The dream of Italy, as it shapes out in the minds of many inhabitants of Lahore, is usually imagined in a particularly precise palette: the Pilgrim Statute in the Roman Colosseum, the moon-lit glide of the gondola through Venetian canals, the renaissance artworks in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. These are the kingpins of tourism, the sights which decorate postal cards and make us have wanderlust. And though these destinations are certainly, spectacular to view, when you go in season, you essentially take part in sharing your dream with a huge oppressive human tsunami. It is to experience Italy through queue, because you can see its beauty through a selfie stick forest. But there is another Italy, the one which is just somewhere beyond the tourist shine. It is an Italy of Peaceful cobbled streets, of sun-bleached fishing towns where time follows a longer rhythm, of haunting mountain sceneries and reassured hill towns. To the person who does not want to miss a small step along the bustling beaten path, this is where the real close nature of the country comes out. It is a trip to search that Italian alternative, a place that will reward you as the long distance traveller to Pakistan with a sense of genuineness, calm and memories, that will be distinctively yours.
We start not in the thronged bosom of Italy, we descend into the clean, bracing breezes of the extreme north, where the vine-clad vallies of inferior Italy are exchanged here and there by the sublime and rugged crags of the Dolomites. One of the UNESCO World Heritage sites is a part of the Southern Limestone Alps that provides another picture of Italy that is shockingly different. In this case, the culture is quite an interesting mix of the Italian and Austrian Culture with the likelihood that you would hear so much German that you actually hear more of it than Italian and the beautiful wooden chalets adorned with their flowery balconies appear more Alpine than Greek. and you will avoid not only the crowds on the Lake of Como, but you will pitch your base headquarters where the scenery is less striking, and at the same time more restful, perhaps in a place like Ortisei in the Val Gardena, or in a village in the quiet Val di Funes It is both an active traveller and a photographer paradise. On hiking paths through flower strewn meadows on the mountains with their pale rocky snow crowned spires above you as you spend your days on world-class hiking trails. The well-known hike to the bottom of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo or the soft Alpe di Siusi meadow will reward the viewers with the scenery of the overwhelming beauty which seems to be unreal. It serves hefty and tasty food, clearly of two worlds, with meals such as canederli (bread dumplings) and apple strudel accompanied by perfect pasta. In order to visit the Dolomites, one can travel by train into one of the big cities such as Milan or Venice and then taking a local bus that climbs through the valleys of these magical mountains.
And, abandoning the dramatic alpine scenery, we cross into the very heart of the country, to a region already, too often and unduly, shadowed by its more well-known neighbours, Tuscany and Ungaria. Welcome to Umbria, Italy, or the Green Heart of Italy. It gives you all that people adore about Tuscany medieval hill towns, lush green landscape, superb food, wine, except with a tiny part of the number of people, and a much more rustic, non pretentious appeal. Establish your headquarters in Perugia, the regional capital, an historic and lively university city with ancient Etruscan ramparts, a sensational medieval centre and a rather famous tradition of chocolate making. In Perugia the actual magic of Umbria lies in its smaller towns. Neighboring Spello, a very pretty village with flowers everywhere, is only a short train ride away and at this time of year the Infiorata festival has everything in blossom and on display in the lanes and in the balconies. Orvieto is another one that cannot be missed, the most dramatically positioned town of Italy, sitting on top of a huge plug of volcanic rock. It has a masterpiece cathedral created in an Gothic architecture having a mesmerizing mosaic facade that will have you breathless. Opposite the cathedral you may visit the maze like interlinking network of underground caves and tunnels that have been excavated through the centuries. Umbria is where you can slow down, rent a car and get lost on back country roads, indulge in long lunches of local truffles and cured meats and tap into the primordial, ancient beat of Italian life past all the tourist crowd.
We move south of the mildly elevated green hills of Umbria; we are moving down the peninsula, towards the hills of Puglia, baked-silver-green in the wealthy sun of the “heel of Italy”. It is a territory of age-old olive trees, lime-washed fishing villages and a distinct architectural past. The most renowned Puglian symbol is the trullo which is a typical dry-stone hut with a conical roof. There is a UNESCO World Heritage site called town of Alberobello, a kind of a fairytale place where there are more than 1,500 of such delightful buildings. Its streets are such that when you are in it you are in another world. However, the magic of Puglia goes much further. Head to the sea to check out Polignano a Mare, a town that literally heaves out of white cliffs of limestone with its white houses teetering on the edge of sea caves dwarfed by the blue-green Adriatic Sea. To experience a dose of how beauty can be sophisticated, visit Lecce, also dubbed as the Florence of the South. In this case the architecture is an ornate gold-lit variety of Baroque which is local to the area, where every church front and every palace balcony is studded with extravagant, operatic carvings. Puglian food is simple, fresh, and tasty as it is based on the excellent food that Puglia has to offer. Remarkable for its focus on vegetables, legumes and unbelievably fresh fish, it is also known as cucina povera (peasant cooking) and is therefore a fantastic destination to visit in case you want to avoid travelers seeking lighter or non-pork foods.
