revamped temple "affords an extraordinary view, walking up from the Colosseum".

With majestic pillars and soaring arches, the Temple of Venus Felix (Venus the Bringer of Good Fortune) and Aeterna Roma (Eternal Rome) was designed by Hadrian in 121 AD, inaugurated by him in 135, and finished by his successor Antoninus Pius in 141.

Damaged by fire in 307, it was restored with changes by Maxentius.

The temple restoration is part of the government's plans to open up more ancient sites, said Culture Undersecretary Franco Giro, deputising for Culture Minister Sandro Bondi who was fielding a fusillade of questions in parliament over Saturday's collapse of the school in Naples where gladiators trained. Giro noted that the pits under the Colosseum where gladiators prepared for mortal combat have recently been unveiled and other temples, such as that of Antoninus and Faustina, are set to be reopened within the next year.

"We are respecting the schedule we set for the Forum and we are proceeding with a restoration of an area that was in deep decay, having been abandoned by governments of all colors," Giro said.

He rejected criticism of Bondi's handling of Italy's artistic heritage which began with his allegedly supine acceptance of budget cuts that led to Italy's museums staging a mass closure Friday.

The undersecretary also defended the minister from what he described as "unfair" attacks over the situation in Pompeii, calling the center-left opposition "ill-informed".

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Italy Travel: Italy Guide to Art Exhibitions

The following is a Italy travel city-by-city guide to some of Italy's art exhibitions:

ALBA - Fondazione Ferrero: Giorgio Morandi, The Essence of Landscape; 70 works; until January 16.

FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: French 18th-century still-life master Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin; 50 loans from major international museums in first-ever Italian show; until January 13.

FLORENCE ART - Palazzo Strozzi: 'Bronzino, Painter and Poet at the Medici Court'; 90 works in world's first monographic show; to January 23.

- Palazzo Pitti: Vinum Nostrum. The Art, Science and Myths of Wine in Civilisation; from prehistoric winegrowing to Dionysus cult, Etruscan, Roman use; show features oldest surviving wine container, on loan from Georgia; until April 30.

- Accademia and Horne Museum: Virtues of Love, 40 Florentine Renaissance paintings celebrating wedded bliss, from Italian and foreign museums; until November 1.

- Bargello: Giovanfrancesco Rustici and Leonardo, first show examining links of 15th-century sculptor with da Vinci, Verrocchio and others; until January 10.

FORLI' - Musei Civici di San Domenico: 400 ancient Egyptian artefacts gound by great Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli (1856-1928) including works from Queen Nefertari's tomb; until January 9.

MAMIANO DI TRAVERSETOLO (PARMA ART) - Fondazione Magnani Rocca: Renato Guttuso, Passion and Reality, 65 works until December 8.

MILAN - Palazzo Reale: 'Salvador Dali', The Dream Draws Near'; 50 works, until January 30.

- FNAC: 12 unseen photos of Michael Jackson by French photographer Arno Bani; until 25.

PADUA ART - Palazzo Zabarella: "From Canova to Modigliani, the Face of the 19th Century"; 100 portraits and sculptures; until February 27.

PASSARIANO (UDINE) - Villa Manin: 'Edvard Munch and the Spirit of the North'; 122 works; until March 6.

PERUGIA - Galleria Nazionale: 'Theatre of Dreams from Chagall to Fellini', 100 works; until January 9.

RIMINI - Castel Sismondo: The Marvelous Years: Impressionism; 100 works from international museums including Monet and Pissarro, Sisley and Degas, Bazille and Renoir, Cezanne and Guillaumin, Morisot and Fantin-Latour, Gauguin and Van Gogh; until March 27.

- same venue: Caravaggio's first religious painting, The Ecstasy of St Francis, back in Italy for first time in 25 years from Wadsworh Museum, Hartford, as well as several contemporaries; until March 27.

ROME ART - Galleria Borghese: Luca Cranach the Elder, The Other Renaissance; 45 works from major international museums; until February 13.

- Chiostro del Bramante: Greats from the Veneto, 15th- 18th Century; Bellini, Lotto, Titian, Veronese, Tiepolo, Canaletto; 80 works from Accademia Carrara in Bergamo; until January 30.

- Vittoriano: 'Vincent Van Gogh, Timeless Landscape, Modern City'; 110 masterpieces in first major Rome show in 22 years; until January 30.

- Scuderie del Quirinale: '1861: The Painters of the Risorgimento', war scenes, Garibaldi's Red Shirts, leaders' portraits; to January 16.

