Italy to France: Venice, Florence, Rome & Paris

Bacaro – the name is derived from the wine god Bacchus – is the name given to the simple taverns in Venice. There are few chairs, but a long bar and a large selec­tion of wines with a few snacks. Do Mori not far from the fish market is the oldest Bacaro of Venice and already over 500 years old. Count­less pots and copper kettles hang from the ceiling, more than 100 excel­lent wines await you in the bar. There are also many different tramezzini.

More than 400 bridges cross about 150 canals and connect 100 islands. Some are name­less or incon­spic­uous. Some are of partic­ular importance from a traffic or cultural-histor­ical point of view. The Rialto Bridge, which has connected the districts of San Marco and San Polo since the 16th century, is world-famous and most frequently photographed. Busi­ness flour­ished here for many centuries: merchants and seafarers unloaded their goods at the quay behind which the banks and trading houses were located. Bridge archi­tect was a certain Antonio da Ponte, who was able to assert himself against star archi­tect Miche­lan­gelo with his practical design because he left enough space for shipping traffic.

The Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari is the great Gothic Franciscan church of the city. On the outside it is modest and simple, as is the mendicant order itself. Inside, however, it docu­ments the power and wealth to which the disciples of Saint Francis have come. The Frari turns out to be an art shrine of the very first order. The tomb pyramid of the sculptor Antonio Canova imme­di­ately catches the eye in the enor­mous nave. Oppo­site is the tomb of Titian with his Pesaro Madonna. Precious altar leaves by Bartolomeo Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini hang in the choir chapels. A sculp­ture of St. John by Donatello stands where the composer Claudio Monteverdi is buried. Every­thing, however, is surpassed by Assunta, the sky-driving Mary, who floats freely above the high altar. Titian created it and, at the end of the Renais­sance, already antic­ipated the Baroque era with it.

The Cathedral of Florence is the fourth largest church in Europe. The huge building emerges visibly from the cityscape. Espe­cially promi­nent is the dome with a total height of 114 meters. Begun in 1296 the struc­ture was always meant to be monu­mental, also in order to outdo Pisa or Venice, the competitors at the time. The works however quickly stalled and weren't fully completed until 1887. Besides the dome the free­standing bell tower with twelve bells and a height of 85 meters is espe­cially striking. Also the inte­rior is monu­mental. A masterly achieve­ment is the orna­mental painting of the dome: an area of 4000 square meters. Apart from the cathedral, visitors can see the dome, the bell tower and the Baptis­tery of San Giovanni.

The head­quar­ters of the secular power in Florence was completed in 1314 and served the repre­senta­tives of the Republic as a resi­den­tial and confer­ence building. For secu­rity reasons it was designed like a forti­fied tower with battle­ments and small windows. Next to the building the tower rises up 94 meters. After the govern­ment seized power the Medici palace was completely rebuilt, lined with gold and deco­rated with wall paint­ings from the great da Vinci and Miche­lan­gelo. Today the palace serves as the Town Hall.

In the 14th and 15th centuries the strings of power converged here. The largest piazza of Florence was lined with important build­ings, most notably the Palazzo Vecchio. Still a major attrac­tion and meeting point is Neptune's Fountain by Bartolomeo Ammannati. All attrac­tions of the city can be reached on foot from the Piazza della Signoria. On the square itself there are several signif­icant copies of statues, most notably the replica of David by Miche­lan­gelo.

This is our suggested route if you want to get to know Florence on your own. From the train station, it will take you to the cathedral, the historic center of town and then across the Arno over the Ponte Vecchio. The Boboli Gardens on the other side of the river offer the most beau­tiful view of the city. (3 hrs, 6 km, eleva­tion change: 90 m)

Villa Borghese is not a building, but a green area in the middle of Rome. It was built at the end of the 16th century on the vine­yard of the Borghese noble family. In 1901 the state bought the estate and opened it to the public. Today there are numerous museums on the site, including the Galleria Borghese and the Museum of Etruscan Art. On the north side lies Bioparco, the Roman zoo with over 200 animal species. Villa Borghese is also a popular place for joggers and walkers; on a small lake you can rent rowing boats and watch the ducks. A beau­tiful place to rest after stren­uous sightseeing.

