How to visit Italy

Ajit requests such a post, and I note that plenty of people have plenty of experience with this topic.  So I’ll offer a few observations at the margin:

1. Venice, Florence, and Rome have, on average, the worst food in Italy.  They have some wonderful places, but possibly hard to get into, requiring advance planning, and often expensive.  For random meals, those cities are not impressive, noting that Rome, due to its size, is much better than Venice or Florence.

2. My favorite “single sights” in Italy, moving beyond the core sights of Rome, Venice and Florence, are the Giotto chapel in Padua, the Basilica in Ravenna, and the Cathedral in Monreale in Sicily (near Palermo).  To this day, they remain underrated sights.  As for the major cities, both Genoa and Torino are underrated.

3. My favorite food in Italy would be in Sicily, Naples, and the lower-tier towns of the North, such as Bologna and Parma.  The area near Torino/Piedmont would be another contender.  I have heard Veneto is wonderful for food, though have only had a single meal there, which was indeed outstanding.  In Sicily, don’t order the usual Italian dishes (which are available and excellent), rather look for regional offerings which reflect the area’s Arabic heritage.  Orange slice and mint — bring it on!

4. Usually there is little gain from pursuing Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy.  You want the “two-forker” places with outstanding regional cuisine.  Originality, which is rewarded by the Michelin system, too often is a negative in Italian food.

5. Italy has a large number of third-tier towns which are wonderful for walking through.  But you don’t need to overnight in them, so there is much to be said for randomly driving around Italy, but avoiding the larger cities.  Stop, walk for a few hours, take a meal, and then move on.

6. There is a great deal of available trip prep material for Italy in the form of movies, fiction, and history.  Most of all, however, you should focus on using picture books to have an advance sense of the art and architecture.  The classic book on Italy, Luigi Barzini’s The Italians, is still worth reading.  And often the postwar fiction, or even Manzoni, are better trip prep than the very famous classics such as Dante and Petrarch (though you should read them anyway, but for other reasons).

What else?

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