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Home > Travel Italy > Italy Destinations > Livorno
Livorno
Italy, officially the Italian Republic or Repubblica Italiana, is a Southern European country comprising of the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it lo Stivale, the boot or, due to its prevalent peninsular geographical nature, la Penisola, the Peninsula.
Livorno is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno and the third-largest port on the western coast of Italy, having a population of 170,000 as of 2004. Livorno was defined as an ideal town during the Renaissance. Nowadays it reveals its history through its neighbourhoods, crossed by canals and surrounded by fortified town-walls, through the tangle of its streets, which embroider the town's Venice district, and through the Medici Port characteristically overlooked by towers and fortresses leading to the town centre.
Designed by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti at the end of the 16th century, Livorno underwent a period of great town planning expansion at the end of the 17th century. Near the defensive pile of the Old Fortress, a new fortress, together with the town-walls and the system of navigable canals, was then built.
Nowadays the Venice district preserves most of its original town planning and architectural features such as the bridges, the narrow lanes, the noblemen's houses and a dense network of canals which once linked the port to its storehouses. In the 18th and 19th centuries Livorno, by then grown up and open to the world, had a lively appearance marked by neo-classical buildings, town parks housing important museums and cultural institutions, Liberty villas with sea views, the market. Some Moriscos moved from Spain to Livorno in 1700 century.
A city known for its historic myths and traditions, scenic beauty, cooperative people and luxurious hotels and cottages, Livorno is one of the favorite holiday destinations for most of the vacation lovers.
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