Season 5, Episode 2 | Beyond The Bucket List: Reducing Stress While Increasing Enjoyment
Episode summary
The conversation explores the allure of Italy as a travel destination, highlighting the contrast between the popular tourist spots and the lesser-known, authentic experiences that the majority of visitors miss out on. It emphasizes the importance of exploring beyond the well-trodden paths to discover the true essence of the country.
Episode summary
Italy is often seen as a fantasy destination for adults.
Most tourists only experience a small fraction of Italy.
The true beauty of Italy lies in its hidden gems.
Exploring lesser-known areas can lead to authentic experiences.
Tourism saturation affects the perception of Italy.
Cultural richness exists beyond popular tourist attractions.
Travelers should seek out local experiences.
Italy’s appeal is multifaceted and diverse.
Understanding Italy requires looking beyond the surface.
Authentic travel experiences can be found off the beaten path.
Episode Transcript
0:00
Kicking Off Season 5: Beyond the Bucket List
Hey guys, welcome back.
You’re listening to the Bella Italy podcast.
Hey guys, we are back around again.
0:17
Anthony and Brian.
Brian and Anthony coming at you.
Bella Italy podcast, we are back.
Season 5 is coming at you.
0:27
Speaker 2
Nice, nice, nice we.
0:28
Speaker 1
Finally made it back around.
It’s taken a while.
0:32
Speaker 2
Yes, it has taken a while.
We’re we’re back good.
Now we’re we’re going strong, Brian.
0:37
Speaker 1
I have to say.
0:38
Speaker 2
About the.
0:38
Speaker 1
Season this is this is the most amount of white that I’ve seen in your beard ever and you’re all you’re filling it out.
I mean, you’re not quite to.
Is this on?
0:52
Speaker 2
YouTube.
Is this going to be on YouTube?
0:55
Speaker 1
It’s not quite to Santa Claus level.
Baba Nathalia.
0:58
Speaker 2
Can I explain?
Can I explain what happens?
I mean, people like our report.
So let me see what happens.
We’re moving houses, right?
And in my infinite wisdom, I wanted to get out of front of the game.
So I boxed up all my razors.
I boxed up all my cleaning utensils.
1:13
Obviously my head, I usually shave my head.
Can’t find it.
So now this is what you get.
And I’m actually going in for a nice head shave and a beard trimming on Friday because I go to Italy on Tuesday.
So I want to kind of representing the company, but if you ever saw what I’m wearing, I have a pair of sweatpants from Costco on that holes in it and I have this shirt on.
1:33
So it’s not really a match.
And so I’m living out of a, I’m living out of two drawers in my house and I’m a little stressed.
So I’m looking forward to this call.
Thanks for pointing out how I already feel, Brian.
1:42
Speaker 1
It’s I, I.
1:43
Speaker 2
Already feel insecure.
I really feel you know, and it’s going to be on YouTube.
This is not my normal look.
I’m very handsome actually.
1:50
Speaker 1
So Anthony?
2:09
Speaker 2
Thank.
2:09
Speaker 1
You no, no, we’re, we’re, we’re so happy to be back in the in, in the office, away from the office in the studio here.
If you guys have not seen our what, what did we put it YouTube video a couple of weeks ago.
2:27
We, we did a little preview of this season to talk about it, just to, to talk about, you know, what are we, what are we not going to get into?
What are we going to get into that kind of thing just to kind of prime the, the pump a little bit.
And, you know, so we did the top 10 reasons to not go to Italy.
2:46
And that that was pretty fun.
We had so many.
2:49
Speaker 2
People are doing that, Brian, by the way, I don’t think any podcast is saying, hey, it’s don’t go.
2:53
Speaker 1
It’s so counter intuitive.
Shocking we’re against the stream here.
We don’t do anything by the butt.
3:01
Speaker 2
Brian’s moving out of Italy, he’s moving to Portugal.
3:04
Speaker 1
Tell you, don’t ever go back.
I’ll never go back.
No, but no, we love it.
So we went into the, the podcast episode that is, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of the primer, the first one of the season here.
And we, we did get into a little bit of the, the theory, I guess.
3:22
And, and we talked a little bit about the, the history of travel and how people have travelled over the eons and millennia and which comes down to us.
And it, it comes down to the, the modern inclination for consumerism.
3:41
And this is something that that we’re, we’re, we’re actually kind of fighting against.
And you may think, well, you know, wouldn’t you?
You’ve got Italy with Bella, a for profit business behind the podcast that is geared towards sending people to Italy.
3:58
It kind of preys on on that inclination to consume and, and to have a bucket list and to go after all your, your top, you know, 10 stuff.
And so why are you guys coming at it from the other way?
It, it is a little bit counterintuitive, but I, I tell you, this is the thing.
4:15
This is the Achilles heel of the travel industry is that we become consumers and we don’t enjoy.
And I think that’s where we that’s where we want to take you in this Season 5.
4:28
Speaker 2
And the big thing for me is, Brian, when I talk to a customer on a free consultation or client on a free consultation, it’s not about selling Bella.
It’s about selling Italy the right way and wanting to come back.
A lot of people, you know, they want to go to Italy because next year they’re going to London, the following year they’re going to China.
4:45
My thinking is no, Italy is so much more than the three cities.
We’re going to talk about that or some of the ideas that we’re going to talk about today.
It’s more or less my whole, every conversation is about don’t make it a bucket list conversation.
So I’m excited about this series, to be honest.
4:59
Speaker 1
With you so just to give you a heads up that that is kind of a a core theme in this season.
