The Best of Italy from the Sky

This two-minute aerial tour of Italy will leave you speechless. Shot by pilot Mauro Sciambi, this Drone Video of the Week nominated movie opens with a wide shot of Cinque Terre, the string of historic seaside villages along the Italian Riviera known for their colorful houses and steep terraces. He’ll then move on to the Lombardy region where we’ll see upscale Lake Como. Shots of centuries-old fortresses sprinkled along the Italian Alps, rolling vineyards, and gushing waterfalls finish out the piece. 

In this highly inspiring travel video, contributor Kelly Needleman flies his drone over some of the most spectacular sights in Italy.  The video includes bird's eye views of the Dolomite Mountains in northeastern Italy, the Tuscany region, Venice, and Cinque Terre, among other spots.  The video was a finalist for the AirVuz Drone Video of the Week Contest and also a winner of the Drone Video of the Month Contest for July, 2018.  If you are considering a trip to Italy in the future, this video may help your decision! 

Top content creator and drone pilot Ryan Shirley experienced pure awe and wonderment when he hiked through the Dolomite Mountains of northeastern Italy, which form part of the Alps Mountains system.  The overwhelming power of the mountain peaks comes across in his intensely edited aerial reel that features shots from Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Seceda, Sassolungo, and Lago di Braies. This video was chosen as a Finalist in the Nature and Landscape category in the second annual Drone Video Awards.

Prepare to be astounded by this magnificent drone video of the Italian island of Sicily, compliments of two-time DVA winner Timelab.pro. The video, which mixes footage from a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone with ground footage, features shots of some of the highlights of the largest island in the Mediterranean. Highlights include aerials of the Castle Maniaci and the Greek Theater ruins in the ancient city of Syracuse, and the magnificent Palermo Cathedral in the capital city. This video was a DVOW nominee in August, 2019.

While the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy are not the highest peaks in the Alps, they may be the most spectacular looking. Case in point is this amazing reel of the Dolomites from BashirAbuShakra.  Shot over the course of two years, it includes footage from the following locations: St. Magdalena, Val Fiscalina, Tre Cime de Lavaredo, Passo Giau, Cinque Torre, Cardini di Misurina, Alpe di Siusa, Monte Pelmo, Lago di Braies, Marmolada, Monte Cristallo, Croda de Toni, Seceda, and more. This video won DVOW in September, 2019.

Contributor Alessandro_campo used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 to create this magnificent aerial video from the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy. Part of the Southern Limestone Alps, the Dolomites are far from the tallest mountains in the Alps system - Mt. Blanc is nearly 50% taller than Marmolada, the highest Dolomite peak.  What they lack in altitude, they more than make up in prominence, as you'll see from these astounding views of the mountains which was picked as a DVOW Finalist in October, 2019.

For a tour of the Eternal City of Rome, Italy, it's tough to beat this production by top contributor New Entertainment Pictures. The video opens with a beautiful aerial shot of St. Peter's Cathedral in Vatican City, then features some ground footage from within the great church. Then it's on to the Colosseum, Trajan's Columnm, the Pantheon and the Piazza della Rotonda, the Forum, the Spanish Steps, the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Victor Emmanuel II Monument and the Piazza Venezia, St. Peter's Square, and more. 

Award-winning content creator and drone pilot Mauro Pagliai created this magnificent piece from the Appenine Mountains of south-central Italy.  The video features some spectacular timelapse sequences from the Gran Sasso d'Italia masif, home of the highest peak in the entire Appenine chain: Corno Grande, which has a maximum elevation of 2.9k meters above sea level (around 9.55k ft.).  You'll also see some nice shots of the Rocca Calascio, the highest of the Appenine fortresses.  

Venice is one of Italy's most well recognized and treasured sights.  The magnificent Rennaissance city in the Veneto region is, unfortunately,  fighting a losing battle against tourism and water encroachment, leading some to fear that its days may be numbered.  In this video, top contributor and drone pilot Oliver Astrologo takes us on an aerial tour of this magical place, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This video is nominated in our Cities & Urban category for the 2nd annual Drone Video Awards.

If an award winning content creator takes one of the world's best aerial platforms to perhaps the most beautiful spot in Italy, you would expect to see something special.  That is very much the case in this incredible production from contributor Gianlo, who used a DJI Inspire 2 drone mounted with a Zenmuse X7 camera to create this spectacular view of Italy's Amalfi Coast.  The colors of the grottos and villages of this stretch of coastline on the Gulf of Salerno south of Naples simply jump off the screen!

