While providing us with some Christmas vocabulary, Marika explains a bit about how Christmas works in Italy.

People who want a spiritual but active way to see Italy often choose la via francigena (the road from France), the Italian pilgrimage route from France to Rome that corresponds to the perhaps more famous "Camino de Santiago" from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

One way for Le Cinque Terre to accommodate refugees landing in Lampedusa has been to teach them how to build dry-stone walls. This is a much-needed skill in the area and therefore the project is an advantage all around.

Adverbs davanti and di fronte have to do with a position in relation to something or someone. In contrast, avanti [forward], discussed in part 1, is primarily about motion.

Le Cinque Terre — a place so many visitors from other countries put on their must-see lists — is the topic of this segment. It's a marvelous example of the relationship between humankind and nature.

Marika answers a question about some tricky adverbs of place: avanti, davanti, and difronte. She begins, in this segment, with avanti (forward), an adverb that is mostly used with verbs of motion, such as andare (to go) and venire (to come)

A quarryman has to have a passion for his work. Every block of marble is a challenge and has to be observed on all sides and many times to make sure it is good. But succeeding in cutting it and taking it out is an enormous satisfaction.

Vennai is the most important marble quarry in Carrara. Luigi Pasquale talks about when he started working there at about 14 years of age.

Marika finishes up with two more expressions related to seafaring. The first one is very similar in meaning to an expression Marika mentioned in an earlier video. Perhaps you will recognize it.

We visit the 28th chapel where the scene of Jesus before Pontius Pilate is depicted. We also learn a little secret about how these statues were created.

Marika explains some super common expressions Italians use all the time. After watching the video, try using them to describe a situation in your life.

The first place we visit is practically a theater on a mountain, designed and built to replicate places with religious significance in the Holy Land. The mountain, aptly named, is Sacro Monte (sacred or holy mountain) and is located in Piemonte, to the northwest of Milan.

Marika discusses two final expressions linked to the nautical world. One of the two is more of an Italian proverb, and a very important one.

Here are some more expressions having to do with seafaring. In general, they are used figuratively, in a similar way to how they're used in English.

We move on to Valtorta a spot where cheese is king. Here, they produce a special little cylindrical cheese called an agrì, exclusive to this spot. In fact, Slow Food, an organization that's become international but which began in Italy, has it as one of its special products.

When you pull your oars back in the boat, you stop rowing and sometimes this means you are giving up. Italians have an expression for this: Tirare i remi in barca. Marika explains this and other expressions using nautical terms.

The ancient via Priula leads us to the mountains where we visit a herbal laboratory, in which flowers and plants are transformed into beauty products using historical recipes.

Italia's peninsula is surrounded by water on three sides, so the topic of the sea creeps into the conversation easily. Marika explains some expressions inspired by the sea and the nautical world.

We meet some very charming donkeys and hear about how Francantonio and his sons developed a passion for them.

In the Brembana Valley, the river reigns supreme. In fact, there is still a functioning water mill for grinding corn, as well as people passionate about maintaining centuries-old traditions.

To take a break from the hustle and bustle of Rome, there is a place waiting for you, just 40 minutes away, where horses and cows graze in the wild, and where there is plenty of interesting flora and fauna to observe: The Sorbo Valley.

Here and there in the small villages of the valley, there are interesting frescos hearalding back to earlier times. Two local recipes are offered: stuffed curly cabbage leaves and Taragna polenta, a kind of cornmeal with the addition of buckwheat.

The fine white mold that forms on the cheese helps give it its characteristic flavor, but it is also painstakingly scraped off each round. Before the high-altitude pastures are ready for grazing, humans take advantage of the snow and the trails.

Lo stracchino is a soft, mild but flavorful cheese that's spreadable, and we find it in supermarkets all over Italy. But the kind Francesca's family produces in the mountains, with traditional tools, is on a whole other level. Why is this cheese called stracchino? There is a fascinating reason. Watch the video.