Italy recap: What we loved (and didn’t love) during our six weeks of Italy travel!

Man, does the time go fast. We just officially passed the halfway mark of our trip (August 1) and are going strong on the second half. Back when we finished our first six weeks of travel in Brazil I wrote a Brazil recap, and it was such a nice way to wrap up our time in the country. So, I thought I’d write up our thoughts on our six weeks of Italy travel as well. Let’s do it!

Where we went in Italy

I look at the below list and even though the end was a little hectic, it is a good example of the type of slow travel we are trying to create on our around-the-world adventure. We really enjoyed being able to settle down in one place and not feeling like we had to rush, rush, rush to see everything. Here’s hoping we can keep these types of stay lengths going on the rest of our trip!

• 13 nights in Montecarlo
• 4 nights in Bologna
• 8 nights in Chianti
• 7 nights in Piozzano
• 4 nights in Florence
• 2 nights in Bagni San Filippo
• 5 nights in Rome

Favorite moments in Italy

Jyoti: Mine was probably seeing the David in Florence. I adored Florence overall, and seeing that amazing piece of art, up close and in person, epitomized everything I enjoyed about the city, especially the art, the beauty and the ability to enjoy it within your own head and on your own.

Damian: Damian really enjoyed seeing the Colosseum in Rome. He loved seeing what is there today and imagining the spectacles that used to take places hundreds of years ago in the arena.

The top thing we’d do again in Italy

We both agreed on this one and it is for sure staying in an agriturismo and living the chill Italian life! It was so fun to be on a working farm, to cook with amazing ingredients and to have a host that was local to the area to welcome us. Our favorite agriturismo during our Italy travel was the one in Montecarlo, but we also enjoyed our time on the ones in Chianti and Piozzano very much as well.

What we didn’t get do in Italy

The same is true for our Italy travel as was true in Brazil – and I’m sure will be true in every country we go to for the rest of our lives – even though we spent six weeks there, there is still so much we didn’t get to do. We’re pretty excited about all we did do, but here’s a list of what we missed and hope to do on future trips to Italy!

Venice. I know this city is supposed to be beautiful, I’m sure it is beautiful. We just had to make choices to cut things out on this trip so we could prioritize slow travel. Also, I’m sure we’ll enjoy it more when it’s not high summer and tourist season!

Lake Como, Dolomites, etc. This is the north of Italy, and the mountains and lakes are supposed to be gorgeous (I mean, all the celebs have houses on Lake Como for a reason, right?). I’d love to spend a couple weeks in this area alone (and I guess Milan can go in here too, but for some reason I’m just not super excited about the city?).

San Gimigano. This is another cute small town in Italy, with lots of towers to see and climb. As you know, we love little cities and climbing towers, so this would have been right up our alley. It is high on my list for when we return one day!

Naples, Capri, Positano, etc. Ah the south, the blue water, the pizza … I think we could spend six weeks in just this area alone. It would have taken a bit more of driving to make it here and we wouldn’t have enough time to really enjoy or explore it, so it’s on the list for a later time.

Puglia. This is the region of Italy that makes up the “heel of the boot”. I didn’t do too much research on it because I knew it was too far to make it on our itinerary, but I think it has a unique culture within Italy and lots of beaches – sounds like a place I need to see at some point.

Sicily. Water! Island! Little towns! Sicily, can’t wait to see you one day.

Things I’ll miss from our Italy travel

Italy is an amazing place in so many ways. Here are some of the biggest things that I will miss.

Late sunsets. This is one of the things that was hardest for me in Brazil. The sun would set at 5pm or 6pm and for a late-riser like me it felt like the day was cut too short. I love how in Italy the sun would set between 8pm and 9pm, and the sky wouldn’t get dark until an hour or two later than that. The days felt so long!

The food. Oh the food. I mean, how much more do I need to stay here? It’s Italy, the food is amazing. The simplest meals were so delicious and prepared with the highest quality ingredients, and we loved just about every meal we ate.

City bells all the time and at any time. This was so random, but almost every town we went to had a bell tower, and it seemed like every city would just decide on its own, when to ring them. We heard them at :02 past the hour, :04, :09, :59 and everything in between. It made us silly-laugh every single time.

The ease of car travel. We looooved having a car and driving around the country. It is so small compared to Brazil, so there weren’t any super long days, and there was great signage everywhere. On top of that there were no one-way car rental fees and a daily charge of less than $15. Having a car the whole time really enhanced our trip (and thanks again to Damian for doing over 3,300 kilometers of driving!).

