Off the Tourist Trail: Leaving Venice in search of culture and authenticity
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Episode summary
In this episode, Brian and Anthony discuss the intricacies of traveling in Italy, emphasizing the importance of understanding personal motivations for travel, the cultural nuances of different regions, and the significance of planning an itinerary that reflects individual interests.
They explore various Italian destinations, highlighting the unique experiences each offers, from the bustling streets of Venice to the rich culinary scene in Bologna. The conversation also touches on the importance of walkability in towns and how to create a diverse travel experience that allows for deeper cultural immersion.
Episode Transcript
Brian Alex (00:02)
Hey everybody, we are back around again. Anthony and Brian, Brian and Anthony coming at you and it’s good to see your shiny face. How you doing there, my friend?
Ac (00:12)
Is it because I’m bald? Is it the reason? Is it shiny? It’s my spiritual glow, brother. It’s my spiritual glow. Yo, is so exciting to see you. You’re gonna be here next week. Excited to see you for the Bella Open House. Yes, I don’t know how…
Brian Alex (00:14)
It’s the light shining down in your tiny cubicle. High pro glow.
yeah, you will see my shiny face and presence in prima persona,
as we say.
Ac (00:35)
Yes, and I don’t know
how jet-lagged you’re going to be for it, but we’re looking forward to it. Seeing you and a couple other of our friends from Italy coming out to Nashville for our customer event. So excited to see you, brother.
Brian Alex (00:45)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I’m excited to actually be with the rest of the team and yeah, some of our partners from Italy, some of our other teammates and colleagues. Behind the scenes here at Bella Italy podcast, have Italy with Bella as a company and this is where we get all our good material that people keep coming back to the table for.
Ac (01:00)
Yep.
Yes, yes.
Brian Alex (01:13)
Yeah, and offer this this free resource, but it comes out of our work with the joy of taking people to Italy. So, yeah, excited to see you rub shoulders with some of those folks and hopefully eat some good food, even if I’m in Nashville.
Ac (01:13)
Yeah.
Hmm.
That’s true. Well, we’re going to have our partners from Italy coming in, so it’ll be exciting to have them cook for our customers and us. So I thought you were just washing dishes. I didn’t know you were doing that. I didn’t know what you were doing. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Some steaks and Mexican food, yeah. Well, it’s funny. I’m going to digress a little bit. We’re having a conversation with Marissa, who works for us.
Brian Alex (01:41)
was thinking more. I was talking more. I wanted more smash burger, hot chicken, and some Mexican food. That’s what I was coming for.
Ac (02:01)
She’s like, what are we gonna do for Thursday night for food? And go out, I’m like, Italians love burgers. Let’s just take them off of burgers. That’s what I’m thinking. So we’ll go to our favorite burger joint and get some smash burgers and stuff. Let’s plan that. You get Mexican at lunch, you can go burgers further. You have to join us. All right, go ahead.
Brian Alex (02:08)
Yes. Yes. yeah.
Heck, go to it. Yeah, yeah, all right. That sounds great. Yeah, I’ll be at Mexi- I’ll be eating Mexican, but yeah, you guys have fun at your… Okay.
It’d be great if it’s somebody’s birthday party, because that’s just that’s that’s the whole experience right there. You know, the big hat and everybody’s singing and you know, it’s it’s the it’s the antithesis of the Italian, the negative of the Italian. Yeah, I don’t know.
Ac (02:40)
Nice appropriations exactly
all right, let’s go on
Brian Alex (02:45)
Okay, we’re we are way off in the weeds This
you know, if you’re the first hole, you know, you’re teeing up and it whack and goes right into the weeds You don’t go chasing the ball. You just you retee and you kick it off again Man we got okay coming back around. Hey guys, welcome back around again We’re happy to have you here with us today as you know, we are knee-deep or in the woods
Ac (02:51)
I’m rolling my pants up and getting in the water. That’s what I’m doing.
Yes.
