Catalog
Galileo's life runs through Pisa, Padua, Rome and Florence: the cathedral lamp and Leaning Tower of Pisa, the University of Padua, the Minerva convent in Rome, Villa Il Gioiello in Arcetri and Santa Croce. The route follows him from birth in Pisa in 1564, through his teaching years, the trial of 1633 and house arrest, to his burial in Florence. Two Pisa stories, the lamp and the cannonballs, are legend rather than record.
A short walk from the Rialto Bridge to Piazza San Marco packs in Shylock's Rialto, a clock tower from a Bond film, the basilica that holds Saint Mark, Galileo's telescope demonstration and Casanova's roof-top escape from the Doge's Palace. Six stops lead from the Rialto to the Doge's Palace, each tied to a story: Shakespeare, Moonraker, the legend of Saint Mark, Galileo, Casanova and A Little Romance. The film links are screen fiction, not history.
Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona, The Taming of the Shrew in Padua and The Merchant of Venice in Venice: three cities of northern Italy, from Juliet's courtyard to the Rialto and the Ghetto. The route visits five stops, two tied to the star-crossed lovers, one student comedy and two Venetian money-lending scenes. Several sites are traditional identifications rather than proven settings, and each stop says how firmly the place is tied to the play.
Angels & Demons, Ron Howard's 2009 film, is set across Rome: the Pantheon, Santa Maria del Popolo, Piazza Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo. Four cardinals are kidnapped, one dies each hour on the Path of Illumination, and Robert Langdon must stop antimatter from destroying the Vatican at midnight. This route follows Ron Howard's 2009 film rather than Dan Brown's novel: the Pantheon and Raphael's tomb, the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, the obelisk in St Peter's Square, Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, the assassin's lair at Castel Sant'Angelo, and the midnight finale beneath St Peter's. All of it still stands; the caveat is that Rome's diocese refused the crew access to the churches, so several interiors in the film are studio sets.
Los Santos feels like Los Angeles because it is Los Angeles, compressed. Grand Theft Auto V squeezes the city's most famous miles into one playable map, from a hillside sign to a Venice boardwalk. This tour visits seven real stand-ins behind the fiction: the hillside sign, a movie palace, a luxury shopping street, an observatory, a pier, a beach and a towered folk-art park. Every pin marks the real place, and each stop names the game location it doubles for. Expect crowds at the beach and on Hollywood Boulevard, and quiet at the towers.