Links

When we blogged from China last year we had access to the Internet from our hotel rooms, so we were able to do on-line research on things we were seeing, and we would include the results directly in the blog for the day. It was different on this trip, as we prepared the text on a laptop at our apartment or villa where there was no Internet access, merged the text with selected pictures and videos of the day, and then brought it to the Internet shop on a flash drive to upload. There wasn’t really enough time to do much of anything else on the Web while we were at the Internet shop other than check our e-mail.

Since we returned home we have been able to locate some related information that we found useful in understanding a bit more of what we saw, and we’re including some of those links here in case you would like to learn more as well.

Our first recommendation is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the Web that anybody can contribute to. While the absence of formal control of what gets published there makes it less than a fully authoritative reference for academic purposes, we don’t see that as an impediment to its usefulness in travel planning. Highly recommended! Here’s what it says about places we visited:

Venice	Tuscany	Chianti	Radda	Florence
Siena	Cortona	Perugia	Ravenna	Etruscans
	Vinci	Leonardo	Guggenheim

For long range travel planning, even before you narrow your choices down to specific localities, we would recommend a visit to the Web site of UNESCO World Heritage. There they list over 800 places worldwide that are unsurpassed in their beauty, their history, and their contribution to the culture of the world. None that we have ever visited (four on this trip and over 40 in total) has been a disappointment.

- Historic Centre of Florence
- Venice and its Lagoon
- Historic Centre of Siena
- Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna

UNESCO publishes a number of wonderfully illustrated books about these places, and we have found good bargains on some at amazon.com. Wikipedia’s coverage of UNESCO World Heritage is a good place to visit as well.

Here are a few other sites that we found useful:

- Radda
- Siena
- Peggy Guggenheim Collection
- Ravenna Mosaics

We might add a few more in the future as we come across them. Check back!