If you want to do a deep dive on the most important family in European history—or, heck, even if you don’t want to go fully down the rabbit hole, but do want to learn a bit more—then I’ve got some resources for you. These are a few websites, movies/tv series, and books (besides the one I wrote) that are all worth exploring. Enjoy—I’d be interested to hear if you have any favorites!

As a movie-lover, I always thought that one of the best ways to get to know a place and a culture (apart from traveling) is to watch movies and read books. This list of movies could be endless, so I’ve made a selection of well-known and lesser-known movies staged in Sicily.

Spain’s culture is as rich, intriguing, and complex as its history. Here are 5 movies that will help you better understand both.

The American Myth was still alive in my mind until, married to an American, I finally visited the States and slowly, by living there, came to realize how much that myth—like all myths—existed more as a vehicle for escapism from the pains of daily life. And despite its power and influence over popular culture, it didn’t necessarily correspond to reality. 

These people still remember vividly about surviving in a city where food was scarce, where part of the city was bombed, about meeting an American soldier and learning how to play baseball, other stories are about the many marriages between American soldiers and French women. Many still remember the joy of American movies and music, which they were able to watch and listen to after the Liberation.

I came to the realization that not all Italians lived “la dolce vita” but instead, struggled with many hardships of everyday life. Political chaos, poverty and corruption have been major issues that are deeply embedded in this country. Actually, Italy made a significant impact on the film industry during the Neorealist movement at the end of World War II.

Few places in Europe are as diverse and spectacular as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and the rest of the Balkans. But there is also a lot of recent history here from the spark of the First World War in Sarajevo, to the partisan’s guerrilla warfare against Hitler, and onto the 24-hr news cycle of the wars here in the 1990s.