ROME - From the Turin automobile district, with the ramp of the Lingotto by Giacomo Mattè-Trucco that immediately became an icon at least as much as the Balilla and Topolino he was making, to the Marsala and Trapani salt pans, where Sicilian salt is "stolen" from sea.
And then the Peroni Brewery, in the heart of the capital, which today houses the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Municipality of Rome, in the new restyling signed by the archistar as Odile Decq.
And again the marble quarries of Carrara (MS) or the Laveria Lamarmora in Iglesias (SU), in mining Sardinia, to visit at sunset, when the light reflects on the stones and the blue sea and the stack stands out in the background. of the Sugar Loaf.
It is the Italy of large industrial works and infrastructures that have led a country towards the future, an example of technique and progress for an entire era.
But also real destinations for travelers and enthusiasts, as you (re) discover by browsing the 'Guide to industrial tourism', published by Morellini publisher, signed by Jacopo Ibello, co-founder and president of the Save Industrial Heritage association and member of the board of the 'AIPAI, the Italian Association for Industrial Archaeological Heritage.
To be browsed on the sofa as well as useful for planning trips when you will be able to move freely again, the volume is a journey to Italy to discover cities, sites, museums and foundations attributable to industrial civilization, to experience a country different from the image that commonly we have.
From Piedmont to Sardinia, with almost 300 illustrated cards, divided by regions and geographical areas and with useful service information for the visit (days and opening hours, costs, telephone, site) plus an events section, it winds through excellent sites and less known, industrial archeology with abandoned factories or converted to new functions up to the new forms of business culture, with museums, company archives and visits to plants that are still active.
A journey that in itself also tells of the close link between productions of all kinds and the territories and cultures to which they belong, as in the case of the automobile district that has given a new physiognomy to the aristocratic Baroque Turin, the maritime workshops or the large dams that have brought new life to valleys and plains, but also scattered death such as the Gleno Dam, in the Bergamo area, often known as "the other Vajont".
And then the "enlightened" industrial examples such as the Olivetti case or native productions, from the sugared almonds of Sulmona, to Tuscan marble, Calabrian licorice or Sicilian sulfur.
There are many facilities now converted to places of culture, where art exhibitions, events and shows are hosted.
Examples are the ENI Village in Borca di Cadore, the Pirelli Foundation or the futuristic Mast - Manifattura di Arti, Experimentazione e Tecnologia di Bologna.
However, trains, stations and railways deserve a separate reading, all born with the idea of travel, whether it was for goods or people, and what a fundamental part they played at the beginning of the twentieth century in the boom of tourism in Italy.
They range from Milan Central Station, a monumental mix of Art Deco, Liberty and fascist rhetoric designed by Ulisse Stacchini and inaugurated in 1931, with the Shoah Memorial at Binario 21;
to the lesser known Trans-Siberian of Italy, which with that somewhat ambitious name goes from Sulmona to Isernia.
At a time of vital importance to connect the countries of Majella and Alto Molise, today it is a pure tourist railway, with historic trains pulled by steam locomotives, for a journey back in time, climbing over 1200 meters.
With breathtaking views that, yes, in winter really recall those typical of very distant latitudes.
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