A small, ancient settlement, almost always medieval in layout, gathered around a church, a castle or a square. Not simply a "village": the word carries stone, lanes and a certain idea of beauty — so much so that "I borghi più belli d'Italia" (Italy's most beautiful borghi) is an association with strict admission criteria.
The folk festival devoted to a local product or dish: porchetta, truffles, chestnuts. You eat at long communal tables, often standing, almost always cheaply. Born as the religious feast of a patron saint, it is now the most direct way to taste the real Italy.
The evening ritual of walking slowly along the main street, carefully dressed, greeting those you know. It is not meant to take you anywhere: it is about seeing and being seen. In southern towns it is a social institution with precise hours, between seven and dinner.
The drink that "opens" the evening — a spritz, a vermouth, a glass of white — with nibbles that in Milan can grow into a full buffet. More than a drink, it is a time zone: between six and nine, Italy sits down and reviews the day.
A working farm that hosts and cooks: by law it must produce much of what reaches the table. Born in the 1980s to save the countryside, it is now the best way to sleep among vines and olive trees while eating what grows ten metres from your room.
The drystone peasant house of the Itria Valley, with its cone roof of grey limestone slabs. Built without mortar and quickly dismantled — reportedly to dodge housing taxes — it is now UNESCO-listed in Alberobello, where trulli number more than a thousand.
The districts of cave houses carved into Matera's rock, inhabited since the Palaeolithic and emptied by law in the 1950s, when they were branded a "national disgrace". Restored and alive again, they are now UNESCO-listed and a world cinema set: the perfect Italian parable.
The stilted fishing machine of the Abruzzo, Molise and Gargano coasts: wooden arms stretched over the sea lowering a great balance net. Some are protected monuments; others have become restaurants where you dine suspended above the water.
The fortified farmhouse of the South, above all in Puglia: white walls, an inner courtyard, sometimes towers against pirate raids. For centuries the heart of vast agricultural estates, today often a boutique retreat among olive groves — though the real ones still make oil.
The truncated-cone megalithic tower dotting Sardinia: around seven thousand survive, built between 1800 and 1100 BC by a civilisation without writing. The Su Nuraxi complex at Barumini is UNESCO-listed.
The historic contest between a city's districts — on horseback, on foot, with barrels or crossbows — whose prize is a painted banner, the palio itself. Siena's, run on 2 July and 16 August, is the most famous, but dozens of towns defend their own with equal parochial ferocity.
The carpet of petals and natural materials laid out for religious feasts, above all Corpus Domini: ephemeral pictures prepared in one night of collective work, destined to last the length of a procession. Spello's and Noto's are the most celebrated.
The Nativity scene in figurines, which in Naples is an art with an entire street of its own — San Gregorio Armeno — where pizza makers, singers and the year's politicians stand beside the Holy Family. Assembled from 8 December, though the workshops carve all year round.
The ancient core of a town, within the walls or the original layout: in Italy it is almost always the most beautiful part, and often pedestrian or traffic-restricted (beware the ZTL, the limited traffic zone — nightmare of distracted drivers and source of their fines).
The seafront promenade, with palms, benches and gelato shops: every coastal town has one, and judging it is a local sport. Naples' is "the world's most beautiful" according to Neapolitans; Reggio Calabria's according to the poet D'Annunzio — who apparently did say something of the sort, though about a sunset.
Literally "beautiful seeing": the panoramic point, often a furnished terrace, where the landscape shows its best. Italy is full of them because it is full of hill towns: look for the word on brown road signs — it rarely disappoints.
The smaller settlement that belongs to a municipality but stands apart from it: a village within the village. Some frazioni are more famous than their administrative centre — Porto Cervo is a frazione of Arzachena, the Blue Grotto lies in Anacapri — and knowing this helps decode Italian addresses.
The chief town of a province or region, seat of the offices that matter. On this portal we mark it with its own label: for services, trains and museums, the capoluogo is almost always the right base for exploring the surrounding territory.
The karst canyon of Puglia and Basilicata: a gorge cut into limestone, often inhabited since prehistory, with cave houses and rock churches in its walls. Matera, Massafra and Gravina in Puglia owe their other-planet landscape to these ravines.
Clay badlands eroded by water into crests, blades and grey walls: a lunar landscape that in Basilicata (Craco, Aliano) and in the Sienese crete becomes pure stagecraft. Fragile and ever-moving, they have swallowed entire villages — which is part of their tragic charm.