Exploring the Real Italy

by Brian Alex | July 15, 2022

“Travel more.

Your money will return, but your time won’t.”

—Anonymous

Italy is one of those places that no matter how many times you visit a particular place on the map, you’ll see it a little bit differently, you’ll discover something new, and you’ll enjoy something that you didn’t even know it was there the first time around.

And when we talk about visiting the real Italy, we mean the Italy that’s more for explorers and experts than for your average tourist. We’re talking about the real Italy where Italians actually live, eat, drink and sleep. Where they work and go to school.

This is not the Italy that the 40 person tour bus takes you, guided by some yahoo with a neon pink umbrella. There are no pastas in a display case here, no fixed tourist menus or fake gelato teaming with pasty additives, colorants and preservatives.

But there’s a catch to this whole “real” thing; it’s not as easy to find as you might think. 

Much of the north and mid-country is quite adept at catering to the needs of tourists. That means that the uninitiated inevitably do touristy things, stay in their lanes, and never deviate from the clever traps set to take a bite out of pocketbooks!

The real Italy takes time to find; a lot of experience gets invested here. You need a knowledge of the culture to distinguish fake from fantasy. Wait, what? You don’t have a whole lifetime to spend getting to know the real Italy in the school of hard knocks?

Let our combined 90+ years of experience help guide you past the fanfare and into the fantastic — The Real Italy.