Liguria, two faces of bourgeois life

Just a few kilometers from France, in Ospedaletti, Casa e Collezione Laura holds the lifelong dream of two antique dealers and collectors: over six thousand decorative art objects, from Chinese porcelain to antique French and English furniture, boiserie and archaeological finds, arranged in a striking display that tells sixty years of history and passion.

Further along the Ligurian coast, past Genoa, Casa Carbone in Lavagna preserves intact the rooms and furnishings of a bourgeois residence from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: a small treasure chest of domestic life that reveals another side of Liguria, far from the postcard views of the Cinque Terre.

Tuscany, the charm of a medieval hilltop town

San Gimignano is famous worldwide for its medieval towers, once a symbol of the power of the town's noble families. Here, Torre e Casa Campatelli tells that same story without the queues of the more famous towers: a family palace that opens its doors onto centuries of urban life. It is also one of the few FAI properties where visitors can actually stay overnight — a rare chance to sleep in a 19th-century house.

And if Tuscany has won you over, another surprise awaits in the hills near Lucca: in Vetriano, a hamlet of Pescaglia, FAI preserves the smallest public theatre in the world, recognized by Guinness World Records. Born in 1889 from a barn donated to the community, the "Teatrino" still hosts performances today for an audience of just 85 seats — a jewel box from another era, best discovered on a guided tour.

Umbria, a forest that becomes a spiritual path

Bosco di San Francesco, in Assisi — birthplace of St. Francis, patron saint of Italy — brings together contemporary art and spirituality: a trail that retraces places dear to the saint, among olive trees and streams, featuring installations by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, including the Third Paradise, which converses with the surrounding landscape.

The Marche, contemplating the Infinite

In Recanati, Orto sul Colle dell'Infinito is a small botanical marvel: the very garden that inspired Giacomo Leopardi, one of Italy's greatest 19th-century poets, to write L'infinito ("The Infinite"), one of the best-loved poems in Italian literature. Even today, this landscape evokes that same sense of the infinite that gives the place its name.

Campania, where the coast becomes legend

Baia di Ieranto is one of the most secret corners of the Sorrentine Peninsula: turquoise waters reachable only on foot or by sea, far from the crowds of the nearby Amalfi Coast. According to the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, it was here that the hero Ulysses encountered the sirens on his journey home to Ithaca.

Sardinia, between history and open sea

At Batteria Talmone, on the island's northern coast, the landscape becomes a stage: World War II bunkers and military outposts now overlook a breathtaking sea, in an unusual dialogue between wartime memory and unspoiled nature.

Six regions, one invitation: discover the Italy that few know.