Tuscany

• The Tuscan countryside can be visited year round.Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Francesco Sgroi
  
  The Tuscan countryside is always popular with travelers, and Stacy Finz of the San Francisco Chronicle explored lodging options at the region's working farms in "Agriturismi Offer Country Life, Tuscan Style," published Sept. 6, 2009.
  
  A visit to Galileo-related sites in the Tuscan capital of Florence was the subject of Washington Post writer Scott Vogel's "Scoping Out Florence, Four Centuries Later," published April 5, 2009, while The New York Times' Adam Begley used E.M. Forster's classic "A Room With a View" as a basis for a tour of the city in "Florence, Then and Now," published Nov. 30, 2008.
  
  

Rome

• The Italian capital is brimming with history.Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Anthony M.
  
  "Rome at night is, in short, a city lit like a theater," wrote The New York Times' Ian Fisher in "Rome at Night," published April 20, 2008. Giovanna Dell'Orto of the Associated Press took a daytime, block-by-block tour of the Italian capital in "In the Eternal City, Walk in a Roman's Sandals," published Oct. 5, 2008, in The Washington Post.
  
  In "Rooting Up Ancient Rome," published July 17, 2009, the Los Angeles Times' Susan Spano examined new trends in archaeological preservation as the Italian capital celebrated its 2,762nd birthday.
  
  

Venice

• Venice is all about waterways.Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Lukasz
  
  David Kocieniewski of The New York Times took an alternative tour of the canal city's famous waterways in "On Venice's Grand Canal in a Kayak," published June 1, 2008. Landlubbers might prefer the tour described by the Los Angeles Times' Spano in "Exploring Sun-Splashed Venice's City Squares," published July 11, 2008.
  
  

Sicily

• Rick Steves's "In Mount Etna's Shadow, Sicily Stays Down to Earth," published in the San Francisco Chronicle on Dec. 9, 2007, and Ariel Foxman's "36 Hours in Palermo," published in The New York Times on July 27, 2008, provide good overviews of the island and its capital city. David Taylor and Lisa Smith of The Washington Post honed in on the island's rural beauty in "Sicily: 'Agriturismo' Brings Visitors Down to the Farm," published Aug. 5, 2007.
  
  

Food Tourism

• In "The Bounty of Rome," published March 26, 2006, Mimi Sheraton of The New York Times sought the answer to the question "How Does Rome Taste?" Robert Camuto of The Washington Post tasted a lot of pizza in "See Naples . . . And Eat," published July 13, 2008.
  
  A search for silky-soft cheese from unpasteurized buffalo milk was the basis of Spano's May 8, 2009, Los Angeles Times article, "Italy's Campania Region Is Where Fresh Mozzarella Roams," while The Boston Globe's Barbara Radcliffe Rogers went hunting for white truffles in the southern Piemonte region in, "Italy's 'White Diamonds' as Precious as the Gem," published Sept. 13, 2009.