Letter about Italy and the Italian people

Dear _________,
How are you? Here all is ok. In your last letter, you have asked
me to tell you something about Italy and the Italian people...well,
here I am! First of all, you have to know that I love Italy: I think Italy
is one of the best countries to live in, and here I will tell you why. In
my Country, there are a lot of different places: in the North, there are
the Alps, where you can go to ski if you like it (I hate skiing!) or
to have a nice time relaxing, walking in the nature and visiting a lot
of small and nice villages lost in the valleys. Then, going southward
(=verso sud), you arrived in the plain of the Po (=pianura padana),
where the climate is worse than in the other parts of Italy, because of
the fog; here, there are a lot of farms and rice-field. The Centre of
Italy is very various: there are some seaside resort (=luoghi di
villeggiatura balneare) like Liguria, where I live, the Riviera
Romagnola, the Isle of Elba, etc but also the Apennine: in Italian,
its name means little Alps, but sometimes they are not very low!
The South and the two major isles Sicily and Sardinia are very
popular because of the white-sand beaches and the clean sea.
From a tourist point of view, if you wanted to have a sight-seeing
tour in Italy, you should visited an infinitude of cities, because Italy
have perhaps the greatest number of historical places in the world.
Some examples? Venice, the city on the canals; Genoa, with the
biggest aquarium of Europe; Florence, Dantes fatherland (=patria)
and Rome, that doesnt need other explanation; but also Milan,
Turin, Naples and then Pompei, Caserta, Verona, Ravenna...
In order to describe the Italian people, I must distinguish different
groups: the dwellers of Genoa are popular because of their stinginess
(=taccagneria), while the inhabitants of the Riviera Romagnola are
very nice and friendly; the dwellers of Milan have usually a snobbish
attitude while we say that the inhabitants of Naples are guappi,
that means cunning (=scaltro, anche se guappo vuol dire +
precisamente furbastro)...however, these are commonplace!
Well...are you satisfied? And what about you? Describe me your
country and the people they live in!
Write me soon.
Mattia