My first trip to Italy was a visit to Pisa on a school trip at the age of 16. My wife's first Italian experience was also as a teenager, on a family holiday in Rimini. Neither were especially salubrious experiences. But when we first travelled to Italy together to celebrate a milestone wedding anniversary, staying in Venice, taking the train to Florence and then touring Umbria, we were captivated.
Since then we've visited this wonderful country many times, usually staying in places of character and tradition and looking for small, more authentic places to eat. Occasionally I've made a solus 'me and my camera' trip. Slow Food's publication 'Osterie e Locande d'Italia' has been a pretty reliable compass on many of our trips, pointing us to some places we wouldn't otherwise have found and helping to guide us through some of the menus. Like any guide, it's not foolproof, and there has been the odd disappointment. But on the whole our travels to this wonderful country have been richly rewarded with beautiful landscapes and architecture, graceful people, warm hospitality and delicious food. I can't think of anything more a traveller could want.
If you stumble across our blog, I hope you find these little anecdotes of our travels helpful. I haven't gone into detail such as how many bedrooms a place has or how far from the town such and such a restaurant is – you can get that from other sites and publications. This is more about our experience of the places. (Please note that the posting date isn't the date we were there, but the day I've posted the write-up: our trips have been over the past couple of years, and I'm working through my notes!) Most of all, I hope you enjoy Italy as much as we do.
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