Approaching a Trip to Italy

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00:00:02.580 | - Someone wants to go to Italy

00:00:07.320 | and it's impossible to see it all,

00:00:09.880 | but nobody or most people don't have 10 weeks,

00:00:13.440 | you know, a year to go spend in Italy,

00:00:15.040 | which I'm sure if they did, you would highly recommend,

00:00:17.360 | but maybe they've got a week or two

00:00:18.520 | and they're like, I want to go see Italy.

00:00:19.720 | I want to experience what you're talking about.

00:00:22.040 | How would you suggest they start to approach it?

00:00:24.200 | Or what are a few different approaches?

00:00:25.920 | - Yeah, great question.

00:00:27.260 | So I think the first thing to realize

00:00:29.520 | and understand is that no approach is the right approach.

00:00:31.920 | There are so many different ways of seeing Italy

00:00:33.920 | and so many different,

00:00:35.080 | you look at it as like a matrix, right?

00:00:36.880 | All the different cities, all the different sites,

00:00:39.280 | all the different reasons for visiting, right?

00:00:42.000 | And you could go just see museums

00:00:43.920 | and be busy for 10 days in Rome alone, right?

00:00:47.080 | Or you could do the Rome, Venice, Florence,

00:00:50.440 | you know, Milan tour of all the museums

00:00:52.920 | or all the churches and historical sites

00:00:54.360 | and still not see all of the highlights

00:00:56.760 | that you can see in 10 days.

00:00:58.440 | So I think knowing that you're going into it,

00:01:00.560 | leaving a lot on the table,

00:01:01.920 | leaving things to come back and visit in the future is great.

00:01:05.100 | The second idea is knowing that

00:01:07.320 | it's really easy to burn out on too much eating,

00:01:09.880 | too much museuming, too much churching

00:01:11.840 | as you go to Italy, right?

00:01:13.480 | And so building a nice mix in an itinerary

00:01:16.080 | is a really important thing to do.

00:01:18.520 | So where do I find inspiration?

00:01:20.360 | You know, there's a lot of really great media right now

00:01:23.560 | that focuses on an aspect of Italian culture or life.

00:01:27.200 | You know, Stanley Tucci has been doing

00:01:28.400 | for the past two years, his sort of Tour d'Italia,

00:01:31.720 | and he's going to all 20 regions

00:01:33.160 | and he's eating his way through.

00:01:35.240 | And if you look at the way

00:01:36.080 | that he's approached his episodes,

00:01:37.360 | these hour-long sort of opus, you know,

00:01:39.720 | these hour-long bits of love to Lazio, where Rome is,

00:01:43.280 | or, you know, Campania, where they grow the tomatoes

00:01:45.500 | that become your pizza tomatoes here in the States,

00:01:50.120 | you look at him really getting to know a people

00:01:52.520 | and a culture and a place,

00:01:54.100 | something that he's very familiar with already,

00:01:56.640 | but through the lens of food and people

00:01:58.720 | or food and culture.

00:02:00.360 | And that's a wonderful approach for people to take

00:02:02.880 | is they find some angle that they love,

00:02:05.300 | whether it's in a book or a TV series,

00:02:07.680 | and they say, "Hey, I want to go recreate

00:02:08.840 | "an element of that on my trip."

00:02:10.840 | So I want to go to the place where, you know,

00:02:13.440 | Stanley Tucci finds the tomato in the field of San Marzano

00:02:16.920 | and says, "Okay, I found the real tomato.

00:02:18.960 | "Now I know what it's supposed to taste like."

00:02:20.920 | And that's a centerpiece for their trip, right?

00:02:23.760 | But there are so many blogs that are out there.

00:02:25.400 | There's so many travel advisors willing to help.

00:02:27.160 | There's so many books you can read

00:02:29.320 | about everything to eat, see, and do in Italy.

00:02:32.480 | My biggest takeaway for people again is take your time

00:02:37.960 | and know that you're not going to see it all.

00:02:39.440 | You're not going to do it all.

00:02:40.940 | And you're going to have an amazing time in the process

00:02:43.280 | of whatever you do, see, and do.

00:02:45.640 | - So I feel like I'm both more excited to go to Italy

00:02:48.240 | and I have no idea what I should do

00:02:49.920 | with a week and a trip.

00:02:51.120 | So maybe give some options.

00:02:53.240 | I'm thinking one to two weeks,

00:02:55.520 | maybe let's throw out two or three things

00:02:58.280 | that you might send someone to.

00:02:59.760 | - Yeah.

00:03:00.600 | - Is Rome a must include on any first trip to Italy?

00:03:03.280 | - In my opinion, yes.

00:03:04.480 | All roads lead to Rome for good reason, right?

00:03:06.840 | Look, it's the third most visited city in all of Europe.