Last season, season 4, we talked a lot about how to travel well, traveling well in Italy for your benefit, for the benefit of, you know, Italy and, and you know, of course, a, a struggling country like Italy that has its economic problems.
5:25
Of course, when they see an uptick in tourism, they get excited and, and they want to encourage that it, it does have an impact, though, on the local culture.
We’ll be talking about stuff like this because you, why do you have tourist traps?
Because they start catering to tourists, the pallets of tourists, which changes the local traditional food culinary scene.
5:45
It, it starts to prey on the consumer and it becomes this tug of war back and forth between the consumer who comes over as a tourist, not a traveler, and the country that caters to it and becomes full of tourist traps.
6:01
And it, and just, you know, it’s, it’s this facade, it’s shantytown.
It’s just lights and glitter and glam, but nothing real.
And that’s what we’re about.
I I’d say if anything that this podcast wants to do and what Italy with Bella wants to do is show you the real Italy, have an authentic experience.
6:19
Maybe that means off the beaten path.
Maybe that means going to those, let’s say, let’s call them bucket list locations, but doing it in a way that’s not abusive to you as a traveler or to the local economy, the local environment.
6:35
Yeah, if that’s possible.
6:37
Unmasking Italy’s Over-tourism: The 1% Problem
Yeah, it is.
And The thing is, is even you brought, I sent over an article what, 2 weeks ago about Naples.
I mean you and I would talk about Naples during COVID and this is we have bring tourists here.
This is where people have to go.
And now they’re saying, what do they say?
Naples is dead.
I forget, I forget the the actual line.
6:53
And I’m like, wow.
And now we’re already shifting in Naples where we would just shift in Rome, Venice and Florence.
So it’s an interesting, you know, how saturated Italy has become and people still wanting that real experience so.
7:06
Speaker 1
Good.
Well, and, and that the whole point of that article was you go to the Spock Annapoli, you’re, you’re going down that promenade or the, the corridor wall to wall people.
You, you can’t breathe or, you know, really, you know, I’ve been there even in December for, you know, you look at the, the nativity scenes and all that.
7:27
And, and you just, you can, you cannot move.
It’s, it’s so difficult to navigate.
And what they’re, they’re talking about in that article was it’s even hard to find a local Napolitano in that area anymore, because it’s all built up around the mechanism of tour.
7:44
And we’ve, you know, we’ve talked about that Italy is in some sense Disney for adults and, and there’s an appeal there.
But the problem is it’s saturated in about 1% of the country and there’s 99% that people never, never see or never experience.
8:02
Speaker 2
That’s what happens is you talked about the economy and Italians said like, all right, I can’t sell this place, I’m going to Airbnb it.
So now people are not living on that, that street, the tourism, because it’s Airbnb and that’s what Americans are tourists want to be, right?
So it’s like a, it’s like a vicious cycle in that.
8:17
Speaker 1
Sense you’re, you’re going in and out of these apartment buildings, these condominiums now that used to be 100% Italians and you hardly bump into one.
And maybe it’s just the, yeah, it’s the proprietario who comes by to check on things and do some maintenance or something.
8:33
Other than that, you’re you’re shoulder to shoulder with other people from other cultures and, and, and that’s fine, but it’s not a real experience.
They’re all here for the same thing.
And you go get in the same line and the same restaurants, the same tours, the same everything and that’s, that’s that over saturation.
8:51
So guys, this is just a a taste of what we’re getting into on this season of Season 5.
We are going to get into specific itineraries, where to go, what to do, what to see, but we want to talk about how to do it as that is something really near and dear to our hearts.
9:28
Let’s jump in.
All right, in this episode, we’re going to talk about how to get beyond.
And I didn’t want to say just destroy the bucket for the bucket list.
It, it’s so hard.
9:43
I mean, it, it when I go, when you go to a country that we’ve never been to before, maybe just once you’re excited to go back, what do you do?
You look at the top ten stuff.
You look at the TripAdvisor, you look at Google reviews, you look at places where, where does everybody go?
9:58
What’s the appeal?
Why should I go to Rome?
You go to the Coliseum, you go to the forum.
You, why should I go?
You know, you, you want that Instagrammable moment.
So everybody flocks to Pisa, for example, that becomes the the bucket.
And, and we understand that that’s, that’s this necessary urge.
10:18
And, and, and just the way that the mechanism works, you, you wouldn’t want to just go to a famous city and not see what’s famous about it.
People do that all the time going from Italy, coming over to the United States, right?
10:33
I mean, that’s the same mentality.
10:36
Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree.
And it’s even when you know, I’m an expert, you’re an expert at Italy, and I don’t know how to traverse Paris.
I don’t know how to traverse Lisbon, you know, And I’m thinking, like, I went to Paris and I’m like, I saw all the, you know, the Eiffel Tower, the trunk.
10:52
Speaker 1
How could you not go?
How could you not go?
10:55
Speaker 2
But I was on the welm, surprisingly.
I was on the welm.
I think it’s because of my mentality, yeah, of building trips or talking about Italy and avoiding those big points.
I’m looking for local stuff.
And I had a really, really difficult time, you know?
So I understand the mentality of what you’re saying and of the people that are traveling.
11:14
So I put myself in their shoes and I’m like, you know, it is quite kind of difficult to find a real experience in a major city in another country that I’m not an expert at or I’m not familiar with culture, you know, So good point.
11:25
Speaker 1
And, and, you know, Italians do this all the time.
They come to America.
