HOW IS VENICE BUILT ON WATER?

It does not float, it does not stand on long piles, and the wood has not turned to stone. What is really under a Venetian house, from the brick down to the caranto

Things to Do in Siena, Italy: One Day on Its Three Ridges, from Florence or Rome

Siena on foot in a day: the three ridges everyone walks, and the valleys, fountains and fortress below them that the coaches never reach.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COLOSSEUM?

It isn't half missing, it wasn't one earthquake, and the popes came last. Soft ground under the south side, lime kilns, a licensed quarry, and the Colosseum that Gladiator built in Malta.

THE COMPANY TOWN

A sleeping-car maker builds a town south of Chicago, a cotton manufacturer a village on the Adda, Henry Ford a rubber town in the Amazon. Chapter III of Utopian Cities: the company town, and what is left of it once the company no longer needs it.

Out of plumb

On site, a wall out of plumb comes down. In a wood near Viterbo there's a house built crooked on purpose, and a night in 2018 spent checking on a motorbike.

Tarquinia, Cerveteri and Tuscania: Etruscan Tombs and Necropolises, in Two Days from Rome

The Etruscans built their cities in wood and their tombs in stone, and only the tombs are left. Two days from Rome: the hill of San Pietro at Tuscania, a night in a treehouse, the painted tombs of Tarquinia and the streets of tumuli at Cerveteri.

HOW WAS ROMAN CONCRETE MADE?

Burn the limestone, slake it or don't, add volcanic ash and pack it in with rubble. How Roman concrete was made, from Vitruvius to the walls still standing.

Montefalco and Bevagna, Italy: Sagrantino Country in Umbria

Montefalco looks down over the whole valley, and you come for the Sagrantino. The Carapace, the winery Arnaldo Pomodoro designed, the bottles worth drinking, the truffles, Bevagna in the plain and, on the road back to Rome, the Tempietto del Clitunno.

Assisi from Rome or Florence: Why It's Worth the Night Halfway Between

Is Assisi worth visiting? Halfway between Rome and Florence, it works as a day trip, but it's better with a night. Trains and parking, a map of the town, the two churches of the Basilica and the vault that looks whole, Santa Chiara and the Eremo.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE KING

Three avenues converge on the palace at Versailles, some thirty streets fan out from a tower at Karlsruhe, and a prefect cuts boulevards through Paris. Cities laid out for power, who paid the bill, and why Paris is still one of the best cities to walk in.

Perugia from Below: The Underground City in the Rocca Paolina, the Great Square and the Chocolate

Is Perugia worth visiting? Park at the bottom and ride the escalators up through what is left of the Rocca Paolina, a papal fortress built over a buried medieval street. Then the great square, the star-shaped city, and the chocolate.

The Appian Way on Foot and by Bike: a Day Trip from the Centre of Rome

A Roman road from the walls of Rome to open country, mile by mile: what you pass and on which side, where to hire a bike, the catacombs, the weekend car ban, and where to turn back.