Vital Intel
01 Italy is a very young country.
The Risorgimiento, the movement that turned a collection of states into a unified country, took sixty-six painstaking years, ending in 1871, making Italy an infant in the global order of nations. More than a homogeneous body of sixty million people, Italy is a loosely connected collection of twenty regions, each with its own distinctive DNA. People will nearly always identify themselves as Romans or Sicilians or Tuscans before Italians. Keep that in mind before making or accepting broad generalizations about the nature of Italians. Well-worn clichés—that people are warmer in the south, more serious in the north, for example—don’t always hold up to scrutiny. You’ll need to dig deeper to understand the many faces of Italy.
02 Go (hyper) local.
Italy is no monolith, and neither is its cuisine. In a world of hyper-local food traditions, recipes don’t just change from region to region, but from one house to the next. Dialects, customs, spices, pasta shapes—all are subject to dramatic change as you travel across very small distances. Your mission is to immerse yourself in the full panoply of regional cultures, often determined as much by geographical challenges as political realities. Spend time in a coastal town, a mountain village, a far-flung city. Buy local salumi and wine at the markets, order dishes you’ve never heard of before at the trattoria, and be prepared to trade the comfort of the familiar for the excitement of the unknown.
03 Surrender yourself.
Italy is not a country that organizes life down to the minute like its Swiss neighbor to the north. Even the best-laid plans can be demolished by train delays (despite what Mussolini said, the trains decidedly do not run on time), unexpected restaurant closings, or any of a dozen unforeseeable factors. Oftentimes, said factor is a proud Italian host wanting you to taste just one more local specialty or inviting you to one last glass of wine. More than seeing monuments and checking off boxes on the tourist trail, this is why you’re here. Surrender your meticulously constructed schedule and be ready to improvise and adjust—not just because you will need to but because you’ll want to.
04 Venture into parts unknown.
Italy is the fifth most-visited country in the world, with 53 million foreign tourists making the journey in 2017. But the distribution of tourism skews especially heavily on the star spots: Rome, Tuscany, Venice, Naples. All are lovely places, but in years of travel, I’ve yet to find a corner of Italy not to love. This book celebrates a few of the paths less traveled—magical places like Sardinia and Puglia—but I could have just as easily dedicated chapters to the enchanting villages of Abruzzo, the surf-and-turf culture of Liguria, the spice and solitude of Calabria. Strike a balance when planning your trip: Spend half the time in the famous places with the selfiestick legions and the other half making your own discoveries in parts unknown by most visitors.