Where do they go?
They go to New York.
What do they see?
Well, it it, you know, it depends on the films that you’ve seen.
You, you sleepless in Seattle, right?
So or something.
I don’t know, but yeah, something.
11:40
No, no, not Seattle, but I’m saying you go to New York and you go up the Empire State Building and you’re hanging out.
You know, there’s just this kind of nostalgia.
Yeah, you watch Elf and you want to go pick gum off of the subway rails.
But, you know, all of that’s normal, all of that’s like embedded in, you know, the, the culture of, of consumerism.
12:02
We’ve consumed film.
We want to go see what’s famous.
We go to those places expecting, you know, to have that or Instagram.
Now Instagram is replacing TikTok is replacing film to some degree.
And it’s creating those that hunger that that urge, that necessity to go and do and see what you saw somebody else do.
12:25
Speaker 2
I have a couple of anecdotal stories, actually one this week.
It was an older gentleman who doesn’t do social, doesn’t post, but he watches TikTok, right?
So he gets on the call with us from Houston, good guy and the family wants to go.
He’s like, all right, now I have a list of these things on TikTok and he gave me the list awful.
12:43
And and he’s like, but that’s what I like about you guys.
You’re truthful.
But he put in his list Venice, Florence, Rome, Amalfi.
And that’s what you’re talking about the Italians.
And I always say to them, let me ask you something.
I when I talk to Brian and his friends or go out to Italy and meet my friends and partners, you want to come?
13:02
Have you been to America?
No, where do you want to go?
And they say, like you just said, New York, LA Las Miami, Miami for the beach, right.
But if you would ask them and go, why not go to Boston where, you know, the vice, you know, where the actual independence and the, you know, the where you know, all came out Philadelphia or even Maine for if you like certain kinds of food.
13:23
And they’re like, yeah, you’re right, because I didn’t think of that.
He goes, we don’t know.
All we know is what we see.
And that’s what customers normally say.
Exactly.
And then battalions are the same way.
They see this the lights of Vegas.
They see movie in Hollywood of Los Angeles.
And of course New York is New York.
13:39
But New York and Rome to them is the same.
Not the same, but you know what I mean?
It’s if you have to go to New York, I even agree.
If you’re going to go to America, you got to go to New York.
I mean, it’s not like you’re going to avoid it.
It’s like going to Italy and not going to Rome and the same thing, you know?
13:51
Speaker 1
Yeah.
And we have, we have this really tiny window that we look through.
It’s like it looking through a keyhole to get a perspective on a very large country talking about America.
And, you know, so we try to offer to to our Italian friends that come over a little bit larger.
14:12
You why not Nashville for music or why not?
You know, we start offering some alternatives.
I never thought about that.
Oh, that’s a great idea.
Oh, wow.
You know, and it opens up some and I think that’s what we’d like to do about Italy is, is kind of open up and maybe maybe that needs to become and we’re just kind of, you know, spitballing here, but maybe that needs to become, Hey, if you like this, you ever see those recommendations?
14:37
If you like this music or if you like these jeans or if you like this, then you may like this over here and we can get into that on, on this this season.
If you like Rome, why not think about and offer some, you know, substitution that is not just wall to wall traffic, depending on the time of year you come over and look, I, I don’t want to dissuade anybody from going to I think everybody needs to go to Rome.
15:05
I love going to Rome.
I, I went through a little bit of a love hate season, but I’m, I’m back where I, I really do enjoy Rome, But you’ve got it is the, the cheese continues to move and you’ve got to know where to go, what to do and when.
15:21
And it becomes the challenge for us.
But we don’t want to destroy the bucket list or, or the bucket itself, but we want to get beyond the bucket list.
And so I, I want to challenge us to go a little bit deeper into Italy that, that little keyhole perspective that a lot of Americans have when they come over to Italy, sees those big names like you just named.
15:46
All right, I want to do Venice because I’ve got to have my picture in the gondola.
I want to do Rome because I want to be in front of the, the Coliseum.
I’ve got my pictures.
Two of those things, I’ve probably never looked at them again after I took the photo, but I’ve got it and and then I think, well, what did it actually do for me or how did it help me?
16:08
Did I even enjoy the moment?
No, it was, it was a little stressful to get there and take that dead gum picture in front of all those people.
This person’s in my way.
16:16
Speaker 2
Did a gondola ride.
I will make sure we tell it on the team call on.
16:21
Speaker 1
Friday I will.
I will confess that I have never taken a gondola ride.
I have taken a picture with a gondola in the background.
16:32
Speaker 2
OK all.
16:33
Speaker 1
Right.
Yeah, when I was young and naive and inexperienced.
16:38
Speaker 2
Hey, I thought I had you.
16:41
Speaker 1
Never done it, never done it.
I may do.
16:43
Speaker 2
It about one of these.
You have one of these at Pisa.
16:46
Speaker 1
Holding up the the Leaning Tower so it doesn’t fall.
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve never, never done that.
We’ll get you.
16:54
Speaker 2
OK.
16:55
Speaker 1
We can find some dirt on you.
This is getting really political, but we, we want to get into and, and so we’re going to do this little micro series here of a couple of episodes talking about things like this because we, we feel like this is really going to help set people up for success to change their thinking before that next trip over.
17:18
Then in in kind of Part 2 of season 5, we’re going to get into a little bit deeper in the itineraries, taking you to some of those suggestions.
If you liked this, you may like that kind of stuff and and get you out into the 99% of Italy that most people never see.
