- Tarot garden
- Civita di Bagnoregio
- Monster Garden in Bomarzo
- Ninfa Garden
- Red rocks of Arbatax
- The ladder of the Turks
- The submerged bell tower of the village of Kuron
What does a modern traveler know about Italy? This is a country on the Apennine Peninsula, known for the beauty of its nature, rich history, chic architecture and delicious cuisine. That is why it attracts many tourists who are taking its most popular attractions by storm. In such difficult conditions, when visitors are not crowded around with thirsty impressions, it can be difficult to take at least one decent photo! All the most famous cities in Italy deserve their tourist fame, they should be visited at least once in a lifetime. But they are far from the only wealth of the country. There are also mysterious, unusual places in Italy, which tourists practically do not know about. And there are a lot of them.
What can be called a unique, amazing place? Majestic cathedrals, ancient villages, beautiful natural attractions, which are enough in different countries of the world and Europe? But those people who travel often have long been accustomed to such tourist sites.
Italy can offer the traveler an exclusive - themed mysterious gardens with bizarre sculptures, as if created for the filming of a movie, rocks of an unusual shade, which look especially impressive against the background of the turquoise sea, abandoned cities where the tourist trail does not overgrow, half-flooded phantasmagoric buildings. The search for Italian wonders is another reason to fall in love with this country!
Tarot garden
Many have heard of Park Guell in Barcelona, some lucky ones even managed to visit there. But which of the tourists knows about the Italian Tarot Park? This magical place is located near the small Tuscan town of Capalbio. It is decorated with magnificent sculptures depicting the 22 major arcana of the Tarot cards.
The Tarot Garden is the embodiment of Niki de Saint Phalle's fantasies, assisted by several other contemporary artists. The work on the park project and its implementation took 19 years. In 1998, the Tarot Garden was opened to visitors.
The statues, created by human hands, successfully harmonize with nature here, creating a unique atmosphere. They are decorated with mirrors and ceramics of different colors. The height of each sculpture is about 15 meters. At first, a concrete frame was made for them, supported by steel supports. Some local artists were invited to work on the statues, and they were happy to get involved in the process.
The Ticino-based architect Mario Botta, in collaboration with the master Roberto Aureli, created a tuff fence with one large round arch - the gates that, according to the authors, separate the garden full of wonders from everyday reality.
When visiting the park, you will notice that one statue was left unfinished. This was the wish of the hostess Niki de Saint Phalle, who did not manage to finish work on the statue due to a serious illness and death in 2002.
The area of the park is about 2 hectares. This is a real labyrinth city, where there are sculpture houses, a square, fountains, stairs, a castle. From the central square diverge in different directions "streets" with concrete pavement, which depicts various drawings, sayings, important dates for Niki de Saint Phalle.
How to get there: the city of Capalbio, a few kilometers from which the Tarot Garden is located, can be reached from Siena by bus with two transfers in the cities of Grosseto and Orbetello. The journey will take about 4 hours. You will have to pay 10-25 euros for travel. By train from Siena birch changes can be reached in 3 hours and 30 minutes. There is a train from Rome to Capalbio. The journey will take about 1 hour and 40 minutes. A train ticket costs 8-20 euros.
Civita di Bagnoregio
The medieval village of Civita di Bagnoregio, located on a cliff in the vicinity of Viterbo, is called the dead city. This epithet appeared for a reason. The mountain on which this one of the most beautiful towns in Italy is built is gradually crumbling. It is dangerous to live here, but you can come to rest.
Civita di Bagnoregio appeared on the map of present-day Italy in the days when the Etruscans lived here. At the end of the 17th century, a strong earthquake struck the region, which endangered the existence of this fortified city. Then almost all local residents left the town and settled under the mountain - in the village of Bagnoregio. In subsequent years, the situation only worsened. Those who still hoped for the best also migrated, leaving their homes to fend for themselves.