Brian Alex (03:14)
We’re ankle deep in the podcast here, but we started off this season. We’re season four talking about the first couple of episodes were lessons from the road and then the road less traveled. What was that about? Just distinguishing, you know, people come to Italy for all kinds of different reasons, motivation, some to relax, some to explore, some to, you know, have those Instagrammable experiences and moments.
maybe, you know, sun and surf, maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the art, the whole, the history, the culture, the et cetera, et cetera. Whatever they come to Italy for, there are two paths, you know, the two paths that diverged. And, you know, we’re probably proponents of taking the road less traveled, to be honest, but there is something to say for, you know, the Rome experience, the Florence, the Venice.
Ac (04:04)
Mm-hmm. I agree.
Brian Alex (04:11)
and the myriad of other heavyweight contenders, there’s something to be said that they have. It’s hard to find, you know, let’s say Ravenna has some of the best mosaics in the north, Palermo some of the best in the south. It’s hard, you’re hard pressed to find that in other places. And so there’s a reason that you may go to X instead of Y if you’re looking for this or that. We then went into a little bit of a diatribe and
maybe got off into the woods on mastering. How do you master this Italian travel experience? We talked about the planning that’s necessary, but you hold it with an open hand, how to pivot and not hang on to things and always have a plan B, and then the patience that you really need. And while those are kind of more character traits or values that you bring, they can be super helpful to actually, and this is kind of the point behind it all,
enjoying the experience when you’re here because that can mess up everything after all the time and waiting and coming over and the money that you put in and things go awry. You don’t enjoy it. You go home. Not a happy camper. That has happened before, right?
Ac (05:18)
Hmm.
Yeah, you’d be surprised, we talked about this in general, but you can make all the plans you want, right? But you want to, like you were stating before, is you want to be able to plan it out and expect certain things to happen. And I like the idea of you mentioning just Ravenna, a small little town that you and I have spent a couple of nights there. You’re going to get that experience you’re looking for. You’re not going to get those heavy crowds.
But you know you have to have a plan in place. Why are you going to Ravenna? What’s your reasoning? You said mosaics. Is it the Capuleti? Is it the quaintness? Is it being near the water? So yeah, I think you’re spot on.
Brian Alex (06:10)
And so guys, brings us to this episode number six, and we want to start getting down into the nitty gritty, you know, into the nuts and bolts of it. And maybe a few tips for staying off of the major tourist traffic ways, getting a real feel for real life in the real Italy. What’s behind that curtain, the facade of those major tourist traffic areas, but
At the same time, how do we get the best, get the most out of, we have some great partners. So this is really kind of giving a little tease for what’s coming down the pike when we’re gonna be in Nashville altogether. We’ve got some great partners coming out from Rome that do amazing, amazing experiences for us, for our clients, and excited to have them share about
their context about Rome. know, Rome is in the highlights. It’s in the news right now with Jubilee and all that masses and masses of people, waves of tourists coming in unprecedented, crazy, crazy. Can you still enjoy? Can you still have you guys are going to be there for a whole month staying in in the historic, you know, near the historic center? Yeah. You know, is that going to be enjoyable?
Ac (07:14)
Mm-hmm.
Crazy, Nuts.
And right in Roehmia.
Brian Alex (07:35)
We’re about to find out. We’re going to ride the wave here. But, you know, it is possible to go into Rome and actually have some great experiences, something more or less authentic, something real. See behind the curtain, hit that VIP status, the, you know, the skip the line, the whatever, the white glove treatment. It is possible to have a really fantastic experience in a Florence and a Venice and et cetera.
if you know where to go, what to do, what to look for, what to avoid. And that’s some of what we want to get into on this part of the season. So rolling right ahead, where to go for what. You know, we mentioned people come here for all kinds of different reasons. And a lot of that is the cultural dissonance or the differences, what’s so different about Italy.
There’s just a, there’s a culture, there’s a culture to it. I remember an ad in the States a couple years ago, maybe you remember this one. I think it was a Fiat ad running in the States and they had a grandma, you know, and then the young son and the daughter in the car and it’s the typical.
Ac (08:42)
That’s great.
That was great. Fantastic.
Brian Alex (08:52)
Italian famiglia, you know, and he’s got to and they got to have their little espresso cup sitting in this tiny fiat. Maybe you remember this video. This is yeah.