We are finally travelling over water, to an island which is not only a district of Italy, but a country in itself, a part of Europe, more than a part of Europe, a meeting-point of civilisation, a cultural conflux that has been the sport of barbaric invasion and civilising influence since the time immemorial. this is Sicily. The mixture of Greeks Romans, Arabs and Normans is left with a complex and intoxicating quilt of art, architecture and food. Taormina is a place where most of the tourists are concentrated, but it is so much more attractive and even truer to impress if tourists moved on to other places. Take the old city of Syracuse, and its historic centre, the island of Ortigia. It is one of the most enchanted locations one can ever find in Italy. You may have walked among a teeming daily food market and suddenly round a corner comes the Piazza del Duomo a wonderful open square where the cathedral of the city rests upon the huge pillars of a Greek Temple of Athena of 2,500 years ago. Spend your evenings in the seaside promenade and admire the sunset in the Ionian Sea. Sample the best of Sicily: the crazy beauty that exists in a peaceful fishing village without the hoards of tourists in a big city that can be found in the pretty port of Cefal on the north east coast. Its ancient town is a charming confusion of medieval alleys that tumble onto a lovely long beach of sand, all under the shadow of a fantastic Norman cathedral that crouches on the foot of a huge rock. Sicilian cuisine is an eye-opener as most of the dishes have stronger and more colourful flavours both in fresh swordfish and tuna and the sweet pleasure of cannoli and cassata.
The only way to pave these roads less travelled is by renting a car, which will be your best option especially the curvy country roads of Umbria, the coastal road travels of Puglia and the expansive regions in Sicily. This allows you to do what you want, go to your own secret villages and secret beaches. The train system is however an outstanding and efficient means of transport in Italy to travel between the major cities which are gateways to such places. The pilgrimage to Lahore is far and that is a huge expenditure of time and resources. You can do yourself a favor to ensure that the experience is as rich and personal as you can possibly make it. By heading off the tourist main highways you are not missing Italy; you are discovering more of it. You are discovering the Italy of gossiping old ladies in a sunny piazza, fishermen who are mending their nets by the water, the owners of vineyards who seek to invite you to taste their family wine. What you are discovering is an Italy that is not only a backdrop against which you would take photographs, but there is a place where people live, breathe and welcome you. This is Italy as you will fall in love with and one that you will not forget when you go home.
This visit to some of the lesser known areas of Italy just setting the tip of the iceberg to the amount of treasures ahead of the adventurous tourist. After getting used to the idea of avoiding crowds, you start to take a new look at the whole picture of Italy that is no longer seen as a set of touristic sites to visit, but more as a mosaic to be explored in its authenticity. We will move one step further and explore yet another caliber of areas that will provide us with the incredible and special connection to the diverse soul of the country and thus be able to maneuver through them with eloquence and comfort.
Take, to-day, the celebrated Ligurian coast. The memories instantly give rise to the picture of the five villages Cinque Terre hanging precariously on the cliffs and stunningly gorgeous yet so overtaken by tourism that the alleys become as packed as the Anarkali Bazaar is on a Sunday. One little way down the coast, however, you find the Golfo dei Poeti, the Gulf of Poets. The beauty of this magnificent bay is the reason as to why it was named thus since the English Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were inspired by the dramatic beauty in this bay. Here you can discover towns such as Portovenere and Lerici, that seem identical to their more famous neighbours in being an undeniably spectacular mix of pastel-coloured houses tumbling to a glittering sea, in delicious seafood and out of this world coastal views and, however, with a feeling of tangible, lived-in Italian life. The sweet little town of Portovenere, its Gothic church Seated opon a rocky promontory, and its dark and herrmetric,al laneways and alleys, will remind you that you are not in the Cinque Terre yet,–not in the Pressing crowds. Lerici, whose harbour is dignified and picturesque, and the castle very grand, is a more noticeably coastlike town. It is a coastal strip that gives a rewarding traveling experience to a traveler who wishes to get a feeling of discovery and a taste of literary romance.
Abandoning the coast, we turn inland to an area which can be considered to be the gastronomical hub of Italy yet is generally recognized by the average tourist as a stop-gap between Florence and Venice. This is Emilia-Romagna, a place of professional creativity and food obsessive purity. The city of Bologna is a stunning place and should be considered a main sightseeing place on its own. Bologna is best referred to by its three nicknames, La Dotta (The Learned) due to the fact that it is home to the oldest university in the Western world, La Grassa (The Fat), as its cuisine is rich and indulgent and La Rossa (The Red), attributable to the warm colour of the terracotta rooftops of the city. its almost forty kilometres of elegant closed porticoes enable you to stroll quite far, without worrying about whether it rains or not. The place of culinary giants is here: the original tagliatelle al rag g T (the ancestor of the American Bolognese sauce),mortadella, andprosciutto di Parma, andParmigiano-Reggiano` cheese. Eating in Bologna is to eat the most soulful of Italian food. It is also located in the immediate vicinity of the beautiful city of Ravenna, once the capital of Western Roman Empire, with a collection of mosaics of early Christian art which is merely breathtaking in its beauty and survival. Or go to Ferrara, a Renaissance city as finely preserved as in an arrow case whose defensive walls still stand and given their intactness are wide enough that it is possible to hire a bicycle and ride around the entire nine kilometres of them.