17:41
Escaping the Tourist Swell: Finding Italy’s Hidden Gems
Now, part of the, the top 10 reasons to not go was that fear of missing out, keeping up the Joneses, you know, and we kind of turned the table at the end of that episode or the, the YouTube that we did talking about.
Look, if if you and if you went and took a picture of something that nobody else in your family or friends or your circles have ever seen about you have a special experience that nobody else does.
18:06
If all you’re doing is following in the footsteps of everybody else and their mother who went over to Venice and you got a stupid gondola and you paid an outrageous amount and and you had that photo, now you can say you did what everybody else did.
18:21
How is that in any way enjoyable or, or even special?
And so if we can get you at least considering that that may be an option going to the 99% of Italy that nobody else has seen, then we will have succeeded this season.
18:38
Foreign visitors coming into Italy stick to just 1% of Italy’s territory.
And so when we talk, when we talk about, you just seen 1%, you have not seen Italy yet.
We’re we’re not exact.
It’s not hyperbole.
18:54
It’s not exaggeration.
18:55
Speaker 2
I thought it was, I thought you were making it up.
I’m like really 1% seems really.
18:58
Speaker 1
We’re not making this crap up, yo.
We are on what?
19:01
Speaker 2
Have we seen?
We’ve seen five.
I don’t even know how much we’ve seen them.
I thought we saw a lot.
19:07
Speaker 1
And, and here’s here’s the problem is that to deal with the saturation in that 1% of Italy’s territory, what does Italy do?
They begin to introduce tariffs and fees to help control that, but also to profit from them.
19:28
And so we’ve seen that in various places all over from Venice to Florence to on the Sorentine Peninsula, we’re talking Amalfi and Positano.
We’re we’re seeing those kinds of limitations, daily influx limitations fees.
19:45
We’re seeing, you know, they Positano fills up every day, but, you know, from the hours of 3:50 PM, it fills up more than double the local population.
And, and so you can imagine the ebb and flow there and the, the, the problem that that creates Positano becomes just it, it’s a, it’s a carnival, it’s a, it’s Disney World.
20:11
It’s just, yeah, it’s just smoke and mirrors because it’s really just catering to that swell during the day.
We encourage people if you have to go.
To Positano, stay there overnight and see at least a a shade of something more real.
20:28
When the majority of that tourism, you know, factory, the mechanism goes away.
The last ferry leaves and and it’s a little bit more serene.
It’s a little bit more real.
And you might actually have a conversation with a local that that you know, is leaves an impression and and something to enjoy joy.
20:51
And I think that’s that’s what misses out.
Totally agree.
Yeah.
20:54
Speaker 2
We had a lady telling a friend that she couldn’t even raise her arms up to take a picture to people bumping into her like the she couldn’t she had to have.
That’s how crowded it was in Posty Town over the last couple of weeks.
But Brian, spot on.
Most of the times we do customers, we do them, hey, go in the afternoon, enjoy the late afternoon at night, have a dinner and then come back late late at night, but enjoy that.
21:17
But, but that’s obviously strategy more than the bucket list too.
You’re still getting that bucket list, but there’s a strategy around it.
21:25
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, here’s, here’s the other side of this is again, we’re not destroying the bucket, but we’re trying to reframe it or, or consider it for people that are, you know, you just feel like, OK, but I’ve, I’ve got to get it out of my blood.
21:44
And I, I think we’ve all been there, You know, we’ve all been to the, the famous places, seen the, the Eiffel Tower, whatever you want to say.
And maybe you have to just say that you’ve been there and done that.
That’s fine.
But if everyone wants that same picture to put on Instagram or, you know, do your little TikTok reel and be, be an influencer, influence others to go and do it.
22:09
If everybody’s doing it, you’re going to see just a line, you’re going to see the queue, not the, the view that you were there to appreciate.
And so we, we go to, OK, well, what, what’s behind that?
Then where, what, what is it that you’re really wanting?
22:28
You know, we, we’ve seen, I, I sent you so many articles over the last couple of months of people being inspired in, they’re being influenced on social media to come over and do this.
I I, you know, come and do the Almalfi thing, OK, or the Positano thing.
22:48
They get here and it’s nothing like what they saw in that Instagram post.
You don’t know how long that person who, who has that beautiful Instagram shot waited there so that the crowd wasn’t in their way.
It wasn’t raining, it wasn’t this, it wasn’t that to get that shot.
23:05
They put that like, this is the everyday experience and you know, sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not.
And then you’ve got the crowds and everything else.
And so that may be getting in the way of you actually coming over and enjoying something.
23:22
And for example, instead of going to Florence and doing the two hour line outside of the Duomo, maybe consider going to Luca right down the road and walking along the walls or doing an E bike tour or something like that, eating a Gelato without all the crowds around.
23:42
And you know, again, that’s a hard sell for for people.
But if we can start to push on that, I think it’s going to be helpful to the people that go and also to the economy here seeing that 99%.
23:58
So let’s pause here just to ask this question is what we’re saying.
24:03
Why ‘Seeing It All’ Means Seeing Nothing at All
And, and you deal with clients on on calls every day is what we’re saying, is it, is it even possible to have that conversation with people and at least, if not turn the direction, at least tweak it and modify so that they’re going to have a much more enjoyable trip than just hitting that top ten list that they had?
24:30
Speaker 2
It’s a great question.
So what happens is and if you get a client, we could do, you know, a free consultation and we do a zoom call or whatever.
If we try to do face to face, they do have the major cities and it’s not just TikTok, right?