Top contributor Electriclife flew his drone over the verdant rolling hills of Tuscany, one of Italy's most culturally important and stunningly beautiful regions.  Tuscany covers much of the western coast of Italy, running well into the interior.  Sailing over spectacular scenes of this ancient province, we get aerial glimpses of the beautiful countryside and magnificent estates which seem too beautiful to be real.  This land, which served as the birthplace of the Rennaissance, is one of truly timeless beauty.

The magnificent city of Florence (Firenze) sits in the eastern part of Italy's Tuscany region, well away from the Mediterranean coastline.  Florence is generally credited as being the home of the Rennaisance which propelled the world to modernity beginning in the 13th century.  Top contributor iDrone treats us to a spectacular aerial tour of the city, including footage of the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower (the "Duomo"), the Palazzo Vecchio, the Ponte Vecchio bridge over the Arno River, and more.

Contributor Daniele Bolgia created this stunning aerial mini-tour of Trentino, a province of Northern Italy.  Trentino is essentially the southern half of the semi-autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige, the northern half being the province of South Tyrol.  The video will take you through the spectacularly beautiful province, including magnificent shots of the  Dolomites Mountains and the provincial capital Trento.   With a population of about 120,000, Trento is one of the largest cities in the Alps.

Milan is the largest city in northern Italy and the second largest overall after Rome.  Milan is the capital of Lombardy,  the region which is home to about one in six Italians and consistently has been the dynamo of the Italian economy (and one of the most important in the EU).  While Rome is Italy's political and cultural capital, Milan is the country's business and financial capital.  Electriclife treats us to this stunning aerial overview of Milano, including footage of La Scala di Milano, the Unicredit Tower, Citylife Milano, and more.

Cinque Terra is a an area consisting of five pristine villages on the northern Italian coast in the region of Liguria.  The colorful seaside villages make for what is perhaps the most iconic spot in the whole country.  Top content creator and drone pilot iDrone Aerial created this stunning aerial view of the area, which is characterized by the incredible visual interplay between the colors of the Adriatic Sea, the brilliant looking village rooftops, and the surrounding hills and mountains. 

Sicily's Mt. Etna is one of the earth's most active volcanoes.  In the 1990s, it was added to the list of 'Decade Volcanos' by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI). This project was initiated by the United Nations to prepare for disasters created by volcanoes; Etna was selected due to its recent activity and the risk presented to nearby residents.  In this aerial video, drone pilot Haussmannvisuals provides a rare look inside the colossal landmark.

In this stunning drone video of Sardinia, top contributor electriclife uses his DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone to showcase the beauty of this Italian Mediterranean island. The footage is shot around the northeastern corner of the island, and includes the gorgeous Cugnana mountains and the town of Poltu Quatu.  The highlight is aerial footage of Porto Cervo, a town on the famed Costa Smerelda.  The Hotel Cala di Volpe here was a shooting location for the 11th James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).  

Lake Como is Italy's third largest but best known lake.  It is situated in the Lombardy region in the northern part of the country, near the Swiss border.  This deep (max depth of 400 meters or 1.3k ft.), glacial lake in the foothills of the Italian Alps has been a favored getaway for wealthy travelers since Roman times.  Contributor Yoelkamara flew a DJI Mavic Pro drone over Lake Como, creating this marvelous aerial look of this stunning alpine body of water, one of the most iconic sites in Italy.

Trieste is one of the largest cities in northeastern Italy and the capital of the automous Friuli–Venezia Giulia region.  Trieste is the easternmost city in Italy, lying just a few km from Slovenia to its east and also from Croatia to its south.  Situated at the north end of the Adriatic Sea, it's also the largest port on that body of water and it's Italy's #2 port by cargo tonnage after Genoa.  For hundreds of years, Treiste served as the major port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; control shifted to Italy after World War I.

Verona is the second largest city in northeastern Italy's Veneto region, after Venice.  Like Venice, Verona is considered one of Italy's great cultural centers; among other distinctions, it was the setting of Romeo and Juliet.  Lying just to the west of Verona is Sirmione, a small town at the south end of Lake Garda, which is Italy's largest lake and the border with neighboring Lombardy.  In this video, contributor FreD does a marvelous job of filming both of these treasures with a drone.  

Contributor Gianluca D'elia takes us on a breathtaking aerial tour of Basilicata, a region of southern Italy which incorporates the provinces of Potenza and Matera.  If the Italian peninsula is seen as a boot, then Basilicata is the "ankle" of the country.  It sits between the regions of Campania, Apulia, and Calabria.  Basilicata is mountainous country, mostly covered with Appenine range which runs down most of the peninsula.  It is home to many beautiful villages perched upon hills, some of which also have castles.  

