Guest Post: Off-the-Tourist Track Italy

Today’s guest post comes from Jessica Spiegel, a Portland-based travel writer who writes the WhyGo Italy travel guide for the BootsnAll Travel Network, the RTW travel resource. She’s as likely to gush over Naples or Milan as she is over Venice, and she fawns over gelato as often as cheap flights. It really doesn’t take much to make her happy. You’ll find her on Twitter @italylogue.

Off-the-Tourist-Track Italy: Right Under Your Nose

There are, despite all logic, probably still places on the planet that are genuinely “undiscovered” — but the number of those places is shrinking rapidly. What intrepid travelers should really be looking for, then, are destinations that are more accurately described as under-appreciated. These are the kinds of cities or towns or attractions where the benefits to going are many, but — for whatever reason — most tourists just don’t bother with.

You may not believe me when I say that such under-appreciated places exist even in a country as heavily touristed as Italy, but it’s true.

I would love to see a heat map of where travelers go when they visit Italy (and hey, if you know of such a thing, please let me know). I would bet money on the lines between Venice, Florence, and Rome being red-hot, with only-slightly-less-red lines on the paths leading to Lake Como, the Cinque Terre, Siena, and the Amalfi Coast. Beyond that, while you may not find many spots that would be ice-cold blue, you’d find far less red that you might expect.

The best way to find under-appreciated Italy is to rent a car and get away from the bigger cities and even mid-size towns that have train stations. Unfortunately, that means plenty of budget travelers and anyone under the age of 25 (for whom there is an expensive additional charge for rental cars) will be priced out of that option.

Here, then, are 5 places in Italy that are easy to reach via public transportation but remain under-appreciated. Will you be the only foreigners in town? No — but you’ll find far fewer tourists in these cities than in Venice, Florence, and Rome. In some cases, you’ll find bigger bargains, too.

Milan

Photo: Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II by Bernt Rostad, on Flickr

Milan is one of those cities that people often have a day in, because that’s the airport they’re flying in/out of, but they don’t tend to give it any more time than 12 hours or so. The city’s biggest tourist draw is Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” followed closely by the ornately-decorated Duomo, but Milan isn’t overflowing with tourist attractions most people have heard of. There are lots of museums and galleries if you want a little culture, it’s perfectly positioned for day trips to the nearby lakes and the even-more-under-appreciated city of Turin, and the city center is compact and easy to explore on foot and by public transportation. It’s not a cheap city to visit overall, so be sure to take advantage of Milan’s “aperitivo” culture where bars all over the city lay out incredible food spreads that you can enjoy just for buying your drinks. An “aperitivo-crawl” is way more elegant than a pub crawl, and still incredibly fun.

>> Read about the top 10 things to do in Milan.

Bologna

Photo: Piazza Maggiore by Alessandro Capotondi, on Flickr

Bologna is on Italy’s high-speed rail line, which means you can now get from Milan to Bologna in just over an hour (2nd class tickets can be $51 or lower one-way if you book in advance) and from Bologna to Florence in about 40 minutes (2nd class tickets on this route can be $30 or less one-way). It’s the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region, which even many Italians will say is the country’s most food-centric region, and Bologna’s nickname of “the fat city” is partly due to its rich cuisine (also partly due to its wealth). The area around Bologna gave things like prosciutto, parmigiano-reggiano, and balsamic vinegar — not to mention Ferrari and Lamborghini — to the world, and it’s home to one of the oldest universities in Europe. The city has a very international and youthful feel because of the student population, but you still won’t find vendors selling crap in every square or even loads of people who speak English.

>> Read about touring a balsamic vinegar factory.

Pisa

Photo: Pisa by jjcb, on Flickr

Putting Pisa on a list of “under-appreciated Italian cities” might seem like lunacy, but hear me out. Pisa is one of those places where the city isn’t the draw — one tiny part of the city is. There’s a constant stream of people threading their way from the train station to the Leaning Tower and back again (often in a couple of hours), and a whole big city beyond the tower that most people never see. Stay the night in Pisa — stay a few days, even — and you’ll get to experience another international and youthful city (thanks, again, to a major Italian university) in the heart of Tuscany. It’s very much on the tourist trail and supremely easy to reach, and yet if you get away from the square surrounding the Leaning Tower, you may never realize Pisa is home to one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country.

>> Read about things to do in Pisa besides the Leaning Tower.

Naples

Photo: Bella Napoli 49 by JJKDC, on Flickr

The vast majority of the tourists in Italy don’t go south of Rome, and that’s where most of the good travel deals are. Naples is an Italian bargain if ever there was one. It’s on the high-speed train line, a little over an hour from Rome, and day trips to the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii are easy from here. It’s also an unbelievably enormous city that can be overwhelming, so I recommend sticking to the historic center and taking it slowly. You’ll be able to afford to stay longer in Naples — enjoying the history, the bay views, and the pizza — than you would in many other Italian cities. Naples has a PR problem, there’s no denying it, and you do need to make sure you’re listening to people who give you safety tips, but that shouldn’t discourage you from going. It’s a fascinating city that most people avoid out of fear — which just means it’s less overrun for travelers like you.

>> Read about things you should know about Naples.

Palermo

Photo: Palermo by Mishkabear, on Flickr

Much of southern Italy is really best explored with a car, and that includes the island of Sicily — but if you want a taste of Sicily without needing to have your own wheels, then get yourself to Palermo and hang out for a little while. You can take a train all the way down the coast and across the Straits of Messina, but it’s probably more interesting to take a ferry straight to Palermo from Naples, Genoa, Livorno, or Civitavecchia (Rome’s cruise port). Find a place to stay in the historic center and walk everywhere, taking in the museums, galleries, churches, and stopping frequently for cannoli. The fact that Sicily was traded from Greek to Norman to Arab hands gives Palermo and the rest of the island a unique look. And if you’re there when the sun is shining, take some day trips to the nearby islands to enjoy the weather in a truly Sicilian style.

>> Read about how to get to Sicily from Italy’s mainland.

There are plenty more cities in Italy that are under-appreciated and still easy to reach, either by train or bus. There may not be a Colosseum or Michelangelo statue or Venetian canal there, but getting away from the tourist crowds in Italy gives you a chance to slow down, embrace the Italian pace of life a bit more, and enjoy whatever a town has to offer.

Have you visited any of these under-appreciated Italian cities, or any others not listed? How did you think they compared to the popular Italy tourist stops?

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