What's especially heartbreaking is that most of what's bad about Italy is entirely self-inflicted, and quite possible, if not easy, to fix. Many of the good things about Italy, however, are special, unique, and not at all easily replicated elsewhere.
* A stunning variety of nature, from the snowy Dolomites to the north, to the sandy shores of Sicily, with a bit of everything in between... foggy plains, rolling hills, lakes, rivers forests, beaches, etc...
* Nearly as much cultural variety. I spent last weekend in Meran, which 100 years ago was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and is still mostly German speaking, with traditional Tirolean architecture. It's pretty much night-and-day with, say, Sicily, or the almost Greek looking bits of Puglia.
* A truly staggering amount of art and architecture that goes back 3000+ years, from Greek ruins in Sicily to, of course, the Romans, through the middle ages, and so on and so forth. This is really "fractal": you can see Rome and Venice and whatnot, but also see pretty interesting things in the smallest of regional towns.