It’s not just Instagram.
It’s movies, just like an Italian watches an American movie and it’s it’s also their friends and family who might have went eight years ago to Positano.
24:52
Positano was a lot quieter 8 years ago or six years ago.
So you have a triangulation sometimes for someone.
So what happens is, is all right, you’ll have the person that wants a real experience, doesn’t like crowds, but has to see Rome.
So that’s where, you know, you take into consideration our expertise.
25:10
All right, let’s look at neighborhoods.
So you have to really dissect what they really want, even if they’re not going to leave outside of that bucket list, you know, if they’re not going to all right, I’ll take Venice off because listening to you and what I really want on the trip, probably Venice because we really want to, you know, get those experiences in other areas of Tuscany or Amelia Romagna or even up in the lake regions, right?
25:33
All right, you have to pull it out.
Why do you want to go?
And they don’t know.
A lot of times they don’t know.
So it’s about having that back and forth discussion.
What do you want?
Do you like art?
Well, not really.
Do you like to being on the water?
Well, we live on a lake.
We just happens all the time.
We really don’t have to be on the water.
So it’s a back and forth.
25:49
But the biggest thing is to really draw out, you know, why Rome, you know, is it, do you want to know about the Roman Empire and history of Rome and the food?
Obviously we’re not going to pull you out of there, OK?
But we’re going to try to get you in other neighborhoods that you know, you’re telling me you don’t want to do the TikTok video, you just want to see what’s in the TikTok video, but you don’t want to live in the crowds.
26:12
So that’s kind of what you pull out of these conversations is like, we love Rome.
You and I are in Rome 6 * a year.
But guess what?
I’m not going to be sitting near the Trevi Fountain.
You know, that’s the thing that people say, well, Brian, Brian and Anthony love Rome.
Well, Brian and Anthony love Rome, but they’re not sitting where you are, right?
26:28
They’re sitting at Testacio or, you know, you know, some other neighborhood where we’re just chilling, you know, so and then when we want.
So that’s kind of you have to pull that out.
We can give you Rome, but we’re not going to give you the Rome that you see on television.
I guess that’s the best way to put it.
26:43
Speaker 1
And you know, I so here, here’s a strategy.
Let’s be super practical here.
I want to make sure that we get down into some some nitty gritty and not just all fluff.
What, what we’re trying to, you know, pop the balloon or tip over the sacred cow of seeing it all in one trip.
27:02
You know, I, I’ve got to, I want to fly into Venice.
I want to see Florence, go Rome, go South to Amalfi.
How many times have we heard that on one trip, your two nights in each place and you have If you have two nights, that means you have one full day in a place.
27:19
Speaker 2
Yes.
27:20
Speaker 1
That’s a, that’s a minimum requirement, OK, but one full day.
And if you do a tour on that day, which we recommend our, our own tour guides, but if you do 1 tour, you’ve already you, you really have half of a day to just wander around and and experience and enjoy.
27:39
And that is not enough time.
It’s just not.
No, it isn’t.
27:43
Speaker 2
Yeah, and it’s funny you say that because we have an Instagram page, right?
And I’ll go on the Instagram page and it’ll be Rome Travels or some expert.
And there’s the perfect 10 day itinerary.
And it’s like one day Venice, then the Verona for a day, come down to Florence for a day and a half, then go to Luca for the day.
28:00
Enjoy this.
But I’m like, Oh my gosh, at all, they got these.
But these people, I think, you know, they, they plan it according what, what these people are saying because they’re experts supposedly.
And it’s just a Blogger who left it.
If you go to the next page, they’re doing floor and they’re doing Portugal, you know exactly.
28:33
You can do the 10 days, but we’re going to really ask you what you want.
I mean, to be honest with you, we don’t do more than we’d rather see you do 2 cities in 10 days, Max 3 and use it as a base.
But you need to really think about taking one of the.
28:49
If you’re going to do Venice, Florence, Rome and Amalfi in 10 days, either you need to extend your trip in your budget or you need to look at.
All right, What can come off of this list and why?
Because believe me, the best experience is, is when you can in saturate a city for multiple days and understand the city.
29:06
And that’s why cruise like, I’m not bashing cruises, sorry, but I never understood the cruise thing.
When you go to Italy for six hours and you know, you, you park.
And I’m sorry, I’m getting on a tangent here.
You get, you park in Livorno.
You park in Livorno with the boat and it’s an hour and a half to Florence.
29:21
You’re there for four or five hours and then you can get back on a boat to go eat boat food.
When you were just in Florence, you could have dinner in Florence.
So these are the things like it’s no different than me a half a day in Florence getting off a boat or a half a day because your itinerary from You Built is 1/2 a day with a tour, you know, so.
29:38
Speaker 1
Maybe it, maybe it just feels so jet set.
It feels so posh and elite, you know?
Oh yeah, I had lunch in Florence today.
The next day I was here.
The next day I was there.
Like, you have your own private jet.
How much did you enjoy it?
29:54
How much did you actually experience?
And you know, you clicked, you clicked 100 different photos during the day.
Did you actually see it with your own naked eyes and, and drink it in?
Because, you know, here, here’s the deal.
30:09
Seeing it all in one go means you really see nothing at all.
You really see nothing at all.
And your your checklist travel is going to leave you tired, not inspired.
And that’s what we’re trying to get away from the exhaustion that comes after a trip because you ran, ran, ran and you never slowed down to enjoy.
30:33
And so we’re really talking about coming in line with Italy, the real Italy.
