Certain European nations have their fair share of places to explore, old abandoned mansions, factories and manufacturing plants abound. There's also the things you don't expect, like the vet school horror labs in Belgium. Italy is a country with lots of derps (Derelict Places), and I mean, a lot! Italy wasn't a country I had seen much of prior to a trip there in 2017. I had acquired various maps of places to explore over the years, and was excited about how many places there were to explore. See the map here for just Northern Italy. 

However, as I began to drive around Italy, I realised that Italy was in decline. Everywhere, roads were falling apart, buildings crumbling, infrastructure past it's best. It was sad, as I'd always loved Italy from afar. Land of Ferraris, Parma Ham, Pasta and stunning places like Cinque Terra, the Amalfi Coast etc etc. This extended to the places on my explore map. Some places were barely more than a pile of bricks in a field, very few places had much to show what had happened there. This picture below is of a brick furnace in a brick factory. Apart from these tunnels, there is nothing else to suggest what went on here. All the other buildings are totally stripped on the site.

This was a school in a city, Tuscany I think, and it looked promising on the outside. Although it was fun to try to find a way in, in some ways, the most fun part of an explore for me. Once inside, it was bereft of anything interesting. The whole place totally stripped of anything to show it's former purpose.

This was a factory building in the Calabria, Southern Italy, similar story. Inside was stripped and bare.

Again, in Tuscany, a large old derelict building by a railway line. Looks like it might be an interesting explore right? Wrong!  Not even the thrill of trying to find a way in, there was a large open doorway!

Inside the floor structure had been removed, and it had obviously been used for storage.

More floors removed at the other end of the building, and no sign of what the place was once used for.

Just a boring empty shell.

I've seen on lots of other explorer sites and forums explores from Italy, and they're nearly all the same. Explorers trying to big up a place that is usually bare and lacks any real history. This isn't to say that Italy doesn't have decent explores, in fact one of the most famous is mind blowing, Non Plus Ultra. I explored it and have been trying to reduce the number of photos for about 6 years to post on here. There are lots of nice abandoned mansions with amazing paintings and frescoes. However, on the whole, it's really not worth one's time driving all over the place to try to find something interesting in Italy. I feel this graffiti sums up Italian exploring!