Field notes

Things that are true and not in the brochures

Each collection groups facts that belong together and gives the source for every one. Where a claim is widely repeated online but could not be verified, it is not here.

Field note

Borders that make no sense

Six places where the map of Italy stopped agreeing with itself

Field note

The villages the state tried to move

What happens when a government orders a town to stop existing

Field note

What Vesuvius kept

The eruption of 79 is still producing new information, almost every month

Field note

Found by accident

A plough, a fishing net, a road widening, a wall that needed underpinning

Field note

The ground is moving

Volcanoes, glaciers and a caldera with half a million people living inside it

Field note

The rules Italians live with

Dress codes, entry fees, tourist taxes and a bridge waiting on an accounting court

Field note

Things that never stopped

A quarry working since 1387, a forest owned collectively since 1111, a mountain road cut by hand in nine months

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