According to research by scientists, since the middle of the 19th century, the tuff rock on which the city was built has decreased by 25 meters. Every year Civita di Bagnoregio gets a couple of centimeters lower.
But Italians are quite adventurous guys. They can even turn a ghost town into a tourist attraction. There is now a small fee to enter the city (about 5 euros). In Civita di Bagnoregio you can see:
- bridge 200 meters long, which will lead to the entrance gate. It was built in the second half of the last century. The bridge offers beautiful views of the outskirts of the city;
- the gates of Santa Maria are the only ones remaining. Previously, the city had 5 entrance gates. Four of them were lost due to constant landslides. All visitors to the city are greeted by sculptures of lions clutching human heads in their paws - a symbol of crushed tyrants;
- the palaces of Colesanti, Bocca and Alemanni, built by important families in the Viterbo region during the Renaissance. The Alemanni Palace now houses the Geological Museum;
- Piazza San Donato, over which rises the main church of the city, which was built in the 16th century on the site of an Etruscan temple;
- the 16th century mill, which houses the oldest trattoria in the city. It serves homemade Italian cuisine and excellent homemade wine;
- observation deck Belvedere.
Civita di Bagnoregio is especially beautiful in winter. Then the town seems to protrude from the clouds.
How to get there: the most convenient way to get to Civita di Bagnoregio from Rome is to take the train to the cities of Orvieto or Viterbo, where you change to a regular bus.
Monster Garden in Bomarzo
In the province of Viterbo, there is another amazing attraction - the Bomarzo Monster Garden. It is known for numerous basalt sculptures of mythical heroes and creatures, for which it received its second name - the Sacred Forest.
The history of the park begins in the 16th century, when Pier Francesco Orsini, Prince of Bomarzo, summoned the architect Pirro Ligorio to work on this remarkable site. The original purpose of creating the Garden of Monsters was more likely to scare the prince's compatriots than surprise. This park has now been turned into a popular tourist attraction.
A walk through the Garden of Monsters along the proposed route marked on the map, which is given to each guest at the ticket office, will take about an hour. The main attractions of the Garden of Monsters are:
- Temple of Eternity. An octagonal structure located at the top of the Sacred Forest and dedicated to the prince's wife, Julia Orsini. Here are buried Giovanni Bettini and Tina Severi, who owned and restored the garden in the 20th century;
- Infernal gates. The wide-mouth mask was created to intimidate guests. Behind it one could utter a word in a whisper, and it could be heard by any person standing in front of the Hell gates. In the 16th century, dinner parties were held behind a mask, and it seemed as if the monster was chewing and swallowing food;
- Falling house;
- the Pegasus fountain and about 30 other giant sculptures.
How to get there: from Rome we go by train to Viterbo, and from there by bus to Bomarzo.
Ninfa Garden
The hard-to-reach Ninfa Garden, which is only admitted on certain days of the week with tickets purchased in advance, is considered one of the most exquisite parks in Italy. It was laid out on the site of the medieval abandoned village of Ninfa at the beginning of the last century and modernized in 2000. Its area is 106 hectares.
Landscape designers have successfully played with dilapidated buildings, planting them with climbing plants and turning them into interesting flower beds. It seems that nature itself is gradually conquering stone buildings. The park was created in the likeness of the English gardens of the 18th century. There are no artificial structures here: grottoes, ruins. Everything that you will see here was part of the medieval city of Ninfa, which existed from the 8th to the 14th centuries: a reservoir, a drinking source, Caetani castle, residential buildings, the remains of walls, churches, towers.
The Ninfa River flows through the park, the banks of which are connected by three bridges. One of them was built by the ancient Romans.
In recent years, a project has emerged to recreate part of the Pontine Marshes, which were in the park before they were drained by Mussolini's order.
Ninfa's garden was admired by many famous people, for example, Virginia Woolf, Truman Capote. And now a few tourists walk along its alleys. They are necessarily accompanied by a guide who can show what escapes the gaze of an unprepared person: a rare bird, and there are many of them here, an otter in a pond, a porcupine hiding in the grass.
