From South to North of Italy the characters of the TV series accompany us on an itinerary through the places where the most famous and successful TV series were filmed.
Let's start from the beauties of Sicily , where the events of Commissioner Montalbano , the most loved and followed of our country, are set. Vigàta, the splendid village of the character played by Luca Zingaretti, does not exist. Montelusa, the city full of Arab views, of small squares and rich Baroque buildings where the Questura is located in the show, and Marinella, where the commissioner lives, are the result of the imagination of the author Andrea Camilleri. They are all imaginary but traceable places: glimpses and fragments of villages, villas, old castles, lighthouses, towers, beaches and small ports scattered around the province of Ragusa. Montalbano's house with a beautiful terrace overlooking the beach is actually a former warehouse for the desalination of sardines, now transformed into a bed & breakfast in Punta Secca, a hamlet of Santa Croce Camerina, 26 kilometers from Ragusa; the village of Vigàta, where the police station is located, is actually Porto Empedocle, the birthplace of Andrea Camilleri. In the TV series there are also Marina di Ragusa, the promenade of Donnalucata, Modica, Ragusa and Scicli. Staying in Sicily we discover the beauties of Trapani and its surroundings, wild and suggestive, thanks to another successful series, aired between 1984 and 2001: "La Piovra". It is a long and intricate tale of the close links between finance, politics and the Mafia that has been shot in Catania in recent seasons, with Etna towering over the city.
We move to Sardinia where in 2017 the fiction "L'Isola di Pietro" was filmed which tells the story of Elena returning to the island, shocked by a terrible accident. Among intricate mysteries and events, the protagonists move in the beautiful landscapes of the island of San Pietro, southwest of Sardinia, among the colorful alleys of Carloforte, the largest inhabited center. San Pietro is a world of maritime traditions and uncontaminated nature, characterized by a succession of cliffs that fall sheer above the sea and which hide delightful coves such as Cala Fico and Capo Sandalo with the old lighthouse, the westernmost in Italy. The colorful port of Sant'Antioco contains attractions that we find in fiction, as well as Portoscuso, a small fishing village, and along the coast between beaches with crystal clear waters such as Calasetta and Chia.
We go up to Campania , exactly on the hill of Posillipo in Naples where for more than 20 years the events take place in the Palladini building of " A place in the sun " between glimpses of the sea and the center of Naples, with Vesuvius immortalizing every scene . We arrive in the district of Scampia, famous for the urban complex of the Sails now destroyed, with the series "Gomorra", taken from the novel by Roberto Saviano, which tells the Camorra bad affair between the Campania city and suburbs of Naples. Many scenes are set in the Chiaiano cemetery but also in Secondigliano and Fuorigrotta. The suburbs of Naples can also be found in the most recent series " The brilliant friend ", taken from the novels of Elena Ferrante: the two protagonist girls live in the Luzzatti district, a popular neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Naples. Beautiful Neapolitan views are also present in the " I bastardi di Pizzofalcone " series, set in a barracks in the San Ferdinando district, between Norgo Santa Lucia and Chiaia.
The journey continues in Lazio and, in particular, in Rome, where numerous television series take us among the monumental beauties of the capital but also in its more peripheral neighborhoods: in the populous Tuscolano with " Police District ", a TV series broadcast from 2000 to 2012, and at Garbatella where the nice fiction "I Cesaroni" introduced us to squares, palaces and clubs. With the series " Suburra ", which tells the story of a criminal and his contacts with the Roman underworld and with some political exponents, we entered the palaces of power in the center and we walked through the streets of Ostia, Fiumicino and Tor Vergata, where the imposing structure of the City of Sport of Calatrava is located. If the epic of " Romanzo Criminale " introduced us to the Magliana district, the most recent " The Young Pope " and the sequel " The New Pope ", series directed by Paolo Sorrentino, accompanied us to the Vatican rooms, San Pietro, in the Borgo Pio district and between the streets of Trastevere.
Continuing in Umbria we discover the places where the beloved " Don Matteo " series was set: Terence Hill, in the role of a priest who loves to solve criminal cases, is the parish priest of the church of San Giovanni Battista in Gubbio, then transferred to that of Saint Euphemia in Spoleto. In reality, the dioceses are the result of television imagination, but the places of fiction are the palaces, squares and alleys of the medieval cities of Gubbio and Spoleto. Following Don Matteo's bicycle we observe Piazza del Duomo, Palazzo Bufalini and the imposing Rocca Albornoziana which dominates Spoleto; before he had taken us to the center of Gubbio between the medieval alleys and to the Piazza Grande where Palazzo dei Consoli overlooks and, in fiction, the barracks of Marshal Cecchini.
The journey continues in South Tyrol and in particular in the Braies Valley, where the series " One step from heaven " was filmed, always starring Terence Hill to play the inspector of the forestry body of the imaginary town of San Candido. Old farmhouses, stone villages, meadows and lakes with a thousand shades of green characterize Dobbiaco and the valley surrounded by the unique and breathtaking peaks of the Dolomites.
The journey ends in the Aosta Valley where the fiction " Rocco Schiavone " is set, which tells the inquiries of the gruff deputy chief, created by Antonio Manzini's pen. Here too the series takes us to the city of Aosta and to the mountain resorts between huts and farms in the Val d'Ayas. In the capital many scenes were shot between the Roman theater, the cloister of the Collegiate Church of Sant'Orso, Palazzo Ansermin, a historic building of the late seventeenth century where there is the home of the deputy chief, played by Marco Giallini, and Piazza Chanoux, under which arcade there is the historic Caffè Nazionale frequented by the protagonist.
