Of all European countries,
Italy
is perhaps the hardest to classify.
It is a modern, industrialized
nation. It is the harbinger of
style, its designers leading the way
with each season's fashions. But it
is also, to an equal degree, a
Mediterranean country, with all that
that implies. Agricultural land
covers much of the country, a lot of
it, especially in the south, still
owned under almost feudal
conditions. In towns and villages
all over the country, life grinds to
a halt in the middle of the day for
a siesta, and is strongly
family-oriented, with an emphasis on
the traditions and rituals of the
Catholic Church which,
notwithstanding a growing scepticism
among the country's youth, still
dominates people's lives here to an
immediately obvious degree.
Above all Italy provokes
reaction. Its people are volatile,
rarely indifferent to anything, and
on one and the same day you might
encounter the kind of disdain dished
out to tourist masses worldwide, and
an hour later be treated to
embarrassingly generous hospitality.
If there is a single national
characteristic, it's to embrace life
to the full: in the hundreds of
local festivals taking place across
the country on any given day, to
celebrate a saint or the local
harvest; in the importance placed on
good food; in the obsession with
clothes and image; and above all in
the daily domestic ritual of the
collective evening stroll or
passeggiata - a sociable affair
celebrated by young and old alike in
every town and village across the
country.
Italy only became a unified state
in 1861 and, as a result, Italians
often feel more loyalty to their
region than the nation as a whole -
something manifest in different
cuisines, dialects, landscape and
often varying standards of living.
There is also, of course, the
country's enormous cultural legacy:
Tuscany alone has more classified
historical monuments than any
country in the world; there are
considerable remnants of the Roman
Empire all over the country, notably
of course in Rome itself; and every
region retains its own relics of an
artistic tradition generally
acknowledged to be among the world's
richest.
Yet there's no reason to be
intimidated by the art and
architecture. If you want to lie on
a beach, there are any number of
places to do it: development has
been kept relatively under control,
and many resorts are still largely
the preserve of Italian tourists.
Other parts of the coast, especially
in the south of the country, are
almost entirely undiscovered.
Beaches are for the most part sandy,
and doubts about the cleanliness of
the water have been confined to the
northern part of the Adriatic coast
and the Riviera. Mountains, too, run
the country's length - from the Alps
and Dolomites in the north right
along the Apennines, which form the
spine of the peninsula - and are an
important reference-point for most
Italians. Skiing and other winter
sports are practised avidly, and in
the five national parks, protected
from the national passion for
hunting, wildlife of all sorts
thrives.
