Sightseeing in Southern Italy

We travelled through a few lesser known regions like Le Marche, Basilicata and Molise as well as Puglia,Calabria and Abruzzo. There are many national parks to visit and beautiful mountain passes to drive, some pretty hair-raising. The landscape is dotted with hilltop villages, some clinging precariously to mountainsides and always topped by a castle or a church. Agriculture is still very widespread with vineyards,olive groves and wheatfields predominating. They produce 80% of Europes pasta in Puglia apparently!There are also many historic gems and plenty of Unesco World Heritage sites to see. Among the highlights for us were the mountain city of Ascoli Piceno, the stone roofed Trulli houses in Alberobello, the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna and the medieval city of Matera. We also went to San Marino, a tiny independant principality surrounded by beautiful farming landscapes.
Italians love food and each little place or region has there own specialities,which of course we always have to try. Sadly the urban sprawl in some places is awful and a real eye-sore.