10 reasons to visit Italy in 2025: the best new holidays...

Walking and cycling tours, family holidays, great places to stay, blockbuster exhibitions and more launching this year. The Cilento coast in Campania has long attracted Italian holidaymakers, but overseas visitors tend to head further north to the better-known Amalfi coast. That is starting to change – the Natural Adventure Company reports that UK Google searches for the Cilento coast are up 110% over the past 12 months. The company has run a self-guided walking holiday there since 2022 (from £915 for eight nights’ B&B and three dinners).

Image Credit: the Guardian [Villa Fiaccherella is surrounded by olive groves and rolling hills and overlooks Florence.]

On Foot Holidays launched a self-guided walking route from coast to mountains last year (from £1,180 for seven nights’ B&B and three dinners). And Saddle Skedaddle has a new guided coast-to-coast cycling holiday from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea, including a final stretch along the Cilento coast from Palinuro to Paestum (£1,995 for seven nights’ B&B and three lunches). Can’t decide between the countryside and the city? The recently renovated 15th-century Villa Fiaccherella is on a peaceful hillside among olive groves, overlooking Florence. There are six bedrooms, including one in a turret, plus a modern kitchen, large dining room and a sitting room with a fireplace. The gardens stretch around three sides of the house and there is an arched patio for eating outdoors.

Image Credit: the Guardian [The Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Sicily, has some of the best-preserved classical sites in Italy.]

The swimming pool is shared with Villa Fontallerta next door, but a private pool is planned. There is a family-run, farm-to-table restaurant in a greenhouse down the hill, and it is a short walk to the bus stop for the half-hour ride into Florence. From €840 a night, sleeps 12, sawdays co.uk. The LETS literature museum opened in Trieste, north-east Italy, last September, celebrating the literary heritage of the city. It focuses on James Joyce, who lived and wrote there from 1904 to 1920; the Trieste-born novelist and playwright Italo Svevo; and the local poet Umberto Saba.

The museum has also devised a number of literary walks through Trieste, including one focusing on cafes and bars once frequented by intellectuals and artists. The town of Gorizia (a 40-minute drive) is the joint 2025 European capital of culture with neighbouring Nova Gorica, across the border in Slovenia. The programme of events in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region includes concerts by Alanis Morissette and Robbie Williams, and exhibitions by Steve McCurry and Andy Warhol.

Image Credit: the Guardian [Tracey Emin’s All I Want Is You sculpture]

Museum free, lets.trieste.it. Agrigento in southern Sicily is the Italian capital of culture for 2025. The city’s most celebrated sight is the Valley of the Temples, which has some of the best-preserved classical sites in the country. This is the spectacular setting for a concert by Il Volo, an Italian operatic pop trio, plus performances of Greek and Latin tragedies, open-air film screenings, a fireworks display and more. Hundreds of other events are taking place throughout the year at sites including the Luigi Pirandello theatre, the Cathedral of San Gerlando, and the churches and museums of the old town.

Image Credit: the Guardian [The view from Monte Capanne, Elba’s highest peak.]

There is an almond blossom festival in March, a classical music week in June, and a celebration of the sea in August, in nearby San Leone. Food is a highlight of any trip to Sicily, and the island has also been named this year’s European Region of Gastronomy. More information at lavalledeitempli.it. KE Adventures has a new family-friendly trip to Basilicata in southern Italy. Guided activities include a cooking class in Matera; hunting for the tracks of wolves, boar and deer in the Pollino national park; gorge walking and white-water rafting; and a gelato workshop in Maratea. There is also free time to explore the caves of Matera and spend a day at the beach in Maratea, or do more activities such as ziplining and kayaking.

Image Credit: the Guardian [Casa Cook Madonna is in the heart of the Dolomites with skiing and hiking on the doorstep.]

Families spend two nights in a cave hotel and five in family-run B&Bs and guesthouses. The holiday is suitable for children aged seven and above. From £1,795 adults/£1,495 children for seven nights, including breakfast and two lunches, keadventure.com. This spring, Tracey Emin has her first solo exhibition in Italy at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, which will include historical and recent drawings, paintings, sculptures, video, installations and photography conveying Emin’s “controversial and lacerating aesthetic”.

Image Credit: the Guardian [La Residenza at Luxi Bia in the Sulcis area of southern Sardinia]

Sign up to The Traveller. Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays. after newsletter promotion. The palazzo, a cultural hub in Florence, is built around a Renaissance courtyard that hosts concerts, performances and installations. Exhibitions range from surveys of old masters to contemporary artists such as Ai Weiwei and Marina Abramović. After the Emin show, the gallery marks 20 years of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (17 April-31 August), followed by a Fra Angelico retrospective (26 September-26 January 2026). Stay at Ruby Bea (doubles from €80), an art-filled hotel that opened last summer.