I don’t mean Spakanapoli and, and I don’t mean, you know, that that part of Rome where you’re just going cocktail bar after cocktail bar and, and you know, famous this and famous that near the Parthenon.
30:53
We’re, we’re not talking about those areas.
We’re, we’re talking about slowing down and seeing the 99%.
It, it means that you have to slow down, though.
It means that you’re going to have to, you know, edit that list a little bit.
Maybe you do Rome in one other place.
31:09
But while you’re in Rome for the three or four nights and you’re, oh, you’re an enthusiast for Roman history and culture.
Get out of the city.
Go look at and and you know Ostiantika.
31:22
Speaker 2
And.
31:23
Speaker 1
And have have an experience without the crowds.
Actually get to walk through the ruins and not just roped off areas.
You’re looking from 30 yards away.
Immerse yourself and actually enjoy what you’re drinking in with your eyes.
31:39
That’s the point of this conversation is go beyond just the bucket.
Have your bucket list.
That’s fine.
I’ve got to go to Rome one day.
Great.
Come over, slow down, spend time, see what’s around there and not just that little, you know, that little kilometer that everybody else and their mother has to walk when they’re there.
32:02
Speaker 2
Well, the other thing, Brian, is what happens is, and maybe it was the same for me with Paris, is if you’re only there for two days, like I don’t like Rome because you don’t know it.
You don’t understand it.
You don’t know the neighborhood.
You don’t know, you know, you haven’t been to Tivoli, you haven’t been to the seaside, you know, you haven’t been to the smaller neighborhoods.
32:19
So what happens is I’ll get on a call and they’re like, they’ve already got in their mind, they’re planning Rome, Florence, Venice for 10 days since 3:00 cities and I can’t get them past, you know, all of a sudden they’ve, you know, they do or something, maybe a pizza making in Rome and then they do a Vatican and maybe they do something else where they see that, you know, maybe it’s what we call Boghese.
32:37
So what happens there?
You’re at 2 1/2 days and they’re like, Oh my gosh, we’re, we can get out of here.
And I’m thinking to myself, Geez, some of the stuff you want to do and see is still here, you know, don’t leave, you know, and that’s, that’s tough because what I’m hearing out of their mouths is different than what they’re planning sometimes, right?
32:55
I mean, Rome, you know, you can do Rome for 10 days, you know, and still not see anything.
But, you know, we’re not going to do that obviously on a 10 day trip.
But you really need to look at, all right, I didn’t realize I’m going to be in Rome for four days, 4 1/2 days, OK, the rest of my trip, let’s look at Florence for 4 1/2 days.
33:13
And maybe from there we’ll do Tuscany, you know, and that’s my 10 days and that’s it, you know, but, you know, but it’s tough.
It’s tough to, it’s tough to get that train of thought and that FOMO.
And I don’t know when I’m going to be back.
So I have to do it, you know?
So, you know, we try to, we try to, you know, kind of persuade softly if we can into doing that.
33:34
Speaker 1
And I feel like some of the, the wrong mentality that feeds into that is, you know, you mentioned planning and, and we’ve said this before, planning is always perfect.
And it’s, you know, when you’re writing it down on the, on the paper, on the pad and, and you’re imagining where you could go, what you could do.
33:53
But then in the execution, it, a lot of times there’s a disparity, it doesn’t match up.
Part of why that is, is because we, we have a tendency to over plan.
We, we go into this, you know, stage of I, I and I love to plan.
34:12
I’m a planner, I love to plan.
But sometimes we over plan or we plan wrongly.
And so we, we plan too much and we come away with, you know, just the, the fatigue, the stress, the disappointment of what went wrong.
34:29
I mean, we, we do have clients that come over sometimes and they’re, they’re stressed about their plan.
They’ve only got 6 days.
They have imagined this trip for months.
They, they’ve got to pack it all in and they’re stressed the entire time that they’re doing that.
34:49
We, we really dissuade people.
We try to dissuade people.
And sometimes we flat out said no.
But there are occasionally clients that insist and, and you know, we allow it, but then we, we watch as they stumble through that seven days and, and, and we asked how did it go?
35:11
Well, you know, this happened and that happened.
And it’s just a lot of times it’s a, it’s a laundry list of complaints.
We see other people that under planned their trip, had ample time and they just enjoyed everything.
Well, it rained today, but you know what we did instead?
35:26
And they just pivot and they enjoy and they come away.
It was the best trip ever.
And and so sometimes we set ourselves up for disappointment there.
35:36
Speaker 2
Yeah, and that’s the reason, to be honest with you, most of the clients call us for this consultation because they are overwhelmed.
They’re fatigued and stressed, and they’re disappointing what they’re aiming, what they’re planning because everyone’s coming at them in all different angles.
So when you get with us, it’s more or less.
35:51
All right, let’s slow down.
What do you want to do?
Not what TikTok says, not what your friends or your family says.
Let me ask you, do you travel the same as your sister?
No, me and my sister are total opposites.
But why are you listening to them?
You know what I mean?
I always say that, you know, like so they get a little fatigued and they get and that’s the main one of the main reasons they’re overwhelmed, fatigued and they don’t want to disappoint their family more than themselves.
36:11
It’s not about themselves.
They’re worried about because they planned so many things like you plan it, you might a little bit disappointed, but you’re more worried about everyone that’s coming with you.
You know what I mean?
That’s what they’re worried about being that disappointment.
So, you know, so the reason people call, well, this is exactly what we’re talking about is over planning.
Do I pay attention to all these different voices?