Ac (08:54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
it’s classic. It goes along and the American family,
when you buy the Fiat, Italian family comes with it. And they’re like, what is this? You get the keys in the family. And all of a sudden, it’s blond, southerner, there’s a looking at him. And about halfway through, they’re running around the car when a goal scored, right? Is that what it was? And then they’re all of sudden drinking cappuccinos or espressos in the car. And they’re not speaking Italian by the end of the commercial, right? It’s really funny. It’s a great commercial. Exactly.
Brian Alex (09:07)
It comes with a perfect. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right, right, right. And they’re waving their hands, doing the yeah, the gestures.
Ac (09:31)
yelling at each other.
Brian Alex (09:31)
But I mean, it is that’s a culture that that is a cultural facet. It’s iconic. It’s stereotyped is all this, but it is real. It is really like that over here. And and that is that is part of the attraction. mean.
Some of what you enjoy doing and you’re coming from, you know, like a lot of our listeners with Italian American heritage, you like coming over here, sitting in a piazza, you have a series of Negronis and you watch people, you know, and you get something out of that because you’re, you know, sure, there’s a lot of tourists, but you’re also seeing Italians and how they interact and all of that’s part of the experience.
Ac (10:01)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Alex (10:15)
being here, right? I mean, we’re talking just the cultural level.
Ac (10:17)
I mean
You’d be surprised talking with a lot of customers or clients, potential friends even, want to go or have been. Their impression is, we talked about this, is they want to be in Italy because they want to experience, but a lot of times they don’t realize what they want to experience. And yeah, that experience to me is that people watch, eat, shop, drink, sit, and people watch. But some people, you
They don’t realize how much they love that experience and like, I can get used to this, right? And sitting in piazza and drink and watch people and enjoy the kids playing soccer and all of that. Outside of going to see the highlights of the churches and the museum. So yeah, it’s an experience that they’re looking at.
Brian Alex (11:00)
Yeah. And when we’re talking about culture, obviously, it’s not just the interaction of people. You’ve got the language, you’ve got the communication, the gesturing, all of that that goes into it. We’re talking also food. Food is the level of culture, how we share a table and the food that’s on it is part of the cultural facet here that people come over to enjoy. And a lot of times it’s the things that you can’t
Ac (11:17)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Alex (11:29)
I mean, you know being from Nashville we go out West You know you hit Arizona because you want to see the Grand Canyon because Fall Creek Falls Isn’t that way? I mean, it’s great, but it’s not the Grand Canyon And so you go to a place, you know or the Mojave Desert, whatever you go somewhere Colorado for skiing because you don’t have that where you are we go to the Panhandle or you know the coast in Florida
Ac (11:39)
Mm-hmm. The same. Exactly.
Brian Alex (11:56)
because we don’t have that in middle Tennessee. And so people come here to Italy for that same reason, we have things that they don’t have back home. And so a lot of times people will start in one or two entry ways because of the way that it’s a larger city, international airport, you’ve got a lot of ingress, egress, it’s an easy in, easy out, coming into Rome or…
into Venice and then out of one of those major gates maybe a Milan or a Naples and I mean I’m excited because this year finally we’re gonna have a direct flight. Thank you Delta. A little shout out to our friends from Delta who follow this podcast ardently. Whoever you are wave a flag let us know you’re there. But anyway they’re gonna have a direct flight coming over here to Sicily from JFK. Super excited.
Ac (12:41)
Yes, they do.
Brian Alex (12:51)
about that and what that means for traffic and tourism and everything. Obviously that’s always changing, but we’ve got these major gateways is the point. And so maybe you fly into a Venice. So I’ll just paint a picture. This is a very typical, almost iconic, stereotypical picture that we’re gonna paint for you. We’re talking about culture. I’m gonna get into art.
Ac (13:09)
Go ahead, Mr. Botticelli there.
Master!
Brian Alex (13:18)
You know, you get into Venice, you want to get off of that tourist track because you hung out for your, you know, allotted 15 minutes at the Rialto Bridge and you’re tired of the tourists. After 15 minutes, you’re ready to pack it up. And we’re like, hold on. Let’s, we can find fun things to do. Venice is great. Nothing against Venice. I love Venice. You know, people say it’s the best. I love Venice. It’s always there. It’s always been there. But anyway, that’s why now we’re getting into the weeds again.
