Italy has always been one of my favourite travel destinations, but sad to say, the experience has been deteriorating as the years have gone by.
On my first visit to Venice half a century ago I walked up to St Mark’s Basilica on a mid-morning in July walked straight in. The only restrictions were on what you wore – no shorts for men and women had to cover their shoulders.
The last time
I was there, just before COVID, the queue stretched around the block. By the
look of those waiting the dress code has been relaxed, perhaps as a concession
for the hours spent in temperatures in the mid-30s Celsius for a crowded glimpse
of the interior.
In Rome I
managed to dodge most of the queuing at St Peter’s by arriving early, but once
inside the experience was decidedly unspiritual, fighting through crowds to see
the artworks and architecture only to have a selfie-stick rammed into my ear.
That’s why I
was delighted to hear of an effort to entice tourists away from the hotspots of
Rome, Florence and Venice and into the hinterlands of Italy where literally
thousands of villages, many established when the Roman Empire was at its
height, await to be discovered.
A hire car, or
even use of train and bus networks, can take you off the beaten tourist track
and into a different world, more relaxing, and with more time to appreciate the
timeless sense of history that pervades this ancient land.
Small hotels
and guest houses, many with their own history that goes back centuries, provide
a genuine welcome to tourists, often just a few hours of easy travel from the
main centres.
I have happy
memories of Sorrento, overlooking the Bay of Naples with views of Mt Vesuvius
and the Isle of Capri — of discovering limoncello, a glass or two taken in a
shady courtyard under trees heavy with the fruit from which it was made, perfect
with a pizza lunch.
On the same
holiday we stopped at Taormina in Sicily, the smoking cone of Etna in the
background. The pleasures of the ancient world come alive in its Greco-Roman amphitheatre
where works by classical tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides were once
performed.
Villages and
small towns account for almost 70 per cent of Italian municipalities, each with
their own story to tell
Places like
Cefalu in Sicily, a UNESCO World Heritage site, Castiglione del Lago in Perugia
with its medieval walls, and Liguria’s Vernazza (pictured), considered one of
the most beautiful villages in Italy due to the colourful façades of its
houses.
If the choices
are somewhat daunting, tourist operator True Italy Experiences
(https://trueitalianexperience.it/en)
which supplied some of the information for this article, is ready and
willing to help.
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