36:29
So, you know, that’s what we do different is, you know, we just don’t, you know, we don’t take, you know, a lot of this noise.
We listen to you only.
What do you want out of the trip, you know?
36:39
Speaker 1
Get that to take off you.
And there’s those subtle little modifications like we talked about.
OK, you, you’re, you’re excited about Roman history.
Let’s send you out to Ostiantika for the day and do, do, do a tour out there or you’re in Venice because you had to go see Venice.
36:56
But how do we get you out of not out of the lagoon completely, but out of the main circuit board where everybody’s running back and forth.
You go spend the day in Murano Burano and you’re doing a you’re doing wine tasting and you’re doing a, a glass blowing class and you’re you’re doing the things that, you know, you have to slow down.
37:16
You can’t just go knock it out in an hour.
I mean, this is what’s great about New York is you can go there and you could actually knock out a lot of a check of a checklist in an hour, a couple hours.
And you come back at one day in New York and you can get, you know, three or four or five different things marked off your list.
37:35
You, you really, we’re not going to say you can’t do that in Italy, but you really should not do that in Italy.
Italy is not geared that way.
It’s not the Big Apple.
It’s not a messy circuit board.
It’s slow food, it’s slow life, it’s Dolce Vita.
37:52
But you’re not going to see that in that 1% a whole lot.
You’re going to see that when you take a step out of that messy circuit board, you get off of that beaten path and you you take a look at what’s around there and you slow down.
I tell you what, it’s a completely different experience of of all the people we’ve sent to Venice and they go do that wine tasting or they go do that class, they slow down.
38:16
They actually enjoy Venice.
That’s what they come back and talk about.
They don’t come talk about, I was at the Doge’s Palace.
I, I took a picture in my gondola.
I did that, you know, I did the usual that they come back talking about those experiences when they actually slowed down.
38:32
Pro Tips for an Immersive and Enjoyable Italian Adventure
Yep.
Yeah.
And that you can’t slow down if you’re there for a day and a half.
That’s the problem, you know, and you’ll say to friends when you get back, I saw Venice wasn’t impressed with it, really.
You know, and you say that, but, you know, there is so much more.
People don’t realize Venice has tons of Renaissance, you know, and you know, they think it’s Florence only, but no, they’re and these are the things you could have, you know, we talk about if that’s important to you and I think you.
38:57
Speaker 1
Do that.
You do that.
You base out of Venice, but if you want Renaissance, you go to Parava and then you go to Ravenna.
For the mosaics you go.
You go to these other places where you can, you know, still have that base and still feel like you’re, you know, in the area, but you’re, you’re doing an immersive, slower, immersive experience.
39:20
That is what what we would call a savorable itinerary.
39:26
Speaker 2
I like that word, seasoning.
39:28
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s, it’s like you, you know, you go, you can go to these posh and I’ve, you’ve been and I’ve been to these posh Michelin places and they’ve got a, a 16, you know, dish course.
They have a 16 meal course, right.
And but what are the courses?
39:44
They’re bite size, you know, and this sorbet is to cleanse your palate before this comes out, you know, and so.
39:52
Speaker 2
But I’m starving still, yeah.
39:54
Speaker 1
And you leave hungry, but you, but it you, you slow down enough that you can actually enjoy more.
And so we’re, we’re talking about emphasizing quality over quantity and, and also having that intentional downtime.
40:12
I mean, we, we force.
I don’t maybe force is too strong, but we, we strongly.
We strongly.
40:20
Speaker 2
Encourage and headlocks.
40:22
Speaker 1
We strongly encourage people when you have a boat tour scheduled to have a free day on one side or the other of that, because inevitably what happens in certain times of the year, there’s, you know, temperature changes and the waves come up and the boats can’t go.
40:41
And so we pivot to one of those free days.
Without that free day, it would have been just cancelled.
You would not have had that experience on that trip.
And so having that intentional downtime allows you, and we’ve, we’ve talked about this some in, in season 4, that ability to pivot.
40:57
But what we’re, what we’re saying is in that slower movement through your itinerary, you’re actually able to savor and go.
I like this taste.
Don’t like this taste, Whatever that may be.
You know, because you’re able to really taste it.
41:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it’s that’s a good point about the even the boat and people don’t realize or consider certain things when they built trips or they built book trips.
And over the years that’s the stuff you learn.
You know, like we we talk as a team.
Like, you know, happened to me.
I was in like Garter and you know, and I realized that I had to change the boat the next day because it was pouring, raining and it was rough seas.
41:35
But luckily because of planning, you can able to move that.
And that’s little things that you don’t realize.
But if you’re in a town for five days, you have some flexibility because you have three days.
If you have a day and a half and you have a boat day on that day and a half and guess what?
You miss your boat, you’re probably not getting a refund because the day before what you do in a boat.
41:50
But you know, you know what I mean depending on what it is.
But yeah, I mean, these are other reasons beside just, you know, trying to see everything and saturating but also planning.
Well, we went back to that and last season too, you know.
42:03
Speaker 1
Right.
So just to, to put it, you know, kind of distill this, this little crunchy bit here that we’re talking about three bases up to up to Max 3 bases in two weeks, going deeper, doing deeper dives, immersive experiences in those places.
42:22
So if you can, if you can create a trip like that, two weeks maximum of three different places, you’re going to spend longer there.
It’s going to be a slower ride, but you’re going to enjoy it.
And, and that’s, that’s what’s so memorable.