- Curia Iulia, Roman Forum: 'The Two Empires, The Eagle and the Dragon'; 450 works on Roman and Chinese empires; marks Year of Chinese Culture in Italy; until January 9.

- Palazzo Barberini: permanent exhibition of ancient art back on show after long restoration; also at Galleria Corsini, Villa Farnesina Chigi and Orto Botanico.

- Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi): The Risorgimento in Colour: Patriot Painters; to January 9.

- Vittoriano: Fausto Coppi, Il Campionissimo'; bikes, shirts, helmets, fan letters, reports and footage of legendary cyclist on 50th anniversary of death; until October 31.

SAN MARINO - Palazzo Sums: 25 Impressionist works including Monet, Cezanne and Renoir; until March 27, in tandem with Rimini show.

SAN SEVERINO MARCHE - Pinacoteca Civica, Palazzo Servanzi Confidati and Chiesa della Misericordia: 'Baroque Marvels', 90 works including Bernini, Guercino, Pomarancio, Orazio Gentileschi, Valentin de Boulogne, Baciccio: until December 12.

SIENA - Santa Maria della Scala: Life of Michelangelo; letters, poetry, working sketches; until November 14.

TIVOLI - Villa Adriana: Show charting rise and fall of Hadrian's Villa; dozens of artefacts returned from collections around the world; until November 1.

TRENTO - Buoncastiglio Castle; The Adventure of Glass: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century between Venice and Distant Worlds; brings together over 700 masterpieces celebrating glass production on the Venetian island of Murano; until November 7.

TURIN - Palazzo Reale, Palazzo Chiablese, Castello di Racconigi: "Vittorio Emanuele II: The Gentleman King"; new documents, pictures on life of Italy's first post-unification king; until March 13.

UDINE - Castello: Giambattista Tiepolo, 20 engravings and 30 other works; until October 31.

VENICE ART - Fondazione Cini: 'The Arts of Giambattista Piranesi - Architect, etcher, antiquarian, vedutista, designer'; 300 original prints plus 33 photos by Gabriele Basilico of Rome sites in 1960s; until November 21.

Italy Travel: Colosseum opens Gladiator Pits

Italy Travel: Rome: The Colosseum has added to its allure by opening the undergrounds pits where gladiators and wild beasts waited before being winched from darkness into the light of the killing ground.

As well as revealing the bowels of the one-time blood-and-guts arena, the famed monument has also reopened its 33m-high third story, closed since the 1970s, affording a breathtaking view of Rome.

The two new attractions aim to boost visitor numbers at the site, which is already Italy's single most-visited monument at some 19,000 people a day.

Fans of ancient bloodletting are allowed in in groups of 25, strictly by reservation, to see its underground world.

According to Colosseum site director Rossella Rea, the gladiatorial areas are all the more fascinating because "they were completely buried in the 5th century AD and have been perfectly conserved".

"They never suffered the depredation which the surface parts of the monument were victims to," she said.

The so-called 'hypogeum' (literally, 'under ground') has been restored in a multi-million-euro project that has also installed new, muted lighting effects.

Rea said the hope was to have recaptured "some of the atmosphere" of the breathless moments before the games commenced, when the armored or naked fighters and the wild animals were hauled up through 80 trap-doors.

The visit starts from the Porta Libitinaria, named after the goddess of the dead Libitina, through which the gladiators marched in and from which their corpses were taken out.

A broad corridor then leads to the hypogeum proper with its various rooms, some once used for storing the stage props and scenographical effects that enhanced the central combat. Roberto Cecchi, Rome's special archeological commissioner, said he hoped the boost to ticket sales would act as a "driving force" for the rest of the Forum, where he announced the opening, in December, of two other long-awaited sites, the Temple of Venus and the House of the Vestal Virgins.

The next step for the Colosseum itself is to attract private sponsors to fund a 23-million-euro scheme to clean and restore the entire time-ravaged site.

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, who has admitted that the Colosseum is "a daily worry" to him, hopes to announce the names of the firms before Christmas.

Efforts to muster funding for the clean-up and restoration have quickened since a chunk of masonry fell off an interior wall on May 9, the latest in a trail of bits the 2,000-year-old monument has shed over the years. The Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheatre (its proper name) is perhaps the most attractive archeological venue in the world with some four million visitors a year.

Construction on the city's iconic monument started between 70 and 72 AD under the Emperor Vespasian.

It was completed in 80 AD by his son Titus, who financed the project from the booty his armies seized in the war against the Jews in 66-70 AD.

Titus inaugurated it with 100 days of games including the recreation of a sea battle between Romans and Greeks.