VERY INTERESTING: ITALY

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ITALY

Tourists throw €1,000,000 into the Trevi Fountain each year

According to myth and legend, tossing a coin into Rome's Trevi Fountain guarantees you'll return to the Eternal City. And it seems everyone likes Rome so much they want to return, because roughly €3,000 of change is thrown in the Trevi Fountain every day. This amount to a staggering million pounds a year. In case you were wondering: the money is collected and donated to charity.

13 of Shakespeare's 38 plays are set in Italy

Romeo and Juliet is set in the city of Verona (you can even visit "Juliet's balcony" for yourself), while Julius Caesar takes place in Rome. Othello and the Merchant of Venice are set in Venice (no surprise there) while Much Ado About Nothing is based in the Sicilian city of Messina. Even though there's no evidence that the Bard spent time in Italy himself, his depictions of the country are surprisingly accurate.

Pinocchio was first published in an Italian newspaper

The classic tale of a wooden toy who comes to life – and who likes to tell lies – was written in 1880 by Carlo Collodi. It was serialised in Gioniale per i Bambini, Italy's first children's newspaper. Pinocchio remains a cultural icon, and is known all over the world.

Italy has the most UNECO sites in the world

From Mount Etna to the trulli of Alberobello, to Rome's Colosseum, Italy is packed with important sights. Still it is a lesser known of the Italy fact that it has 55 world heritage sites. To see some of them yourself contact our tailor-made trip service to plan and book a fully customised holiday in Italy. If you prefer to book and plan yourself, just make sure you book skip-the-line tickets ahead of time, to save you time and money.

The Sistine Chapel welcomes over 20,000 visitors per day

Painted by Michelangelo in 1512, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City is one of the most famous monuments in the world. While certainly the most impressive, it's actually just one of a number of fabulous frescoes that decorate the chapel in the . Today, the Sistine Chapel is the the official residence of the pope and the site of the Papal Conclave, the process that is responsible for selecting the next Pope. To spend more time exploring and less time standing in line, make sure you get your priority access tickets to the Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums ahead of time.