Italy 2025 – The Ten Day Tour

Highlights From This Trip

• 10 Days
• 3200km driven
• 32 Locations Explored
• ~600 photographs
• Exploring three huge colleges
• Adventures industrial relics: from pristine powerplants, to hydro plants and factories lost in the forest
• Sucessful revisits! A fortress-like prison, an old hydro plant and a grand theater

What better way to kick off the 2025 summer exploring season than with a trip to explore the abandoned treasures of Italy? It has been three years since my previous trip to Italy, so I was ready to revisit the country that always delivers some of the most stunning lost places to grace my camera.

Looking back at my trip, one thing stood out as I scrolled through my photos. Palaces, villas, and churches typically dominate an Italian urbex trip itinerary. These types of derelict sites litter the country, so it is not surprising many of the spots visited fall into these categories. This time round, no palaces on the roster (well, a few from the outside, which I wasn’t lucky enough to get into!). True, there was a smattering of small churches and roadside chapels on this tour. On the whole, the locations visited on this trip were both numerous and diverse!

Exploring abandoned Schools and closed collages of northern Italy

One highlight of this tour was the ruins of three huge colleges (or collegio) I explored. These sprawling campuses typically feature buildings built during different decades, with older parts often hiding beautiful architecture and decay. Given the religious links in these collegios, there is almost always a bonus chapel to discover!

These large collegios with their labyrinthine corridors are a pleasure to explore. Hours were spent checking each room and every wing and spanning every floor and mezzanine. I discovered sports halls, auditoriums, classrooms, science labs, dormitories, and dusty libraries.

Industrial relics – From Pristine Powerplants, to hydro plants and factories lost in the forest

The Italian countryside and towns alike are filled with abandoned industry, collapsing ruins and shuttered complexes.

I ventured into a fairly pristine, untouched power plant that has been quietly decaying behind closed doors since it powered down 15 years ago. Later, I explored an older hydropower plant filled with fig plants and ferns, which have taken over since the roof collapsed many years ago.

At the other end of the spectrum, I also explored older industrial sites now little more than scattered ruins lost in the forest. These included a crumbling hydro plant, a gunpowder factory filled with graffiti murals, a pottery factory and an old small-scale paper mill.

Celebrating successes, shooting Spots I have wanted to see for years!

I was lucky enough to visit several places I have had high on my wishlist, some for several years!

One of my top spots of the trip, was a rural school. Unassuming on the outside, little more than a collapsing ruin. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in its uniqueness of what lays inside. Small decaying desks surrounded by ferns, against a colourful jungle animal mural spanning the entire wall.

Greenhouses and glasshouses of all kinds are some of my favourite things to photograph! The mix of broken glass and rusty metalwork, juxtaposed against the wild reclamation of nature, always captivates me. A domed glasshouse, brimming with fan palms, captures my attention this time. I wonder what exactly this glasshouse was used for; given the large bird coops, it may have been some kind of aviary for exotic birds.

A couple of locations I had failed on previous trips, I visited on this tour successfully! Firstly, I was thrilled to get inside a huge fortress-like prison complex that had thwarted me previously! Secondly, a grand theatre was skipped on a previous trip due to running out of time. Lastly, a simple hydro plant that was foiled on a previous trip by a mix of barking dogs and nearby workers.

Shooting abandoned places on 35mm film

Travelling light for this trip, I opted to bring only one film camera (my well-travelled Zenit-E, 35mm).

To capture the beautiful colours of Italy’s lost places in the summer, I opted for coloured film. Ever the Kodak fan, I selected Kodak Portra 160 for this trip.

I shot through three rolls of film during the trip, which I added to my backlog of film to develop (currently chilling, literally, in my freezer!).

My top urbex spots from my Italy 2025 Road Trip

1. A huge fortress like green prison (and a memorable mission to get inside!)
2. A cute rural school, filled with ferns and with walls painted with colourful jungle animals
3. Rusting glasshouse, a once part of a 1890s family estate owned by Italian nobility
4. A collapsing hyro powerplant, filled with plants and natural decay
5. A creepy old-school dentist, complete with an array of rusty anicient tools
6. A grand red theatre, hidden in plain site on a busy city street
7. A retro Fiat garage, filled haphazardly with old 1970s-1990s cars
8. 1970s Pontiac Firebird, forgotten in an old greenhouse
9. A beautifully decaying swimming pool overtaken by plants and frogs
10. An old college with science labs, sports hall and library

All the behind-the-scenes photos from my Italy 2025 Road Trip

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this road trip blog! Here is a collection of behind-the-scenes snaps and preview photos from this trip. See you next time <3.