Cultural Tourism, Tuscany

Map of the roads of Chianti Castles (www.chiantinet.it)
The abbey of Passignano (www.torcilacqua.it)
(www.musei.provincia.siena.it)
Pieve San Donato (www.tavarnelle.com)
Battistero, foto di Gino Cianci (Fototeca ENIT)
Museum of Opera Metropolitana (www.musei.provincia.siena.it)
Castello Brolio (www.gaiole-in-chianti.com)
Torre Pendente e Duomo, foto di Vito Arcomano (Fototeca ENIT)
Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena (www.musei.provincia.siena.it)

All the fascination of art and history

Curiosity towards history, landscapes, popular traditions and customs... the exploration of the many facets of our world. This is what cultural tourism is about, characterised as it is by the desire to know and be near those signs and testimonies which artists, poets, and men and women of letters and of the world have left to posterity.
In this way the tourist goes on holiday with every intention not of bringing home the usual souvenir which is left on the mantelpiece to gather dust, but something more substantial made up of new experiences including itineraries composed of visits to exhibitions, museums, art, monuments as well as other less tangible experiences. When one speaks of cultural tourism, in fact, one ought not think exclusively of visiting those important and much visited places that distinguish Italian cities from other cities in the world, but also of opening one’s mind to the experience of more hidden and less well-known cultural icons. These are the things that best describe a cultural tourism which invokes the knowledge of those values and traditions which tie a people to the land, and which enclose those treasures in which the customs and usages of times gone by remain intact.
Cultural tourism goes with art and history, and involves the discovery of the essence of important and less important places; it includes the curiosity to enter into contact with worlds far removed from one’s own world view or lifestyle.