Contributor Tobias Hagg has over 200k followers on Instagram, and it's because of videos like this two minute masterpiece from Italy.  It's shot over Tuscany, the famed region which occupies a portion of Italy's western coast on the Ligurian Sea and which gave birth to the Italian Renaissance.  Welcome to a land of rolling hills, vineyards, ancient baronial estates, and hilltop towns.  The video was shot on an ideal day for capturing the iconic Tuscan landscape: the entire scene is covered in a gentle mist.  

Turin (Torino) is one of Italy's great cities, the largest in its Piedmont region and its third largest metropolitan area overall.  Situated on the Po River, the Turin has a rich cultural history, and was the initial capital of the country when Piedmont consolidated the modern nation of Italy in the mid-19th century.  Contributor Domischlu created this amazing aerial tour of this city, which is also known as the the headquarters of Fiat Automobiles, the largest Italian auto company.

Sgaggio89 created this marvelous drone video of Cinque Torri, a group of mountains in northeastern Italy.  Cinque Torri is in Belluno, one of the provinces of the Veneto region.  The masif makes up the southwestern boundary of the valley of Cortina d'Ampezzo, the most popular resort town in the Dolomites.   The highest peak in the group is around 2.36k meters (about 7.75k ft.).  Cinque Torri was the scene of intense artillery duels between Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces during the First World War.

This epic reel by award-winning contributor and drone pilot Mauro Pagliai demonstrates two things: (1) the cinematic potential of DJI's tiny Spark drone and (2) the beauty of Italy's Abruzzo region.  Abruzzo lies on Italy's eastern (Adriatic Sea) coast, southeast of Rome.  Most of this video was shot in its western portion, a mountainous land full of stunning castles and villages.   As you'll see, the Spark footage is astoundingly high quality, and it draws out the natural beauty of this ancient land.  

Cervina is one of the most popular ski areas in Italy.  It's at the foot of the Matterhorn in the Aosta Valley (Val d'Aosta) region in the northwestern part of the country, very near the Swiss border (the peak of the Matterhorn is in Switzerland but much of its base is in Italy).  It shares the great mountain with Zermatt, the better known ski resort which lies on the Swiss side of the Matterhorn.  In this video by contributor BrianCortinovis, you'll get a great bird's eye view of Cervinia in the warmer months.  

Top contributor electriclife used a Zenmuse X7 camera mounted to a DJI Inspire 2 drone to create this spectacular aerial video of Italy's second-largest lake.  Lake Maggiore is in the northwestern part of the country, on the border with Switzerland.  It's Italian shoreline is shared by the Piedmont and Lombardy regions.  It's a long narrow lake which runs about 65 km (around 40 mi.) north to south.  Although not as large as Lake Garda nor as well known as Lake Como, it is nonetheless one of Italy's natural treasures. 

The Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca sits on top of the hills in Bologna, the largest city in the Emilia-Romagna Region of northern Italy. Built in the Baroque style and opened in 1765, the site was home to a different church or chapel for over a thousand years before the current church was commissioned. Drone pilot enricocif does a splendid job of showing the unique and historic cathedral from above in this aerial piece, which also features footage of the nearby Oratory of Saints Cecilia and Valeriano.

Apulia (Puglia) is one of the regions of Southern Italy, covering the southeastern part of the country.  Contributor and drone pilot JQBK used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 to create this marvelous mini-tour of the region, which was home to some of Italy's first settlements.  Highlights include the magnificent Cathedral of the Adriatic port town of Trani; the 13th century Castel del Monte, built on a hill in the interior commune of Andria; some great top-down shots of its famously rocky coastline; and more. 

Capri is a small island near the Bay of Naples off the coast of Southern Italy's Campania region.  It lies in the Tyrrhenian Sea, an extension of the Mediterranean.   It is an island known not only for cultural sites but a world-reknowned sailing and yachting scene, and is a playground for Europe's super rich.  Contributor Paradise Picnic Photography used a DJI Mavic drone to create an amazing aerial portrait of this Mediterranean paradise, which has been known as a "vacation" destination since Roman times.

Top contributor Mauro Paglia used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone to create this stunning aerial view of L'Aquila, an important city in the Abruzzo region of Italy.   L'Aquila is situated in the eponymously named province, in the Appenine Mountains which run down the country's "spine".  With a population of about 75,000, it's the provincial and regional capital.  The video captures the city when it was lit up in pink for the Giro d'Italia 2019, the Italian version of the Tour de France. This video won DVOW in May 2019.

Check out this magnificent aerial video of Naples, the principal city in the southern part of Italy.  The capital of the Campania, it's generally considered Italy's #3 city after Rome and Milan.  It's situated on the northern shore of the Gulf of Naples, which opens on to the Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean.  Shot on a crystal-clear day, you'll get a great view of Mt. Vesuvius in the background.  The volcano famously erupted in 79 AD and is considered one of the most dangerous in Europe.  