Ac (13:32)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Hahaha
Brian Alex (13:48)
But
you you want to get away from the maddening crowds a little bit and right down the road and you don’t have to go far, maybe an hour and a half to two hours, you’re in a different region of Italy. Ravenna, we mentioned it, I’ll mention it again, really enjoyed the time in Ravenna. you know, we’ve…
Ac (14:09)
Mm.
Brian Alex (14:13)
We’ve talked about this before. There’s another way to do it now and really excited about trying this out this year, going from Venice in a boat. Just like you would have in different parts of the States, you can do a river cruise and there are architectural or historical things to see along the way. It’s really big. People come over here to do the Rhine River or different parts of
Here we are in Western Europe. They’ll come over for that same motivation. I remember taking a little like a canal cruise in LA years ago with my family and you you point out this mansion. Reading the news lately, I don’t know if they’re still there, they were years ago, I’ll just say that. Yeah, our hearts kind of break for
Ac (15:02)
Well, obviously the water isn’t.
Brian Alex (15:11)
different reasons in that whole area. It’s a beautiful area though. Crazy things happening in the world today. you know, there was a joy, there’s an experience in looking at these houses on the water and who owns what and what the history behind. You can do the same thing coming from Venice, inland, you come all the way in up the river to Padua.
Ac (15:12)
Yeah, yeah, crazy.
Brian Alex (15:34)
And so Padua is maybe not necessarily a place that you want to hang out for a couple of days, but at least passing through, it’s lovely, it’s worth a stop. And so that’s another way to kind of keep on this track coming down. you know, highlighting Ravenna, you mentioned it already, so we won’t spend too much time. But overall impressions for the mosaics, I don’t know if you’re an art, avid art lover, does that attract you, the mosaics at all?
Ac (16:03)
It attracts me because it’s something you don’t get to see in the North, right? You’ll see it in, you like you said, in Palermo and outside of Palermo. But you don’t get to see it. So it’s a good taste. The thing about Ravenna is, Ravenna felt like a small community. Like everyone knew each other and it was active. It wasn’t like going to a small Umbrian town, right? Or, you know, when there’s only 400 people. I liked the mosaics. The big thing for me was Dante Alighieri because Dante Alighieri was, they found his bones and his, you know, he was, he died there. So.
That was a bigger part of the tour for me was the Dante Alighieri piece. But the mosaics was beautiful, all the Byzantine stuff. I like it because you don’t get to see enough of it and it’s a good story while you’re in the North. And like I said, you’re on the way in Emilia Romana. You like you talked about, it’s a quick train. We could talk about that. Maybe not do a day overnight, but definitely a good visit to the town, like you said, with Padua too.
Brian Alex (16:58)
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that I like about these northern towns, I’ve got family roots along the Po River there and visiting over the years. I find them to be really walkable, which is not an experience that I have often here living in the deep south in Sicily. You know, we’ve got one plane, massive plane outside of Catania, but other than that, it’s all hills and
Ac (17:16)
Mm.
Brian Alex (17:28)
you know, mountains and everything. And so one of the challenges is doing that little passeggiata. You just don’t do that in my town. We go down to Catania or we go over to Nicolosi where at least they have one, you know, massive track of, you know, to do a little bit of a walk. But it’s difficult up in the north. These towns, you know, from let’s say from Padua or Ferrara all the way in towards Bologna or Mantua in this whole area.
Ac (17:40)
Yeah, yeah.
Brian Alex (17:58)
massive planes and it’s very, very walkable. Ferrara is definitely worth a stop. It’s known as the bicycle city. As soon as you arrive at the station there, you see hundreds of bicycles with padlocks, bikes everywhere. Bologna is the same way. It’s very, you know, bikeable if that’s your thing, but it’s very walkable too. I like that. I like the walking around and it kind of makes you feel like you’re in, you know, you’re in Disney.
Ac (17:59)
Mm-hmm.
