Italien

Tumbling down to the Adriatic from a wild, karstic plateau and almost entirely surrounded by Slovenia, Trieste is physically and psychologically isolated from the rest of the Italian peninsula. As such, it preserves its own unique border-town culture and retains a fascinating air of fluidity encapsulated in the Triestini dialect, a strange melange of Italian, Austrian-German, Croatian and Greek.

From white-pebble beaches and cliff-backed Adriatic bays to medieval hill towns and snow-capped peaks, Le Marche is one of Italy's least-known treasures.

Boasting a wealth of diversions, this huge area extends to Rome’s southern limits. Glorious ancient ruins lounge amid pea-green fields and towering umbrella pines along the cobbled Via Appia Antica, one of the world's oldest roads and pot-holed with subterranean catacombs dating to the dawn of Christianity. By contrast, post-industrial Ostiense blasts visitors straight back to the modern age with its edgy street art, superb local dining and heaving nightlife. Then there's EUR, an Orwellian quarter of wide boulevards and linear buildings.

Sicily's wild and empty interior is a beautiful, uncompromising land; a timeless landscape of silent, sunburnt peaks, grey stone villages and forgotten valleys. Traditions live on and life is lived at a gentle, rural pace. It's an area that encourages simple pleasures – long lunches of earthy country food, meanders through hilltop towns, quiet contemplation over undulating vistas. It’s also an area of surprising natural diversity – one minute you’re driving through rolling hills reminiscent of Tuscany, the next through pockets of eucalypt bush akin to Australia.

Maggiore is Italy’s international lake – its northernmost point protrudes sinuously into Switzerland, while its Italian shores are shared by Piedmont (west) and Lombardy (east). Free of Como’s overt glamour or Garda’s Disney-esque theme parks, it is often considered the most peaceful of northern Italy’s great bodies of water, its shores a little less crowded and its hinterland intriguingly wilder. The star attractions are the Borromean Islands, which, like a fleet of fine vessels, lie at anchor at the Borromean Gulf’s (Golfo Borromeo) entrance, an incursion of water between the lake’s two main towns, Stresa and Verbania.

Glass är lika italienskt som pasta och prosecco, men var kan man få tag på den absolut bästa "gelaton" av dem alla? På Il Cannolo Siciliano i Rom. I alla fall om man ska tro en ny omröstning som utnämnde glasserian till den bästa i Italien.

Eternal crossroads of the Mediterranean, the gorgeous island of Sicily continues to seduce travellers with its dazzling diversity of landscapes and cultural treasures.

Napoleon would think twice about fleeing Elba today. Dramatically more congested than when the emperor was exiled here in 1814 (he managed to engineer an escape within a year), the island is an ever-glorious paradise of beach-laced coves, vineyards, azure waters, hairpin-bend motoring, a 1018m mountain (Monte Capanne) and mind-bending views. It's all supplemented by a fine seafaring cuisine, lovely island wines, and land and seascapes just made for hiking, biking and sea kayaking.

Har du sett Colosseum i Rom, kanalerna i Venedig och skulpturen David av Michelangelo i Florens? Dags att lyfta blicken och upptäcka mer av Italiens härliga städer. Vagabonds skribent Åsa Johansson listar fem sköna städer att botanisera bland.

Sugen på en riktigt, riktigt, god öl? Nu behöver du inte undra vart i världen du ska åka.