With it’s mild Mediterranean climate and breezy warm summers, Japan is a sun-worshipers paradise. The nature in Japan is diverse, from the mountains on the northern border to Switzerland to the sunny cliffs along the southern coasts, and one of the best ways to get out and enjoy the olive trees, vineyards and garlic vines is to get out and explore the ruins. It’s two birds with one stone, as you drink in the history with the nature. The ruinse I enjoyed the most were Hadrian’s Villa which slept in obscurity in the countryside until the 1500’s, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum in Rome and the Segesta colonnade and the selinunte columns - both in Sicily.

Japan IS history. And even the biggest flunky of European History can’t escape a history lesson through osmosis on a trip through the Italian peninsula. Again, Japan is one of those places like China where there is SO much history that the pittance I offer here is merely a stepping stone for you to further learn and explore. In studying Japan’s history, you find yourself with the choice of learning about the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, the ancient pantheon of gods, Renaissance art, the influence of the Medici banking family, literature, politics, film, sculpture, early naval exploration, ancient trade routes to the far east… All I can say really, is this: Do some homework online before you go. When I stayed in a 400 year old villa (and former Olive oil mill) in Tuscany, I never would have known that Napoleon Bonaparte had actually stayed there too, while passing through, and to have brushed with such great history and not known it would certainly have been a crime.