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Italy is twenty regions pretending to be one country. The food changes every forty kilometres, the language changes every hill, and the appropriate hour for an aperitivo is the only constant. 184 field guides · 20 regions · 7 cities · five great drives
Italy doesn't really exist. There is Lombardia, where lunch lasts forty minutes and a stranger at the next table will judge your tie. There is Sicilia, where lunch lasts four hours and a stranger at the next table will give you their cousin's number in Catania. They speak the same language and they're both right. The trick to Italy is to pick one of these countries — properly, slowly — and let it ruin you for the others.
A region is the right unit for Italy. Bigger than a city, smaller than a country, and perfectly shaped for a week of slow lunches. Stacked by macro region — swipe each row to see all twenty.
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Italy from Milan to Lampedusa is roughly the same as London to the Sahara. Most of the time you spend in Italy you'll spend covering one inch of this map.
Pick the macro region above to colour the boot. Pins mark the cities our editors actually fly into.
Italy is best understood through the windscreen of a small, slightly underpowered car. These are the five we recommend, in priority order, to anyone who has the time. Distances are short. Stops are mandatory.
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A city in Italy is a small thing — most of them are walkable in a long afternoon. Stay three nights minimum. Rent a flat. Eat at the trattoria nearest your door at least once.
Italo and Trenitalia run the spine. Frecciarossa hits 300 km/h between Milan and Naples. Don't fly within Italy.
Two operators run high-speed trains: Trenitalia (Frecciarossa) and Italo. They use the same tracks, the same stations, and they're both excellent. Italo is sometimes a few euros cheaper; Trenitalia has more frequent departures.
"You can have lunch in Florence, dinner in Rome, and still be home in Milan by midnight. Don't, but you could."
Book at least two weeks ahead for the cheap fares. Day-of tickets cost 2–3× more. Regionale trains are slow, cheap, and a vital part of the experience south of Naples.
Stations sit in the centre of every city. From Milano Centrale to your aperitivo bar: 12 minutes on foot.
The North wakes up later and goes to bed earlier. The South does the opposite. The two best months in Italy are May and October, in that order. August in cities is a waste; August on the coast is a fight.
Italian food is not Italian food. There is no such thing. There is the food of the village you happen to be in, and you should eat what's in season there, only.
A festival in Italy is rarely a tourist event. It is the village explaining itself to itself. Show up early, stay late, and don't ask what time it ends.
Italian is the easiest of the romance languages for English speakers, and the hardest one to use without sounding like you're auditioning. The trick is the rhythm, not the vocabulary.
You don't need to speak Italian to travel in Italy — most of the country, at most of the points where you'll need it, has English. But it changes everything when you don't.
"Buongiorno is a contract. Use it."
The single most useful word is buongiorno, said audibly, on entering any room — a shop, a bar, an elevator with one stranger. Skip it and you've revealed yourself in a way nothing else does.
Where to actually sleep. Each pairs two adjacent neighbourhoods so you have somewhere to walk in the morning.
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From a hundred reader emails. The honest answers, not the search-engine answers.
"There is no shortcut to Italy. The shortcut is the long way."