Colosseum and the Forum · Vatican Museums and St Peter's · Pantheon, Trevi and Navona · Spanish Steps and the Borghese Gallery

The Duomo · Uffizi and Piazza della Signoria · David and the Medici Chapels · Ponte Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens

St Mark's and the Doge's Palace · Rialto · Dorsoduro · Murano and Burano

Spaccanapoli and the Old Centre · Napoli Sotterranea and San Gregorio Armeno · National Archaeological Museum · Royal Palace and the Seafront

A city of 118 islands in its lagoon, capital of a maritime republic for almost a thousand years.

The city of the Renaissance, built up under the Medici around Brunelleschi's dome.

Bramante's church and the Dominican refectory where Leonardo painted The Last Supper.

Forty kilometres of cliff villages, terraced lemon groves and sea road south of the Sorrento peninsula.

A medieval stronghold turned hotel on a 4,200-acre estate with vineyards and olive groves, 39 suites, and a spa in a restored wine cellar. Luchino Visconti once owned it.

A palace hotel on Piazza Duomo, the highest point of Matera, with views over the Sassi and parts of the building carved from caves and cisterns, including a spa.

Eighteen rooms in restored cave dwellings in the Civita, the oldest part of the Sassi, plus an ancient church crypt used as a shared space, facing the Murgia park.

A nineteenth-century former bank palazzo next to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, with a spa and gym open 24 hours and the Michelin-starred restaurant VUN.

A hotel from 1963 on the Monte Mario hilltop in a 15-acre park, holding a large private art collection with a 1725 Tiepolo triptych, and home to Heinz Beck's three-Michelin-star La Pergola.

In the Palazzo Salviati Cesi Mellini on Piazza di San Marcello, between the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, with a rooftop garden restaurant, Notos, and a Roman bathhouse. Interiors are by Patricia Urquiola.

A Venetian Gothic palazzo on the Grand Canal, redesigned around 1475, home of Doge Andrea Gritti from 1525 and a hotel since 1895. It has canal-side terraces and a cookery school.

On the Arno at Piazza Ognissanti, in the former Grand Hotel, the first luxury hotel in Florence. Reopened as a St. Regis in 2011 with 80 rooms and 19 suites, all with butler service.

Stands on the Grand Canal a short walk from Piazza San Marco, in a row of palazzi that was formerly the Westin Europa & Regina, with its own water entrance and contemporary interiors.