The Italians are a nation of walkers: it is estimated that there are over 200,000 Italian travelers walking along various paths around Europe. Last year, for example, 24,000 Italians hiked along the Santiago di Compostela...

Venice is a fascinating city, mainly because of the mysterious elements of its history, a history which remains mostly to be explored.

It is also possible to discover Venice by recovering its ancient vine varieties: this is what the project set up by the Consorzio Vini Venezia [Venice Wine Consortium] proposed to do in order to unearth the origins, provenance and characteristics of the ancient vines to be found on the Lagoon. The project will study their DNA, take samples and propagate them on order to create vineyards that will constitute a genetic bank of the varietals uncovered by the study.

Visiting Tuscany in a carriage and stopping at a wine estate to sip a ‘Brunello di Montalcino’, one of Italy’s finest wines. It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, andDavid Rockefeller yet it really happened just a few days ago, although the protagonist of this exciting trip is a personality who may well belong to the world of fairy tales: Mr. Rockefeller. As reported by the website Montalcinonews, U.S. 98-year-old investment banker, the last patriarch of the oil empire founders’family, has a great passion for Italy and wine. This time he chose the area of Monte Amiata (1,738-mt-high mountain in the provinces of Grosseto and Siena, the main  ski resort of the Brunello di Montalcino wine grapesregion and one of the most important forest reserves in Southern Tuscany) and Montalcino, a hilltown in the province of Siena famous for its Brunello di Montalcino wine. In Montalcino, David Rockefeller was a guest in the Sesti estate run by Giuseppe Maria Sesti, an expert in astronomy and Baroque music from Venice, and Elisa Sesti, owner of a degree in theater design and architecture in London.