Iesolo (Veneto)

A new pedestrian safety initiative from the northern Italian city of Padova gives “doom-scrolling” a whole new meaning. 

The melancholic Mazzorbo area was once known as the “laguna morta” (the dead lagoon). But at the turn of the 21st century, it became the main stage for one of the wine world’s biggest stories. 

When Venetian aristocrats of bygone eras sought to escape the heat, they chose the Brenta, transforming the area into a wonderland of opulent estates between the 16th and 18th centuries.

A rare first edition of a letter written by the Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo has been repatriated to Italy. The document is believed to have been stolen from a Venetian library in the 1980s.