When you hear the word “Tuscany” you are immediately flooded with thoughts of rolling hillsides, miles of Italian Cypress trees, historic cities with red rooftops, and (of course) wine. You’ll see all of those Tuscan images in this drone video by iOlti Films. Shot in cinematic, 4K quality on the Mavic 2 Zoom, it is four and a half minutes of pure Tuscan-countryside beauty. Read their description to learn more about the Italian region. This video was a Drone Video of the Week winner in April, 2019.

Top conrtributor Haussmannvisuals, profiled in a December, 2018 Drone Dish segment, created this stunning drone video of the island of Stromboli, just off the coast of Sicily.  One of the Aeolian Islands which sit between Sicily and the Italian mainland in the Tyrrhenian Sea, it's home to one of the country's three active volcanoes.  Said volcano is on full display here in its state of near-constant minor eruption, along with other beautiful sites like a lighthouse topped islet just offshore.     

Contributor alex_avdev created this spectacular drone video showing two of the most storied regions of Italy.  The first is the Tuscany region, which occupies a portion of west-central Italy north of Rome.  The fabled land was the birthplace of the Renaissance and is famous for its gently rolling hills dotted with walled cities and wineries.  The other spot featured is Cinque Terra.  This is a series of five towns along the Ligurian coast (aka the Italian Riviera) immediately to the north of Tuscany.  

Less well known than Rome's Colosseum, the Capua Ampitheater in Santa Maria Capua Vetere (ancient Capua) was the second largest Roman amphitheater.  The town is situated due north of Naples, in Italy's Caserta province (which forms a part of the Campania region).  Built in the first century BC, the amphitheater was the scene of many important events in the Roman Republic and the Empire.  In this video, contributor feola.mike captures these ancient ruins brilliantly with a DJI Phantom 4 drone.   

Of the 20 official regions of Italy, Calabria is one of the easiest to pick out on a map - it's the "toe" of the "boot" that is peninsular Italy.  The region is home to some of the most fabled beach towns in Italy, on both its northern coast on the Tyrrhenian Sea and its southern coast on the Ionian Sea.  In this magnificent drone video by Luca T, you'll get a captioned tour of some of these stunning seaside towns, namely (in order of appearance)  Zambrone, Riace, Capo Vaticano, Scilla, Tropea, and Isola de Capo Rizutto.

Top contributor Alberto Ardit created this DVOW winning drone video from Italy's Dolomite Mountains, which lies across three provinces in the Trentino-Alto-Adigio and Veneto regions.  The video features footage of the following locations: Giau Pass, which connects the fabled town of Cortina d'Ampezzo with two other towns in the Belluno province; Pordoi Pass, which connects the Sella and Marmolada masifs; Cinque Torri, a prominent rock group just south of Cortina; and Carezza's Lake, a small alpine lake in South Tyrol.  

The famed misty hills of Italy's Emilia-Romagna region are on full display here in the magnificent drone video by contributor Rikk08.  The video was shot in two spots: Bologna and Ferrara.  The former is the regional capital, lying in the province of the same name.  It's Italy's seventh largest city, and was one of the largest cities in Europe during the Middle Ages.  Ferrara is the capital of the eponymously named province, which lies in the northeast part of the region, on a branch of the Po River.  

Contributor and pilot Funk Design created this amazing drone video from an area of northern Italy where the Lombardy, Trentino-Alto-Adigio, and Veneto regions all come together.  It's the mountainous area around Lago di Garda, which is Italy's largest lake and has shores in all three regions.  Most of the footage was shot in Monte Baldo, a ridge of Alps foothills which runs between the provinces of Trento and Verona (the former being part of the Trentino Alto Adigio region and the latter part of the Veneto region).  

Check out this stunning drone video from Central Italy, compliments of contributor Why Not Channel.  It's the area around the town of Trevi, in the Umbria region near the center of the "boot" of Italy.  It's situated on a hilltop which affords commanding views of the plains of the Clitunno River as well as the mountains which surround the valley.  The town, which dates to the Antiquity, is home to a number of historical sights, including about 20 churches and an art museum known for its medieval paintings.  

Nominated for Drone Video of the Week, content creator and drone pilot Kellyneedleman takes us up and down the length of what he says is "a country full of love, life and art."  Italy, known for its food, wine, historic significance, fashion and architecture, is shown through both an aerial lens and fast moving ground camera work.  Strap yourself in for this epic aerial journey that will take you around this magnificent country, from the Dolomite Mountains to Florence, Venice to Rome, and Cinque Terre to Tuscany.