To the traveler having the real pang of desire to run away, to new and eternal Italy, which seems a different world to a modern age, the way has to run to Abruzzo. It lies to the east of Rome, it is one of the least populated and the roughest regions of Italy; it is a land of high mountains, huge national parks and the medieval villages on the hilltops, which seemingly exist in a time warp. It is an area where still wolves and bears spread the wild and where shepherding life is maintained as it has been through the centuries. A car rental is required here and you can spend time visiting fairytale villages such as Santo Stefano di Sessanio, a well-fortified medieval hamlet perfectly preserved as a boutique hotel in its own right, an albergo diffuso (diffuse hotel), or Scanno, the loveliest of villages in a heart-shaped lake. Travelling through Abruzzo is literally a trip back in time, a visit to the un-tamed and unique beauty of the Italian scenery and a pastoral lifestyle, which is hardly existent in the rest of the country anymore.
To get the simple workings of these countryside and natural areas you have to explore about one of the most marvelous accommodating ideas in Italy and that is the agriturismo. Agriturismo A working farm, possibly a vineyard, an olive grove or a dairy farm, which lets out rooms or apartments to holiday makers. It is much more than a mere overnight stay bed and breakfast facility; it is an excursion deep into Italian rural culture and landscape as well as food. The family, which has been working on the land generations, will frequently be hosting you. It is a very personal and real experience. Almost the best part of an agriturismo experience is the food. Most will do home-cooked dinners, and those dinners commonly come to a common table, and the pasta you are eating, and the olive oil and the wine and the cheese and the vegetables were all made a few steps away in a place you can see, where you are sitting. It is the farm-to-table at its finest and most delicious. The value that is gained by staying in an agriturismo is also astonishing, but it is also a rewarding experience to get to know the land and the people who work it and there is a special connection with the land that is very fulfilling.
When you travel to these smaller areas of town and villages in Italy some simple Italian phrases are not only useful they are essential in breaking down some of the difference that exists between a tourist and a guest invited in. Whereas, in Milan, a little bit of English language is enough, in a small town in Puglia, making some attempts to learn the local dialect will be viewed as a show of respect which you will pay back in smiles and friendliness. Learn the standard forms of greeting, but also such terms as Posso avere... (“Can I have…”), which is priceless in shops and cafes, Dov'è il bagno? (“Where is the bathroom?), and, above all, E delizioso! (“It tastes good!”), a compliment that will do you no harm in any restaurant or kitchen. The next secret to open up the local culture is to watch the posters on invitation to a sagra. A sagra is a local food festival, usually in celebration of one particular item of the season, it might be a festival of porcini mushrooms, new wine, chestnuts or a particular type of local pasta. The hub of local life is these events where people are served mountains of fantastic, cheap food, local music, and a happy environment where one can eat, drink, and enjoy with local families.
This is the slow-paced, steady-paced, adventure-seeking travel you are welcome to follow the Italian motto of la dolce far niente, or the sweetness of not doing anything. Whether you are on vacation or staying during the weekend, unstructured time is something you learn in Italy, where they tend to measure your trip by the number of sights that have been ticked on a list rather than being enjoyed. it is the pleasure to discover a little piazza, to take a coffee and to settle there an hour, observing the world passing by. It is the enjoyment of the evening passeggiata, a slow walk around the main street of town to which the whole community appears to be out to have a good time. It is about letting yourself lose. Going around in a large city is frustrating when one is lost. It is pure bliss sitting down in one of the medieval Umbrian hill towns and enjoying it. Turn off your phone GPS, take a curiously kind cobblestone alleyway and see where it goes. Trying to meet the location with one of these trips and making your own route plan is when you will discover the secret courtyard, or a cute little artisan store, or somewhere a random view where your best memory will form.
The tourist who travels such a long and important distance Lahore to Italy yearns not to visit monuments, but to sense the spirit of a place. When you decide to go into these less-travelled paths, you will start choosing a deeper, more meaningful experience. You make a decision to behave, not as an unthinking consumer of the most-known Italian goods, but as an active participant of the everyday life of the country. True Italy is indeed not one single destination but it is an awesome mosaic of different regions, which each of them has its own history, dialect, cuisine and character. The best part of this journey is that you find the little piece of that mosaic which is just perfect and addresses your own soul and makes your own story as valuable as the world full of the postcards.