00:03:10.040 | To me, it is a place that is happy and fun

00:03:13.520 | and lively and young and still so very old,

00:03:16.920 | full of incredible cuisine,

00:03:18.320 | full of some of the best historical sites in the world.

00:03:20.520 | Look, to me, the fact that they could build the Pantheon,

00:03:23.680 | this concrete domed roof with an open hole

00:03:27.400 | in the oculus in the center 2,000 years ago,

00:03:30.480 | and it's still standing.

00:03:31.960 | It's still standing, it's like mind-blowing.

00:03:34.200 | Like we can't build things here.

00:03:35.200 | We can't build a road here.

00:03:36.600 | They can build a, 2,000 years ago,

00:03:38.600 | a dome that is in the center of town that is remarkable.

00:03:42.860 | And so when you see that,

00:03:43.820 | you have this sense of awe that returns to you,

00:03:46.240 | whether you've been there 40 times

00:03:48.160 | or this is the first, right?

00:03:50.000 | So I think Rome is absolutely an incredible place to go.

00:03:52.600 | And go, go see the sites.

00:03:54.800 | Go see the touristy sites that are overcrowded,

00:03:56.860 | the Colosseum, Vatican,

00:03:58.600 | because they really are monuments to humanity

00:04:01.400 | and to an incredible society

00:04:03.360 | that has built and upkept these buildings for 2,000 years.

00:04:08.040 | But also get lost.

00:04:09.400 | Go off the beaten path in Rome

00:04:10.740 | and don't just go to the fancy gelateria

00:04:13.200 | across from the Trevi Fountain.

00:04:14.640 | It's beautiful, it's great for Instagram,

00:04:16.240 | but go wind through the streets of Trastevere,

00:04:19.480 | across the river where the Romans live

00:04:21.400 | and the Romans go eat,

00:04:22.820 | and explore that little village

00:04:24.720 | and see what it's like to be in a little borgo,

00:04:27.000 | a little village inside of a big metropolitan city.

00:04:30.560 | Have a meal on a piazza

00:04:32.720 | where maybe you're the only person

00:04:35.080 | who doesn't speak fluent Italian.

00:04:36.200 | That's okay.

00:04:37.320 | You're gonna be welcomed in.

00:04:38.520 | You're gonna eat an incredible meal,

00:04:40.380 | and you're gonna see the way that the dolce farniente,

00:04:44.040 | the sweetness of doing nothing,

00:04:45.640 | passes by in front of you on passeggiata

00:04:47.920 | as people are walking from the cafe

00:04:50.000 | to their restaurant, to their home, and beyond.

00:04:52.680 | - Okay, that's Rome.

00:04:53.880 | - That's Rome.

00:04:54.720 | - Okay, so let's say I wanna do Rome and something else.

00:04:56.680 | What are a few options?

00:04:57.660 | - Well, from Rome, if you draw a big circle,

00:05:00.920 | you say, "I wanna take a two-hour train ride from Rome,"

00:05:03.620 | you've got a ton of options, North and South.

00:05:06.000 | Traditionally, people would go South to the Amalfi Coast.

00:05:08.820 | It's incredible.

00:05:09.660 | It's iconic.

00:05:10.480 | It's beautiful.

00:05:11.320 | It's been made famous since movies in the '50s, right,

00:05:13.660 | where you're driving along these mountainside roads,

00:05:15.760 | and there's a sheer cliff, 200, 500 feet down,

00:05:18.880 | and beautiful beaches, and incredible food and wine.

00:05:22.400 | That's amazing, it really is.

00:05:24.280 | But Amalfi, the downside to it

00:05:25.640 | is that everyone wants to be there.

00:05:26.960 | So that coast between, let's say,

00:05:29.760 | June and early September is a zoo.

00:05:32.720 | What is normally a 20-minute ride in a car or a bus

00:05:36.320 | could be an hour and a half stuck in traffic

00:05:38.280 | on a one-lane road.

00:05:39.240 | That's a bummer when you're on a limited vacation time.

00:05:42.760 | So what I would recommend is go to Amalfi,

00:05:45.040 | but maybe go in May or go in late September or October.

00:05:47.680 | Weather is still amazing.

00:05:48.920 | You can experience it, and that's wonderful.

00:05:51.240 | So another piece to take away

00:05:52.760 | from the conversation is seasonality.

00:05:55.200 | You can always go to Rome.

00:05:56.400 | Rome is happening year-round.

00:05:58.520 | It's harder to go to a beach in November,

00:06:01.280 | but the Amalfi Coast in October is still really lovely,

00:06:03.960 | and you'll have a third of the crowds

00:06:06.340 | that are there throughout the year.

00:06:08.640 | Nearby Amalfi, you've got Naples.