I, you know, some of the best memories of, of, you know, my life, my mom’s past now, but when, when I was young, she always took me to, to Florida to go to Disney.
42:48
And I remember the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
This is, you know, we’re talking 40 years ago, but it was I, I remember going back with my children and it was so slow.
43:05
Speaker 2
Mind blowing when you were a kid though.
43:07
Speaker 1
But mind blowing when, when you’re a kid, because you’re drinking it all in and on that little boat ride, you’re noticing all of the, the, the detail and you’re actually in the moment and you’re experiencing something.
43:22
And you weren’t really taking a lot of pictures because the flash photography sucks in those really dark, you know, dimly lit places and everything.
So you’re just immersed, your eyes are wide open and you’re drinking it all in and it’s so slow so that you can actually enjoy.
43:40
So here’s here’s the pro tip.
All right.
And we’re, we’re going to wrap up here.
Here’s the pro tip.
Take that bucket list, whatever it is, cut it at least in half, and maybe cut it in half again.
OK, wow.
43:54
Speaker 2
Twice.
43:55
Speaker 1
Add space for spontaneity and, and think about getting out of that messy circuit board the the trafficked areas and, and hone in on what it is that you really hope to get.
44:10
If you’re, if you’re going there for an immersive experience in the lagoon of Venice, get out of that the the central zone and get off into some of the little surrounding islands.
Do some fun things, some inspiring things.
44:29
If you’re in Rome, go to, you know, Ostiantica it for that Roman Forum feel, but you’re actually walking in the houses where people live 2000 years ago.
You can’t do that in the historic city center of Rome.
You know, these are just two analogies what you could do to have a more immersive experience, but it starts with cutting that list in half.
44:52
Speaker 2
Yeah, I like the idea too.
You were mentioning about the number of days.
I would say just use the four, four, the number 4 as your division.
So if you’re there 12 days, three cities, if you’re there 15, you can probably do 4 cities, right.
So just think about that and use those as bases.
45:07
I think using the divisible by 4 I think is the way to go.
And when you look at a trip and I think you’re going to enjoy it more, especially Florence and Rome as bases.
And even Venice, like Brian just said, you can go to Padua, you go to Vicenza, you can go to Trieste is a lot that you can do.
45:23
That’s just a train ride, right.
So these are the things that you’ll that most Americans ain’t going to Padua, you know, they’re not going to Vicenza, you know Trieste.
So I think it’s AI think it’s a great way to apply when you build a trip.
If you don’t, you know, ask us we, you know, take that rule of thumb.
45:38
That’s what I would.
45:39
Speaker 1
Do yeah, if you’re if you’re not, I’ll throw.
This is a bonus.
Yeah, this is the bonus round here.
If if you’re in Venice as your base, which which I do prefer over let’s say Padava for a a base.
Why?
Because going into Venice as a day trip tourist is a lot of wear and tear.
46:01
At least that’s how that’s how I think about it.
I agree.
And they’re, they’re starting to tax that, they’re starting to make quotas on how many can come in, etcetera.
Having that as your base for three or four days allows you to take one of those full days and do an excursion, a day trip outside, go to Padava, go to Verona, go to Ravenna, something else for that change of pace before you completely leave that region.
46:28
And that’s going to give you that ability to feel more grounded, less wear and tear.
And it’s going to like like a roam for a base.
There’s so much to go and see around Rome that nobody ever goes and does.
46:44
And and it’s such a shame.
And again, we’re talking about that 99% that’s waiting for you to see.
But because you’ve crammed everything, including the kitchen sink into your itinerary, you don’t have time to see and you can’t enjoy what you are seeing.
47:01
And I think, I think that’s what we’d like people to get away.
47:04
Speaker 2
Great tagline.
Yeah.
You can’t enjoy what?
Yeah, exactly.
You’ve seen it, but you’re not enjoying it like you should.
That’s a perfect way to say it.
Yeah.
All right.
Good.
47:11
Speaker 1
Man, all right, well, thanks for joining us on this journey that we’re on Season 5 through Italies hidden corners, deeper travel.
Hey, look, if if this series is inspiring you to look past your bucket list and discover the other 99% of Italy, we’d love to hear from you, share your thoughts, your stories, questions, your your favorite hidden Italy spots.
47:39
And you know, tag us on social, hit us on the website, send us an e-mail with your questions podcast at Italy with bella.com.
Don’t forget to follow and subscribe.
Leave us a review, a thumbs up, a five star something.
47:54
It will help us bring more authentic Italy stories to you and to other people who maybe are are trapped in in TikTok land and Instagram land.
Otherwise they would never be able to travel slower, taste deeper and let Italy really surprise you.
48:14
That’s what we’re after.
48:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, we’d love to hear from you, especially podcasting with Bella.
We need the feedback.
We want to hear the feedback.
We are two guys, you know, we, we’re building this from, you know, just our conversations.
It’s too schmucks.
But yeah.
And we’re here for you, Italy with Bella.
We have free consultations.
48:31
That’s it.
To me, 90% of the time I’m on that Zoom call, you know, and it’s free.
And we just, we will give you input.
You don’t have to go with Bella at all.
It’s just the point of we want to help you have the best experience and, you know, dig a little deeper into what we’re talking about today too.
48:46
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s it.
All right.
Thank you for your time today and we will.
We will see you soon.
48:53
Speaker 2
Coming up over Clean shaven next time too.
48:57
Speaker 1
We’ll see.
We will see.
49:00
Speaker 2
All right, my friend.
49:01
Speaker 1
Shout out for now.
