Off the Beaten Path Travel Destinations in Italy
Montalcino sits high enough that the air thins a little when you park and start walking uphill. People come for Brunello, and they should. I stay longer for the fortress at the top of town, the enoteca in its courtyard, and a glass of Rosso di Montalcino where the wind still moves across the ramparts … Read more
Most people hit Naples at the waterfront or along Spaccanapoli, where the city is already posing. I drift north of Via Foria instead, where the ground drops into a valley that used to sit outside the walls. Rione Sanità does not straighten up for visitors. Scooters pile under laundry lines. Fruit stalls yell over church … Read more
Rapallo does not try to be Portofino. It is bigger, a little louder, and more useful. Trains stop here without much fuss. People buy shoes on Thursday. The gulf opens wide enough that you can stand on the lungomare and see three towns at once without feeling you paid for a postcard. What keeps me … Read more
Melfi does not open with a beach or a cave city. It opens with a dark castle on a hill and an extinct volcano off to the side. Monte Vulture softens the skyline into a long green shoulder. The town sits on its lower slope in northern Basilicata, roughly between Naples and Bari if you … Read more
Amantea splits itself on purpose. Down low: a long Tyrrhenian beach, a straight lungomare, umbrellas and scooters and gelato that collapses before you sit. Up the slope, Amantea Paese keeps the stone lanes, a castle stump, and a slower clock. Between those two speeds is what I actually pack for—dried figs the color of old … Read more
Most people step off the ferry into Amalfi looking up. The Duomo staircase does that to you. I look inland instead. Past the gelato lines and the souvenir limoncello, Via Pietro Capuano turns into Via Lorenzo d’Amalfi, then keeps climbing as Via delle Cartiere. The air cools. You start to hear water. I keep coming … Read more