Italian grocery stores. I still have write the full post on this, but Italian grocery stores are awesome. There’s so many fresh ingredients and even the days we just bought focaccia, burrata and tomatoes, we felt like we ate like royalty. I love all the systems they have in place to keep germs from spreading and to help preserve the environment. So smart, so advanced.

Damian knowing Italian. I know Damian had been dabbling with Italian in the Duolingo app, but all of a sudden when we were in Italy he was having full blown conversations in Italian with locals. Guess languages are his thing, and it was so endearing to see this side of him!

Gelato! Not much to say here but yum. chiardicrema‘s Oreo gelato may be the most delicious ice cream I have eaten in my whole life.

History everywhere. Everywhere we looked there was history, and not just a little history, but deep, thousands-of-years-old history. With the United States only being a couple hundred years old (at least in its current form), we don’t have these ancient tales and relics to point to.

Restricted driving zones. Most of the cities we went to had severe restrictions on driving in the city center. During all of the weekdays and some of the weekends cars aren’t allowed to drive in and it really made for a great experience in being able to walk the small, narrow lanes and enjoy the cities without worrying about being run over by cars and traffic.

Things I won’t miss so much from our Italy travel

I was surprised, at times, with what I struggled with in Italy. I loved it overall (not as much as Greece, but still loved it), but as any country does, it had its issues. Here are some of the things I won’t miss so much about Italy.

Bug issues. There are a lot of mosquitos and gnats in the area of Italy we were in, and as I’ve said, I really don’t do well with the buggers. On top of that, most places in Italy don’t have bug screens, so we really had to narrow down places by whether they had air conditioning or not, and if we couldn’t find one with aircon it got real hot, real fast.

Random store hours. Italians love having their free time, and their chill time. And I love that about Italian culture. But, that also means random store hours, which makes daily living more difficult. One time we showed up to chiardicrema when it was supposed to be open, and it was closed, and I just looked at Damian with despair in my eyes and said “what do we do??”. Gelato is important business people.

No calamine lotion. Related to the bug issues before, calamine lotion is one of the only things that soothes my mosquito bites. We could not find it anywhere in Italy. And not only could we not find it, pharmacies didn’t know what it was. I sure missed it!

Lack of diversity. I am used to living in New York City. I’m not going to get into a whole race thing here, but we saw very little diversity in Italy. Even though I grew up in America, I know I have brown skin, and it was strange to see maybe one person a week with non-white skin.

Italian drivers. The rumors are true – Italian drivers are intense, fast and, in my opinion, unsafe. There were so many times we were driving well over the speed limit and still being tailgated – both on the highways and in the little narrow, windy country roads. I’m glad it wasn’t me driving (especially in a stick shift!).

All the pork. I’m not a full vegetarian, but I don’t eat pork and it felt like almost every dish in Italy was made with pork (or prosciutto, etc.). It limited my eating options (and I felt like I missed out on some yummy stuff), but luckily there is so much good vegetarian food that it wasn’t too bad. I would have loved if there were more dishes that were just beef instead of a beef/pork mix.

Restricted driving zones. I mentioned above that I loved these, and I did. But, when we were driving, selfishly, they were a little annoying when we had to drop luggage off, etc. The fines for driving into these areas are in the hundreds of Euros and to keep you from doing it there is basically one sign and then a camera to catch your plate if you miss it. We still have our fingers crossed that we don’t have any fines coming our way!

Wrap-up: Our Italy trip in three words

Jyoti: Agriturismos. History. Hot.

Damian: Food. History. Relaxing.

Some of our favorite pictures from our Italy travel

All our posts about our Italy travel

Finally, I thought it would be good, to have in one place, all our posts about our Italy travel so they are easy to peruse. Here’s the list below!

• Italy – The plan for our six weeks here
• Italy – Visiting Pisa – the Leaning Tower and the Luminara festival
• Italy – Our day in Lucca
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 1: Montecarlo (Tuscany)
• Italy – Four days in Bologna
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 2: a vineyard in the Chianti region (Tuscany)
• Italy – Wineries and wine tasting in Chianti
• Italy – One day in Siena!
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 3: Emilia Romagna
• Italy – Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory and Balsamic Vinegar producer tours
• Italy – Hiking Cinque Terre
• Italy – Our three days in Florence
• Italy – Brunello wine tasting and visiting thermal baths
• Italy – Our three days in Rome

And, well, that’s all folks! This was a fun one to write (and a fun six weeks to live). Now onto Croatia we go!