The late afternoon sun speaks warmly to Giuseppe Vicario at a café in the village of Alcara li Fusi, where men gather to talk politics and soccer while their wives cook and clean house. In the cities women are emerging from the shadows. 'I'm not sure men have changed,' says Valeria Ajovalasit, founder of a feminist group, 'but women have.'
—From "Italy Apart—Sicily," August 1995, National Geographic magazine
Trapped in the myth of her beauty, Venice beguiles and remains elusive. See why this city has held such sway over artists and romantics for centuries in this gallery.
Welcome to Rome! Once the heart of an empire that spread across all of Europe, the legacy of this ancient city lives on in spectacular ruins and enduring works of art.
Suspended between heaven and earth, Toledo—Spain's spiritual heart—still retains the same classic charm that lured the famous painter El Greco to the area in the 1570s.
Like one of Cézzane's impressionist paintings stirred to life by summer winds, Provence is a place where even the simplest of landscapes can turn suddenly sublime.
