Fodor's Expert Review Sacra di San Michele

To reach the church—built between 983 and 987 AD, and which inspired Umberto Eco to write The Name of the Rose—you must climb 150 steps from the Porta dello Zodiaco, a splendid Romanesque doorway decorated with the signs of the zodiac. On the left side of the interior are 16th-century frescoes representing New Testament themes; on the right are depictions of the founding of the church.