The impres­sive rotunda with its columned façade was erected 25 B.C. as a temple for all gods and converted into a church over 600 years later. The dome is partic­u­larly impres­sive: it symbol­izes the sky, the opening in the middle stands for the sun and the contact with the stars. With a diam­eter of 43 metres, the dome of the Pantheon was the largest in the world for 1700 years until St Peter's Basilica was built. Visitors to the Pantheon enjoy the medi­ta­tive atmo­sphere inside and the delightful play of sunlight that falls through the open­ings in the roof and “wanders” along the floor. The Pantheon became the archi­tectural model for domed build­ings worldwide, such as the Capitol in Wash­ington DC, the Berlin Cathedral or the Invalid Cathedral in Paris.

A closer look at the huge square in the heart of the city reveals much about its origin: the long, almost oval surface resem­bles a track in the stadium. In fact, Piazza Navona was orig­inally an arena. Emperor Domi­tian had it built. More than 30,000 people found a place here. In the Middle Ages the spectator stands were grad­u­ally converted into houses. In the 15th century, the stadium first became a park and then a square by paving. The most important monu­ments are the church of Sant Agnese, built in honour of the martyr Agnes, and the 17th-century four-stream fountain: On it four male sculp­tures symbolize the four conti­nents known at that time in the form of the rivers Danube, Nile, Ganges and Río de la Plata.

If you would like to explore Rome on your own, our recom­mended route starts at the Roma Termini train station and takes you to the key sights in the Eternal City. On your way past the opera house, you will come to the Palazzo Berberini, the Fontana di Trevi, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon and finally the Colos­seum and the Forum Romanum. (4 hrs, 8 km, eleva­tion change: 70m)

For centuries, the Louvre served as the palace of the French kings and was the largest construc­tion site in France. Almost every king made changes to it. In the 12th century it was still a proud castle but was expanded over the course of the next two centuries to become a symbolic resi­dence. The four wings around the square court­yard are what remain of the orig­inal palace. When Louis XIV moved his resi­dence to Versailles, the building was left to dete­r­i­o­rate. The Louvre did not become a museum until after the French Revo­lu­tion when the National Assembly decided to use it to collect and exhibit the artistic treasures seized from the nobility. Today, the Louvre receives around ten million visitors every year and is the largest museum in the world. Its collec­tions include over 380,000 pieces, and only about a tenth of them are on display. Its most famous painting is prob­ably the Mona Lisa, which Leon­ardo da Vinci painted around the year 1503.

The tradi­tional student district in Paris is located near Sorbonne Univer­sity and is known as the Quartier Latin, because Latin had been the language of scho­l­ar­ship for many centuries. Numerous writers lived in the area, including Honoré de Balzac, Gabriel García Márquez and Klaus Mann. During the student riots in 1968, the quarter became the scene of heavy fighting in the streets. Thou­sands of students were arrested and hundreds were seri­ously injured by the police during the “Night of the Barricades.” When the trade unions called for a national strike in support of the students, Pres­i­dent de Gaulle stepped down. Not many students live here today since the rent is unafford­able and they have given way to popular restau­rants and boutiques.

This church for the archbishop of Paris took nearly 200 years to build. Yet when it was completed in 1345, it had become a marvel the likes of which the world had never seen. Although it is one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals, it remained the crowning achieve­ment of Gothic archi­tec­ture. Notre Dame rises over the Seine like a jewel. Its two towers are 69 meters high and its ridge turrets reach 96 meters in height. The nave, which provides room for up to 10,000 people, is 130 meters long, 48 meters wide, and 35 meters high. The cathedral was unprece­dented in its day, and this was inten­tional. It was supposed to outshine the Louvre, which was the royal palace. Notre Dame is a testi­mony to the fact that Paris has not only been the center of France, but also the most important city in the Chris­tian West from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century and has had a deci­sive impact on its history.