Live like the royals did - if only for a night. Lynn O'Rourke Hayes scopes out cool castles.

Italy's head of state, President Giorgio Napolitano, has set in train his third prime ministerial appointment in less than three years.

Among the ruins, Russell Maclennan-Jones imagines life in ancient Ostia.

An Italian MP has “blacked up” to deliver a staggering anti-immigration rant in the country’s parliament.

Herald guest editor John Kirwan's guide to getting the best out of his old homeland.

Jared Savage enjoy a new view from his room each morning as he cruises the Mediterranean.

The Italian Senate has expelled three-time ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi from Parliament over his tax fraud conviction, ending, for now, his two-decade legislative run but not his political career.

The prosecutor seeking to reinstate the conviction of Amanda Knox for the murder of her roommate has urged an appeals court not to repeat mistakes he says were made by the court that freed her.

The Mediterranean island of Sardinia, prized by the jet-set for its white sand beaches and crystal-clear seas, became a flood-ravaged mud bath after a freak torrential rainstorm killed at least 17 people, downed bridges and swept away cars.

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's political heir yesterday pledged to keep Italy's fragile coalition Government afloat, now that he has split with the media mogul and formed a rival centre-right party.

A witness in the Costa Concordia shipwreck trial has described how the captain jumped aboard a lifeboat, testifying how the commander wasn't the last to abandon the rapidly capsizing luxury cruise ship.

US student Amanda Knox's defence got a boost this week when a new DNA test on a kitchen knife failed to conclusively prove that it was the murder weapon used to kill her British roommate.

'When you are someone's lover, no one asks you for a ticket.' A Moldovan dancer testifies at trial that she was with the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia.

Shouting "murderer" and "executioner," hundreds of people jeered as the coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke arrived Tuesday for a funeral Mass celebrated by a splinter Catholic group opposed to the Vatican's outreach to Jews.

The head of the European Commission announced during a visit to Lampedusa that Italy would receive an additional €30 million in EU funds to help settle and receive new refugees.

Italian divers have recovered 38 more bodies from a smugglers' boat that capsized and sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea with hundreds of migrants on board.

A ship carrying African migrants to Europe has caught fire and capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 114 people as hundreds were dumped into the sea.

New Zealand businessman Michael Harte has just bought his own Mediterranean island, but he won't be partying on its beach with his mates.

A New Zealand businessman has forked out nearly $5 million for a pristine island in the Mediterranean.

A court hearing Amanda Knox's second appeals trial accepted a request to run additional DNA tests on the presumed weapon in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

There's nothing like a beautifully shot film to make you feel like up-and-leaving the very next day. Here are five examples that show off their stunning destinations to full effect.

The extraordinary sight of the Costa Concordia hoisted from its watery grave helped erase the shame many Italians felt over the captain crashing it and doing a runner.