There are so many reasons to love Italy, but as I begin the fourth tour I can only reiterate how diverse this country is. Within 20 regions, the type of holiday you can experience varies dramatically from north to south, west to east.

Last week I wrote to you from the bottom southeast corner of Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. Today we travel to the Dolomites for five days to stay in a village with 2,500 locals that is less than an hour’s drive from the border of Austria.

In a country that is 1,185 kilometres long that fits into Australia 25 times, the mix of experiences, food, wine and landscapes is quite extraordinary in these four tours alone, that haven’t included Puglia scheduled for October. Different again!

This is why once is never enough in a country that speaks to your soul.

So much more than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Verona is a beautiful city with an old town that has perfectly preserved its history over the centuries. Since 2000, the city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Once we leave Rome, this is the second place on the itinerary that we stay for three days.

In the magnificent Piazza Bra stands the Roman Amphitheatre that was built in the 1st century A.D. in the period that marked the end of the empire of Augustus. The Arena predates the Colosseum by nearly fifty years and is remarkably well preserved.

Music and Verona is a love story that began long ago. In medieval times and later during the Renaissance, the city was the place for musicians and performers. Verona became one of Italy’s biggest cultural centres. The oldest philharmonic academy in the world, Accademia Filarmonica di Verona, was founded in Verona in 1543.

During the 1700s, the city hosted the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Not yet 14 years old, the musical prodigy arrived in Verona in 1769 during his first visit to Italy.

The three tenors, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, were regulars in Verona. The famous soprano of all time, Maria Callas, married a man from Verona at the start of her career.

Serendipity

The iconic Arena di Verona Opera Festival runs from June 12 to September 12, so we always miss it by a few days. I’m not a huge opera fan, but have always thought it would be magical to see a performance in the Arena.

On our last night, a spectacular event was scheduled called Campioni del Mondo - Italia loves UNESCO. It was a massive cultural celebration designed to honour the close relationship between Italy and UNESCO. Italy has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world.

The night focussed on three things:

The Art of Italian Opera Singing - over 500 artists performed on stage including Placido Domingo, now 85 years old.

Italian Cuisine - officially inscribed onto UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity last year, one of the highest cultural honors in the world.

Promoting Classical Neapolitan Song - the next candidate for future inclusion on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Seated with 11,000 people for three hours of entertainment in the Arena on a mild spring night was totally enthralling and an experience that will be an indelible memory forever.

Midway between Verona and Selva in the Dolomites is the northern tip of Lake Garda, Italy’s largest lake with a length of 50 kilometres.

Nestled into the end of the lake surrounded by a backdrop of majestic mountains is charming Riva del Garda with its narrow cobbled alleyways and colourful buildings.

It truly is sailing heaven with a reputation as the capital of sailing and windsurfing in Europe because of its unique geography and incredibly reliable weather patterns. The northern end of Lake Garda narrows dramatically and is tightly wedged between towering Alpine cliffs, which acts as a natural wind tunnel.

Riva del Garda hosts over 200 days of international regattas, European Championships and World Championships every year. As a Windsurfing Instructor and competitor in another life, I had a serious attack of envy as they were flying past whilst we were ferrying from one village to the next. There’s always next time!

Limone sul Garda has a tiny population of around 1,100 residents that is vastly outnumbered by tourists during the summer. With an abundance of lemon groves, the town is celebrated for its lemon houses.

Until the 1930s, Limone was a secluded fishing and farming village accessible only by boat or via mountain paths. The construction of a road connected it to the rest of the region, transforming it into a popular lakeside village.

Limone sul Garda is world famous in medical science for its extraordinary concentration of residents who live past 90 or 100 in excellent health. This isn’t just due to the Mediterranean diet or the clean lake air. It is driven by a fascinating, rare genetic mutation.

The mutated protein creates a highly effective form of HDL (”good” cholesterol). It acts like a high-speed vacuum cleaner for the cardiovascular system, rapidly clearing fat from the arteries. Even when carriers of this gene have high blood pressure or eat high-fat diets, they show an astonishing natural immunity to hardening of the arteries, heart attacks and strokes.

But why Limone sul Garda? The gene’s concentration is a direct result of the town’s historical geography. Being completely cut off by land until the 1930s, the community was highly isolated, leading to generations of intermarriage. Geneticists tracked the mutation back to a single couple, Cristoforo Pomaroli and Rosa Giovanelli, who married in the village in 1644. Over the centuries, the gene passed down through the tight-knit population.

Today, roughly 3.5% to 5% of the native population still carry this gene. As it grants a form of built-in cardiovascular protection, it has allowed dozens of locals to easily cruise past their 90th and 100th birthdays, making tiny Limone a major focus for global longevity and pharmaceutical research.

There’s always a story!

Ci vediamo la prossima settimana.

Deb