While I’m at it, folks like Stanley Tucci add to the muddle, in his elite veneration of an Italy that very few people can access. If they even could, they would find that it is not findable. It is an illusion, cooked up in the kitchen of Tucci’s brain, which has fetishized the Italian experience, and culture, to the point of appearing more like billionaire Bezos’s Botoxed bride. Italy is not an extreme makeover project.
Some folks might disagree with me, that they like Tucci and his show. I get it, it’s entertainment. He’s an actor, with a mesmerizing voice. Good. Enjoy it. Just don’t confuse it with the real thing. That ain’t Italy, folks!
I met and got to know Sarah May Grunwald in the heyday of wine blogging. We don’t stay in touch as much since Covid, but I subscribe to her Substack site, Contadina, and she recently wrote from her perspective about this. A couple of things I pulled from her post was this notion of the “Christopher Colombizing of Italy,” and content creators who “…write about Italian people is like they are tourist attractions. Objects.”
Indeed. I’ve observed this in the 50+ years I have been going to Italy. Objectifying a culture that is so much more than their spritzes, their pizza, their gelato, and their monuments.
I’ve moved beyond just wine. That was my livelihood. Now I am in a different chapter. I know there are chaps who are close to or in retirement, who cannot take off their “wine expert” caps. Sometimes it takes a little time for it to sink in – they’re done with you when they’re done with you, gents. Try and find a way to keep moving. Maybe even moving on. Holding on feels a little like liposuction or botox. Yeah, you can hold out and put forward your best rendition of la bella figura, but time is going to catch up with all of us – even the billionaires partying their asses off in Venice.
So – 500+ words in and let’s get to the point – Italy is not anyone’s personal playground or toy, not Jeff Bezos’, not Stanley Tucci’s. It is a country made up of people with feelings and emotions. And right now, the times there are trying. Italians are wrestling with their own disruptions, politically and economically, as well as the cultural upheaval that is being presented, thanks to wars and climate change and shifting demographics and birth rates and progress. The Italy of 2025 is not the Italy I first experienced in 1971. It is a totally different country, save for the monuments and artwork and churches and so on that are now 50 years older. Which in Italy, for those things, isn’t much time. But for the humans on the ground who are living through it, this is a delicate country. Treat Italy like a butterfly, not like a Corgi.
Italy is not an all-day buffet. You’re not a cruise ship, where eating and drinking to excess is almost expected. Italy is subtle, refined, restrained. You don’t need to hit all the Michelin starred restaurants in Rome or Venice. Walk around and find a place without a sign. Go in, be humble, and let them offer you their particular version of hospitality.
Drinking – leave behind the Prosecco and Spritz obsessions that are pushed on TV shows and movies. Have a quartino of the house red or white. And by the way, when it’s 90°F and you’re sitting under an awning, for gawds sake, get over your red wine compulsion. White wine isn’t for sissies, whatever that’s supposed to mean. By the way, Italy produces more white wine than red, so now you’ve got the memo. And permission to leave behind this mania for all things red, when the sun above is blaring.
City hopping – what are you doing? Spending more time in transit than actually enjoying the country, or the countryside or the seaside or the mountains? Get over your fixation with buildings and cars and traffic and noise and heat and menu turistica’s and ticking off the boxes and the grind of urban life. Ok, you want to see Rome? See Rome. Stay there for the whole trip. Stay in a quiet little neighborhood, like the hotel I stay at occasionally in Rome (where the image above was taken from their Instagram site). Walk. Last year, eight months after I had a knee replacement, I stayed in the neighborhood, Parioli, and I did walk into central Rome several times. It took 30 minutes, but so what? A cab ride in traffic, or a bus, would have taken almost as much time. And you are on the ground, getting a visceral feel for a place. Finding a small little osteria or an artisanal gelato shop (without the tourist prices like they have in Piazza Navona). Or a quaint little wine bar, probably with both natural wines and commercial wines, for you to choose from (at €4.00 a quartino not €15).
Do try and prevent yourself from thinking you have to see everything in one trip. Come back again. And again. And again. I adopted that philosophy early on in my youth (one of the few wise things I did then) and 60+ trips later (many for business, some for pleasure) I have a pretty good lay of the land. Been to every region except Sardegna (and it is on my bucket list, along with a few places not in Italy). But in no way, do I think I have yet “gotten” Italy.
Italy is my teacher, and I am its perpetual student. But Italy is also flesh and blood and feeling and hopes and dreams and it is a wonderful place to slow down and reflect on the life that’s left to you.
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When my wife died in 2001, I was a wreck. I booked a trip to Italy and went to a little island, Pantelleria, for the duration. I rented a house, a damussi, which came with a motor scooter. I shed my socks, and long pants and shirts with buttons. And I roamed around the island, around and around, trying to wrestle with the immense grief I had stored up in me from watching a dear one die in my arms.
Italy took me in her arms and cradled me and held me and dare I say, healed me. I could not have had that happen if I was obsessed with seeing every last cathedral, tasting every carbonara to be had. It was exactly what the doctor ordered.
I hope Italy can be that to some of you reading this, If you’ve gotten this far, the next step is yours. It’s a wonderful journey. Bon viaggio.