Bikes everywhere, yeah.
Brian Alex (18:26)
as an adult and you’re just looking at things and you know being being wowed by it. You know and again this is just a human experience where people come to Nashville for the same thing. They hit Broadway, they do the honky tonks, maybe they go to the stadium for something you know an event. This is part of that. It’s that attracts people to come and do something that they don’t have in their own backyard.
Ac (18:50)
Yeah, you’re right. And I didn’t think of it that way. If you go down Broadway and you want to grab some barbecue because that’s what they’re known for and you want to go to Honky Tonk, you want to go to the country museum, no difference in a sense culturally, right? But Bologna, you’re right. Bologna has great history, great food, porticos where you can get out of the, you know, just the structure walking around. You know, just just fantastic. But you’re right. You can go eat, you can see museums, you can go to, you know, listen to music, you can. But it’s flat and walkable.
and you don’t realize it. Sometimes you say things, I’m like, yeah, I never realized that, bro, you are right. Potawat was really easy to walk. Ferrara, easy to get around with bikes. Bologna, same thing, you can do bikes. There’s a lot of bikes and a lot of, what do call those, limes in Bologna? It’s a college town, so you’ll see a lot of kids on limes, you know what mean? Because they’re late for class or they’re gonna jump on a lime, zip it around. yeah. Yeah.
Brian Alex (19:35)
Yeah, the little scooters. Yeah. Zip it around. You got to be careful now walking around. I mean, if you’re not on a set of wheels, yeah.
Ac (19:47)
So
and Ravenna was definitely so small. It was just walkable. You didn’t have to worry about bikes there But yeah, I think you’re right. It’s if you’re looking from a perspective and I’m thinking outside the box That is a good trip for someone that’s a little older That maybe has some walkability problems like, you know getting up and down into you know, even into Belpaso or Amalfi, right? That’s it. That’s a tough chore, but you get to these towns you’re talking about lot to see
less people, Bologna is getting a little busy, but less people, but you’re also easy to walk. I mean, it’s just walkable city getting in Bologna. I just mentioned that the porticoes, you know, you don’t like the heat, you get under, you don’t like the rain, you get under the porticoes, you can walk for miles, miles in Bologna because of the covering of the porticoes. So yeah, it’s, when you mentioned that the city is in the track you’re talking about, really doable for people that are older and we actually, we have a lot of older folks that go to Bologna. But I think,
Brian Alex (20:26)
the rain.
Ac (20:42)
That’s a concept I didn’t really think of even when we talked to our clients and friends about it. Yeah, it’s good.
Brian Alex (20:47)
Yeah. Yeah. So just to kind of rehearse a little bit, you know, because again, people come to Italy for all kinds of different reasons. We get asked all the time. It’s my first time in Italy. Where should I go? Well, what do you want? You you got to, got to, you got to kind of peel back the layers to get down to the heart of it. And in fact, we had one of our newer teammates on a call with some clients doing a free consultation. For those of you who don’t know,
Ac (21:01)
Mmm.
Brian Alex (21:16)
you know, this podcast is, is free and the, the consultation that we do over at Italy with Bella, is free. You can head over there, sign up anytime free consultation, no strings attached, just Italy with Bella.com. And, you know, just a little pitched because maybe that’s helpful to you. And we had a, of our newer Italian team members on a recent call with a brand new perspective, you know, customer.
and who’s checking us out and wanted the free consultation, did the free consultation. And, you know, she said to me later, she said, you know, it’s interesting how many questions Anthony asked that he had to ask in order to drill down or peel the layers to get to the nuts and bolts or the facts of what, what are you really after here?
You you mentioned your cousin, whatever, an Instagram moment, and you saw that and it sparked an interest, but what are you after? How do we satisfy that? How do we find out? And sometimes that takes a little teasing out to get that out of people, but that is the first thing to discover about Italy is what are you looking for yourself?
Ac (22:08)
Hmm.
