TV Series : Francesco’s Italy – Top to Toe

To be honest I didn’t have any idea what to write for this week’s Post A Week 2011. Until this evening, the BBC Channel in my cable TV broadcasted one of my favorite tv series, Francesco’s Italy : Top to Toe. I’ve watched this series more than once, or if I may say until a point where people might get sick of it. But it didn’t happen to me. I love this series no matter how many times I’ve watched it. I fell for Italy long way before I watched this show but, Francesco made me fell in love even deeper with Italy

So what is exactly this show all about? Okay I know it was one unnecessary question, of course it’s about Italy a place which I want to visit the most in the whole entire world. And the next question perhaps, who’s Francesco? Here’s a brief information about Francesco : 

Francesco da Mosto (born 1961 in Venice) is an Italian architect, author, historian, film maker and TV presenter. He presented the three BBC 2 series Francesco’s Venice (2004) and Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe (2006) where he explored the country in his Alfa Romeo Spider and Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage (Filmed 2007, Broadcast 2008) which sees him traveling from his home in Venice to Istanbul, visiting cities including Split, Mostar, Dubrovnik and many more. - wikipedia

This series was filmed back then in 2006. In this series, Francesco traveled in Italy from the top to toe, well you know that Italy look-like a boot shape right? So they call it from top to toe, or in literally from north to south. There are 4 episodes in this series.

The first episode is “The Romantic North” where we can see Francesco left his family in Venice and visited Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Bologna, Mantua, Milan, Turin, and Portofino. He visited the world’s oldest university in Bologna, portrayed Romeo and Juliet’s famous balcony scene with the local actress in Juliet’s House during his visit in Verona, met Giorgio Armani himself and tried out some of his expensive clothes in Milan and went underwater to see the statue of Christ in Portofino. After I watched this episode, I’ve gained interest for Verona and Portofino but not so much for Milan. Perhaps because Milan, as Francesco said, has become an industrial city so there isn’t any much different between Milan and any other big cities out there. Some people who have been to Milan also stated similar opinion. They said it’s not that worth it except if you are a fashionista which I’m not.

The second episode is “A British Love Affair”, which is my favorite of all. He visited Urbino, Assisi, Orvieto, Val d’Orca, San Gimignano, Siena, Castello Brolio, Lucca, and Florence. He picked grapes and tasted wine in Castello Brolio, traveled to Assisi to find out why he was named after St Francis, strolled down in Siena and showed the great campo which I fell for, visited an Italian style garden which was owned by a British woman who fell in love with an Italian aristocrat in Val d’Orca, and went to the birth place of Renaissance with Dame Maggie Smith, Florence. Actually there are so many things He did which I can’t listed, all I know is from all the episodes I love this one the most because it shows the side of Italy that is uhm really Italy-ish (that’s not even a word I know ._.), the cities He visited here are perhaps the ones that most attractive for me. I’d love to stroll down in Siena or a wall city like Lucca, it seems really fascinating.

The third episode is “The Heart of Italy” where He visited Rome, Pontine Marshes, Sabaudia, Tivoli, Gesualdo, Caserta, Campi Plegrei, Solfatara, and Naples. He discovered the eternal city of Rome where He stopped by at the Trevi Fountain and Galleria Borghese, visited a fantastic water garden in Villa d’Este before He went to Napples and tasted the real Italian Pizza there. The main attraction from this episode is Rome of course, He showed me that most of the Rome citizens are lazy and all they do is resting, I don’t know about this..should prove this by myself later when I get there

The fourth episode is “The Land of My Mother” and He visited Puglia, Castel del Monte, Ostuni, Matera, Nocera Terinese, Reggio Calabria, Taormina, Etna, Villa del Casale, Noto, Bagheria, and Palermo. He finally arrived at ‘the toe’, Sicily where his mother’s family lived for more than 500 years. He climbed the Etna and also visited the catacombs in Palermo.

These are all the things that I can remember from the series, I also did some researches about this series and about Francesco himself which lead me into confusion in the midnight. It’s just that, reading all of the things I found for the sake of this post..I think I have an interest for Italian literature or history, I’ve been having actually but I never really thought about it..I don’t know, what job could I get if I study that? Besides, where can I study that? Okay, forget this.

Anyway, for this series, I love the way Francesco delivers the information, stories and all the small trivia about his country although he left out many other worth visit cities but still He did a great job here. I’ve never seen Italy like this before. This series has brought me into a whole new deeper level of understanding Italy.

pic : as tagged

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