How to get there: From Rome Termini train station, you need to take a train to Latina. Buses run from there to the village of Norma. From Norma Bus Station, you can walk to Ninfa Garden. By the way, from Latina it is possible to order a transfer to Ninfa Garden for an additional fee (about 10 euros).
Red rocks of Arbatax
The sharp red cliffs located on one of the beaches near Arbatax in Sardinia are compared to the majestic Gothic cathedral. Rocce Rosse Beach is unique, as if it was painted with the brush of a bold artist. The turquoise color of the sea water here is successfully set off by the yellow shades of the sunset and the Martian red rocks, which are adjoined by white boulders. At this point, deposits of porphyry, a hard rock of volcanic origin, which are 260 million years old, come to the surface.
Red stones are a favorite destination for experienced divers. Right in front of this natural landmark, which has become the hallmark of Sardinia, the sea is deep enough for scuba diving or snorkelling.
Until recently, the Rocce Rosse & Blues jazz festival was held every summer on the esplanade overlooking the Red Rocks. However, it has now been moved to Santa Maria Navarese. Despite this, there are no fewer tourists on the Red Rocks beach. People usually come here at dusk, when red stones acquire an even more intense hue.
How to get there: in the resort town of Arbatax, behind the port, you need to find signs that will lead to the beach with Red Rocks. Ferries and buses run from the main city of Sardinia Cagliari to Arbatax (with one change in Tortoli).
The ladder of the Turks
Such a strange name has snow-white rocks, wide ledges descending to the blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Sicily. It is said that this paradise in Realmont once served as a refuge for Turkish pirates. The dazzling white color of the rock is given by the sedimentary rock of marl, which does not heat up under the sun.
The rocks, in which nature itself, with the help of wind and rain, has made wide steps, along which fearless tourists now roam in search of a beautiful frame, from the side resemble a huge cake melted in the sun - the work of a child of giants. The steps surrounding the rock are inclined, so you need to be especially careful not to fall down. Although local guys, posing in front of their girlfriends, often jump into the sea right from the ledges.
The most interesting pictures are taken in the eastern part of the cliff. To get down to the beaches that are at the foot of the Turks' Ladder, you need to walk along the western edge of this formation.
The staircase of the Turks is very cinematic and more than once has become the backdrop for filming feature films. In summer, musical groups come here to entertain the general public.
Tourists who dream of seeing this miracle of nature are better off coming here in the morning, when it is not so hot and there are few people.
How to get there: from Palermo to Realmonte, where the Ladder of the Turks is located, there is public transport with one connection in Agrigento. From Realmonte you need to get off to the Lido Rosello beach and then walk along the coast for about 2 km to the Turks' Ladder.
The submerged bell tower of the village of Kuron
In fact, the square bell tower in the middle of Lake Rezia, which is perceived by tourists as an original attraction, is considered by the residents of the village of Kuron in Alto Adige on the border with Austria and Switzerland to be a reminder of the tragedy that occurred in 1950. Then, when creating a reservoir that united two lakes - Rezia and Kuron, two settlements were mercilessly flooded.
Residents tried to protest, met with the pope, but the authorities were adamant. In the middle of the last century, the village of Kuron began to slowly sink under the water. 150 families lost their homes and were forced to move higher up the hillside, where new homes were built for them.
The bell tower of the village stone church, dating from the middle of the 14th century, remained above the water. In July 2009, 130 thousand euros were allocated for its restoration, which greatly angered the inhabitants of Kuron, because they were paid a penny compensation for the loss of their homes.
In winter, Lake Rezia freezes over, and you can approach the bell tower directly over the ice. Old-timers assure that in the silence over the lake sometimes bells ring out. But this is just a legend for tourists, since the bells were removed from the belfry back in 1950.
How to get there: Trains from Bolzano run to Malles Venosta station. From this town you need to get to Lake Rezia by bus, which will take 30 minutes.