And that is common. So give you an example. If I was to ask our Italian friends, right, if you said this on other podcasts, they only know what they know, right? So if you ask an Italian, ask one of your friends, Gino or Leo or someone, they’re going to say New York City, Vegas, LA, or maybe Miami for the beach. Yeah, exactly, for the water, right? So customer, yeah, well, it’s popular, right? As the news comes from out of there, that’s where the big cities are. And then, you know, even yesterday, I had a honeymooner, so we’re talking to them. She’s like,
Brian Alex (22:43)
Miami.
Because of the TV shows.
Ac (22:58)
Well, that’s only three cities I know is Venice, Florence and Rome. And then you start talking to them and they’re like, well, we really like the water. I’m like, okay. Did you know our lakes, we live on a lake, okay. Yeah, we really, you know, we’re really into art history, but like even writing and poem, poetic, you know. All right, what about Shakespeare? we love Shakespeare. what about Verona? So those are the things you need to really know and don’t listen to your friends, don’t listen to your family, don’t even listen to us.
Listen to, basically, no listen to us, but look at what you want to do when you’re in Italy. What really, when you go on vacation, what do you like to do? Yes, that was, is that Berlin or Roxette? So, I digress. A little shout out to Roxette from the 80s. That being said, no, but you listen to your heart and you listen to what you like to do. You know your family. Don’t listen to your friends. And we talked about this. People are like, oh, I go to Rome because that’s what everyone does.
Brian Alex (23:31)
Yeah. Listen to your heart is what you’re saying. Yeah. Okay.
Ac (23:56)
Do you care about antiquity? No. What do like? Well, like food. Well, that’s Italy, but what kind of food? So it’s just that onion you’re talking about. So go to Italy with a plan in a sense where don’t go because it’s a status quo. Go with what you want to get out of it what you love to do. So I’m sorry to get off on my soap box there.
Brian Alex (24:15)
No, no,
it’s perfect and it segues perfectly right into this little template that we’re using or this itinerary, practice itinerary. If somebody came and said, it’s first time in Italy, where should I go? What should I do? And we peel that onion and we find out exactly what’s in their heart, what they want. Maybe like that couple that lives on the water, but they want to have a water experience. This is perfect. You come over to Venice, you fly in.
Maybe you do those, you know, the doges palace and the, you know, the bridge. You do those, get that out of your, get that out of your blood and you, you know, satisfy that itch and you get those Instagram mobile moments and then you can relax and then you can actually enjoy. and, here’s, you know, going back to some of these previous episodes until you can really relax. It’s difficult to absorb what you’re seeing, you know, what you’re taking in. tell people, you know, if you just get off the plane in Rome,
Don’t schedule a bunch of stuff. You’re gonna walk around, it’s all eye candy. For the first day is like taking a tour because you don’t know where the heck you are. You’re in the middle of mass confusion or whatever and there’s these giant buildings and you’ve got the Colosseum here and you’ve got this there and I mean, it’s all eye candy and you’re you’re loving it. You don’t have to have something planned necessarily that first day.
Ac (25:19)
Yeah, it’s good. Mm-hmm.
Your brain’s a fog too? Yeah.
Brian Alex (25:41)
give yourself some time to just relax and settle in. And so that by the time you do a tour or the museum or something that’s didactic, you know, that you’re actually taking in information, you can actually absorb it and enjoy and appreciate the whole experience. so maybe, you know, we tell people you land in Venice, for example, we’ll set you up with an assistant that helps you, you know, get off the plane, maybe go to your taxi, go to a boat, find your way in.
You get to that quarter of Venice where you’re staying in that zone, that area, the neighborhood that you’re staying in. They help you kind of get the lay- You’re in a lagoon. I don’t know how many people coming from the States live in a lagoon, you know? But if it’s your first time, maybe it’s disorienting because it’s all these little narrow alleyways and canals and everything. so getting, you know, and they help you kind of orient. Why? So, you know, we’ve had so many people tell us,
Man, I wish I would have done that at the beginning because it made sense, you know after doing that I could have Absorbed more I could have enjoyed it more. That’s that’s what we’re after Let us help you set things in order so that you know by the time you do that museum or the Whatever experience, you know the tour that you’re gonna do you can actually appreciate it you absorb it and and enjoy it even more That’s the whole point, right?
Ac (26:59)
Yep, totally agree. Okay, good.
