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China Airlines Launches Non-Stop Flights To London China Airlines will launch scheduled passenger services between Taipei, Taiwan and London, England, starting on March 28. The new flights, CI-069 ...
Hotel Rosa Vigo Di Fassa Hotel Rosa is located in the centre of Vigo di Fassa, 150 metres from the Catinaccio cable car. It has large gardens overlooking the Dolomites and a ...
Skip the Line: Florence Accademia and Uffizi Gallery Tour Book your Skip the Line: Florence Accademia and Uffizi Gallery Tour ahead of time to take advantage of jumping the queue.
In the morning, meet at ...
Alberto Pirozzini has been appointed General Manager at Hotel Savoy in Florence, Italy Alberto Pirozzini has a wealth of experience in the luxury hotel sector. Most recently he was General Manager for the Lungarno Hotel in Florence and ...
Hotel Chopin Fiumicino Just off the city centre, Hotel Chopin is close to the main tourist attractions, including archaeological sites, natural reserves and the splendid ...
More Italy News
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Situated in Mediterranean Europe, Italy has land frontiers with
France in the north-west,
Switzerland and
Austria in the north and
Slovenia in the north-east. The peninsula is surrounded by the Ligurian Sea,
the Sardinian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, the Sicilian Sea and
the Ionian Sea in the south and the Adriatic Sea in the east. Italian is the
language of the majority of the population but there are minorities speaking
German, French, Slovene and Ladino.
Geographical Profile
There is a great deal of variety in the landscape in Italy, although it
is characterized predominantly by two mountain chains: the Alps and the
Apennines. The former extends over 600 miles from east to west. It consists
of great massifs in the western sector, with peaks rising to over 14,000
feet, including Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc), Monte Rosa and Cervino (the
Matterhorn). The the chain is lower in the eastern sector, although the
mountains, the Dolomites, are still of extraordinary beauty.
At the foot of the Alpine arc stretches the vast Po Valley plain, cut
down the middle by the course of the river Po, the longest in Italy (390
miles), which has its source in the Pian de Re (Monviso) and flows into the
Adriatic through a magnificent delta. The Alpine foothills are characterized
by large lakes: Lake Maggiore and the lakes of Como, Iseo and Garda. The
Apennines form the backbone of the peninsula, stretching in a wide arc
concave to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Corno Grande (Gran Sasso d'Italia) is the
highest peak. A large part of central Italy is characterized by a green
hilly landscape, through which the rivers Arno and Tevere (Tiber) run. The
southern section of the chain pushes out to the east forming the Gargano
promontory and, sloping down further south, the Salentine peninsula. It then
proceeds to the west with the Calabrian and Peloritano massif stretching
across the Strait of Messina into Sicilia. The principal islands are Sicilia,
rising up to the great volcanic cone of Etna (10,860 feet) and Sardegna. The
main archipelagos are the Tremiti Islands in the Adriatic Sea, the Tuscan
Archipelago, the Pontine Islands, the Aeolian Islands and the Egadi Islands
in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Sicilia.
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