00:06:10.360 | You've got Pompeii or Ercanuleo,

00:06:13.480 | which is the nearby town that's like a mini Pompeii

00:06:16.600 | that has incredible ruins that are really not visited.

00:06:20.000 | You can go walk amongst 2,000-year-old homes

00:06:22.840 | that were damaged in the ash from Vesuvius in 79 AD,

00:06:27.080 | and you can just walk around and there's no one around you,

00:06:29.760 | whereas in Pompeii, it can be pretty busy.

00:06:31.960 | So there's little alternatives to each place

00:06:35.520 | along the way that you should try to explore.

00:06:38.400 | But if you don't want to go south, you can always go north.

00:06:41.520 | Florence is only an hour and 20-minute train ride from Rome.

00:06:44.640 | There's trains that leave every 15 minutes.

00:06:46.800 | It's an incredible town.

00:06:47.960 | It's like a medieval village that still comes alive today.

00:06:51.760 | And I actually studied abroad there

00:06:53.840 | and did culinary school there in 2003.

00:06:57.260 | Wow, that's a little while ago.

00:06:59.440 | And it was just an incredible place to be young,

00:07:01.880 | to be alive, and to be living in a medieval city of today.

00:07:05.840 | So great sights and sounds, amazing food.

00:07:08.480 | If you like pork, that is your city.

00:07:10.200 | If you like red wine, that is your region.

00:07:12.680 | And there's a ton to do.

00:07:14.520 | But let's say you've done Rome

00:07:15.680 | and you've done Florence before.

00:07:17.280 | What do you do on your second or third trip back to Italy?

00:07:21.920 | Most of your flights are going to fly either into Rome

00:07:23.960 | or into Milan in the north.

00:07:25.700 | That's where most of the flights

00:07:26.540 | from North America tend to land.

00:07:28.760 | So what I like to do is get off the beaten path

00:07:30.800 | and explore other areas that are maybe less popular

00:07:35.440 | with North American tourists,

00:07:36.660 | but still, to me, pack authenticity, incredible food,

00:07:40.300 | and great experiences into a small area.

00:07:42.640 | So something to consider might be Umbria,

00:07:44.680 | the green heart of Italy that's right next to Tuscany.

00:07:47.740 | You have 2,000-year-old villages there,

00:07:50.980 | in fact, sometimes even older, to the Etruscan age.

00:07:54.100 | You've got incredible food and wine,

00:07:56.260 | and you've got a third of the tourists that are in Tuscany.

00:07:58.860 | And you're probably paying half

00:08:00.740 | to three quarters of the price as well.

00:08:02.420 | So that's a wonderful place if you feel confident

00:08:05.040 | and you're okay to get off the beaten path

00:08:06.460 | by yourself, even if you don't speak Italian.

00:08:08.980 | You can get by in Umbria, eat, drink, and see well,

00:08:12.160 | and go see some incredible sights and sounds

00:08:14.460 | that are unlike anywhere else in the world.

00:08:17.900 | The last plug I'll make for Umbria, by the way,

00:08:20.260 | in May, May 15th, every year, my favorite festival

00:08:25.260 | in the whole world takes place.

00:08:27.460 | It's called the Corsa di Ceri.

00:08:29.300 | What that means is the running of the candles.

00:08:32.220 | You think running of the candles,

00:08:33.460 | how does that, candle blows out when you run?

00:08:35.340 | No, that doesn't work.

00:08:37.260 | These crazy people in this town of Gubbio,

00:08:39.900 | they take these huge wooden slats.

00:08:41.900 | They're like 30 feet long.

00:08:44.220 | And a bunch of husky men hold onto them.

00:08:46.900 | And on top of the slats are these big, tall columns

00:08:49.940 | with a saint on top.

00:08:51.660 | And they run these columns of these candles

00:08:55.300 | through the town, through the medieval town.

00:08:57.340 | And the, you know, the walls of the buildings next to you

00:09:00.220 | are like encroaching upon these candles

00:09:02.660 | as you run through the streets.

00:09:04.820 | And they sing songs and they play trumpets and music.

00:09:07.860 | And it's insane.

00:09:09.340 | It's a party and no one outside of Italy goes there.

00:09:12.780 | It's like, not like it's a running of the bulls

00:09:14.900 | or the Tomatera in Spain.

00:09:16.740 | It's like this true Italian festival

00:09:19.980 | in the heart of Umbria.

00:09:21.500 | And I've only been twice.

00:09:23.420 | I would love to go back again because it's, to me,

00:09:26.140 | it's the most exciting element of seeing people

00:09:29.460 | in their thing, doing their thing, living their lives,

00:09:32.460 | celebrating their history and culture

00:09:34.460 | and having a blast doing it.

Approaching a Trip to Italy

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