Brian Alex (27:02)
Yeah, so looking at this little practice itinerary, know, if that were the couple coming over and want to be around the water, head into Venice, get that, you know, the touristy stuff out of your blood, and then maybe take a two-hour trip south to Ravenna. Do some of those cultural iconic type things like the mosaics. Maybe you start in the Basilica San Vitale and you look at the mosaics, you do the mausoleum.
You know you mentioned Dante’s tomb, the seafood there I tell you is going to be much better than in Venice and you’re already having this experience you know on the water. Maybe you hit Bologna, you’ve got towers to climb, the view of the rooftop, know the terracotta rooftops is amazing, know Piazza Maggiore and just the people watching and you know the food culture.
the food culture in Bologna is unparalleled in my estimation. It’s something iconic that every other town in Italy points to and has their version of something that originated there. And so for so many reasons, it’s worth in America, Oscar, Oscar Minor, we’re, you know, whatever.
Ac (27:59)
Mm-hmm.
Bologna sandwiches.
Fried baloney man, fried baloney.
Brian Alex (28:22)
My Bologna has a first name. I don’t know. But anyway, you’ve
got so many food markets and just the, you know, an aperitivo in the quadrilateral district. All of that is a cultural experience in itself. And then you can get off of that beaten path even further, not far from Bologna. There’s a little town that we’ve talked about before even on our team called Dolce.
and it’s a little medieval village near Bologna with murals painted on the houses. You’ve got these medieval fortresses and castles, wine tastings, and all of this kind of thing. It is so fascinating and I love the idea of kind of doing this step down.
Ac (28:52)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Alex (29:11)
where you’re in Venice, high tourism, you come down to Ravenna or a Bologna, but then you do even one more, you find kind of where your threshold is and you go, okay, this is the real, you know, every step down is like, this is the real Italy. I’m finally in the, this is the real Italy, this, you know, and so you do this little immersive experience, which is another fascinating little practice that we like to take customers through.
Ac (29:14)
Yeah, I’d agree with that. good.
But
it also tells you what they like. What happens is with that particular type of trip, if you were gonna come back to Italy or any further trips, you’re like, you know something, I like the little town, Dolce. I love Bologna, but maybe it was too much of a university town. You know something, I really fell in love with Venice. You don’t know until you try different scenarios. You know what I mean? You might say, know something, I like going to Padua. I wish I stayed longer. I really enjoyed Padua. I just felt it was a small town that was so close to Venice.
Brian Alex (29:52)
Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Ac (30:03)
But you might go and say, you know something, I’m going to spend a couple extra days there or that kind of experience. And that’s why you need to do a diverse type of city slash town trip. Instead of just sitting yourself in Ravenna for a week, you need to figure out, is Bologna the type of town I want to be in city because of the food and because of the history? But yeah, think I don’t think about that. Certain things you mention, I’m like, you know something, you’re right. You need to be very diverse.
in your travels instead of doing the three big cities or just doing three small cities. know what I All three small towns. You need to see what life is like in the big city. You know, so that’s good.
Brian Alex (30:41)
Yeah.
We like the diversity. We like to contrast. know, it’s a lot of times in creating that contrast that things come into focus. And so if you can, and we’ve had this experience, you know, last, was it a year ago or two years ago? Now I forget when we had some of our clients come over here and even as a group, as a team, we traveled to a couple cities with them and it was interesting to watch it through their eyes, how contrasting Venice,
Ac (30:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brian Alex (31:10)
And then, you know, coming into Bologna, then I think we did Cortona, we ended up in Rome. And, you know, for some, it was a little shocking doing it in this way. You know, for others, they really liked kind of the symphonic, orchestral, crescendo at the end of Rome. Others would have wanted to start with Rome and do something and then kind of scale it down as they go interior. others really loved Cortona.
Ac (31:33)
Rome,
Brian Alex (31:40)
For some, was too quiet. so, finding what your palette is and then coming back around a second time now that you know that. that’s, again, that’s one of the reasons we spend so much time on the front end talking to clients to understand what is it that you really want? What is your heart, your passion, what are you really after? So that we design a trip, but even on that trip, design tailored for you, you might determine, I thought I would have liked this more.
