Around 1,000 cultural sites across Italy will open for free over the weekend (29-30 September) for the annual European Heritage Days. This year the ministry of culture has joined up with the Italian National Trust (FAI) and Motorways for Italy, which runs some 3,408 km of national roads, to attract motorists to 200 churches, castles and ancient burial grounds that lie just off the motorway network. Staff in service stations across the country have been primed to persuade people stopping off for petrol that they should make a diversion to visit cultural gems such as the tenth-century Porciano castle off the A1 motorway in Tuscany and Richard Meier