I didn’t care for that, so it was okay, but I really like, this was surprising. But then you curate that next trip around some of those colors that are emerging on the palette and you make your own masterpiece. There we go. How did you like me tying all that in together? Isn’t that beautiful? Yeah, yeah. Too much caffeine is what it is.
Ac (32:24)
Nice with the art. Yes, typical Italian. it give me, but it, well,
it’s like, I give you an example, like me and you love Bologna, right? My wife is not a big fan of it. And what happens is you don’t know until you do it. And I want you, you you can’t come over here like me and Brian, where we live here and we just, you know, constantly in certain cities and towns all year. But you’ll be surprised because if you listen to that friend that says Florence, Florence, Florence, last week we had a customer from Australia.
They just came back sweet family and shockingly they like Bologna more as a family than they did Florence 90 % of the time I would say it’s the opposite, you know, lot of my family likes Florence more than they do Bologna I’m caught I’m kind of in between both But yeah, you know, you don’t know that’s why a lot of times you can’t listen to Instagram listen to your friends Try it out yourself. What does Bologna speak to you? And what is Florence? What are your friends telling you? What are we telling you about Florence? So, you know, only way to find that out is by doing it
Brian Alex (33:21)
Yep. No, I love it. And I think this is probably a good place for us to tidy up this episode. I really wanted to get into some of the diversity, the cultural nuances and creating that contrast. I think we did that. Hopefully that’s helpful to folks listening. Just one more time to say, hey, check us out online. If you’re interested in coming over to Italy, think about coming to Italy with Bella.
sign up for a free consultation, no strings attached. But that said, putting that aside for a second, find out what you really are interested in. Don’t just go with the major tourist tracks. If you’re sitting in Costco in the food court area and there’s a big poster for a seven day all-inclusive blah, blah, steer clear, but take it to heart. Maybe look at the names of the towns on there and go, hmm.
Ac (34:17)
The agenda. Exactly.
Brian Alex (34:19)
would that really interest
Ac (34:19)
You’re gonna know more.
Brian Alex (34:21)
me? Maybe you just need to get over here and try it out. And like Anthony’s saying, you got to taste it and see it looks good, but taste it to see if it digests well. And you may be surprised what you find out about yourself after all of that. That said, hey folks, we’ll come back around again on the next episode.
to highlight a couple other towns and talk about different kinds of experience. I think we’re gonna focus a little bit more on food and wine the next time around. Really excited about that and get into some of that nitty gritty. But hopefully if this scratched a niche on the cultural side. Something to add, Anthony, before we…
Ac (35:03)
Yeah, and the more, and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but you think about it, we eat a dead horse, not beat a dead horse, beat a dead horse. I’m looking at the each town and city we talked about, right? We talk about Venice, the Venetians, total different animal, different country, they want to be their own country. You go to Padua, university town, most people pass by it, different, different, just a different vibe, a little poorer too.
Brian Alex (35:07)
We do that here in Catania. Yeah. you said beat a dead horse. My bad.
Ac (35:33)
The people there, the food is poor. You know, it’s just a different vibe. But then you go down to Bologna, the food is richer, right? And it’s a university town. Then you go to Ravenna, it’s totally different. It’s Romania, Emilia, Romania, totally different. The food is different. So that’s the other thing that’s fascinating about this trip we just talked about in general. This culture is just so different. The food is so different. The pace is different, right? Yeah, the dialect, everything, right? And that’s just that little trip.
Brian Alex (35:55)
Yeah. Dialect changes the, yeah. Yeah.
Ac (36:02)
You know an hour and half two hours from each other So it’s just fascinating to me that when I think about it and when I unpack it You know you’re getting really really diverse food culture dialect everything so yes That’s a wonderful trip if you ever want to do that kind of trip Okay
Brian Alex (36:17)
Yeah, love it.
All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your knowledge, wisdom and expertise coming to bear on the conversation today. We will talk to you again soon. And hey, guys, stick around for another episode coming at you pretty soon. Cha-cha for now.
Ac (36:34)
ciao ciao
