Top 7 Hidden Gem Towns in Italy (Festivals, Food, Fewer Crowds) with Katerina Ferrara

Welcome to the Show

Jason: Hey, Jason here with ZeroToTravel.com. Welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks for hanging out, letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms, to fill your life with as much travel as you desire, no matter what your situation or experience. Of course, as you heard at the top, we have Katerina Ferrara today helping us explore Italy. She’s the author of the Travel Italy series and host of the Immersion Travel Italy podcast. We’ll link up to her website as well, which is katerinaferrara.com. And I love her travel philosophy. She says, quote, “True travel is not just about seeing new places, but about allowing those places to change you.” I’m sure that resonates with you being in this audience and all the themes we cover on this show. And I think really immersing yourself in a place certainly helps. You can do that in main tourist places like Rome and Florence and all of those. But when we go to places where we’re really just surrounded by locals, it’s almost inevitable that it’s going to happen. In some other places like Rome, where there are so many tourists coming through all the time, you may have to seek it out a little more. You do have to seek it out a little more, in my experience. But in some of those places, it just kind of happens by default. You’re surrounded by locals. They’re not used to having travelers. And that’s why I love doing these hidden gem series, because those are the places I love to go.

And it doesn’t mean I don’t go to the other places, but I love when I find those places. And you’re going to hear about some of them today in one of travel’s most popular destinations, of course, Italy. We’re going to dive in right now. Just a quick reminder, zerototravel.com/newsletter if you want to get the newsletter and stay in touch off the pod. It’s free. You can sign up over there. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of this community. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Katerina, and I’ll leave you with a quote at the back end. I’ll see you on the other side. Cheers.

How Katerina Became an Italy Festival Expert

Jason: Katerina Ferrara, welcome to the Zero to Travel podcast, my friend. Thanks for being here. Thanks for reaching out. Italy travel experts, talking about Italy today.

Katerina: Yes, yes. Thank you, Jason. I’m happy to be here.

Jason: You know, I always like to get to know people a little bit before we dive in, because it gives us a little sense of how you put together this list. We’re going to hear these seven hidden gems, and you’ve written now seven or more guides, maybe, on Italy?

Katerina: Yeah, I’ve got nine guides. Seven in the Travel Italy series, the Ultimate Festival and Travel Guides.

Jason: Okay, yeah. So you know your stuff. But I was deep diving, trying to get ready for this interview, and I’m kind of leaning on you for the destination stuff, but I’m always able to find these little snippets on something about the guest’s life. And Katerina, it’s like you popped out of nowhere and became an Italy expert. I know that you have been around Italy for like a quarter of a century, maybe, 20-plus years or something. But I don’t know anything about your life before that or what brought you to this point. I couldn’t find a LinkedIn profile or anything. I know this is kind of a big question, to ask somebody to summarize the sweep of their life in a quick minute or two. But how did you get to this point where you’re actually becoming an expert on Italy? Is this your background? Did you work in travel? Did you work in some other totally unrelated career and make some kind of a transition to this?

Katerina: Yeah, this experience of authoring actually started because I’m fluent in Italian, but I like to keep it up when I’m not in Italy. And so I watch a lot of Italian TV. And every morning I watch a show on the channel TV2000 called Di Buon Mattino. It’s a morning show. And every single morning they travel to a different festival in Italy. It can be a food festival, the festival of Sant’Agata in Catania that they’ve celebrated for 1,700 years, another saint’s festival. They’re always all over Italy. And so I said to my husband several years ago, we have got to start including these festivals in our travel, because we’re very much about experiences during travel. Because you can go to a town and visit 10 churches and not remember anything about the town. But when you go to the town on their feast day, and this is the day the city is the most vibrant of the entire year, the flags are flying, the drums are working their way through the streets, people are in medieval dress. It’s such an experience. You never can forget it. And there’s such joy in town.

And the locals are just so happy that you’re there experiencing this festival with them. And so I decided that I wanted to document these festivals. They’re not documented anywhere, but every single city that you’re going to travel to in Italy has a saint’s festival. They celebrate their patron saint once or twice a year. They’ve generally got a food festival. So if you’re in Bronte, the pistachios of Bronte are famous. If you’re in Turi in Puglia, the cherries of Turi are famous. So they’re going to celebrate that food once a year. And so I started to think, how can I get this information to other travelers? I can find it because I can speak Italian and I can read all these websites and gather the information. But there’s nowhere that you can find all this information in one place. So I decided to do 20 books for the 20 regions of Italy, documenting the festivals. And then I thought, well, who wants to just read about festivals? You need the full travel piece. So the chapter has the festivals of the town. No matter what town you’re going to, I’m sure it’s in one of the books. And then I have the walking tour, the town history, accommodation recommendations, restaurant recommendations, how you’re going to get there and get around. Is there a train station? In a town like Assisi, yeah, there’s a train station, but it’s a 20-minute walk uphill. You can’t do that with your luggage. So all those types of recommendations are in the books. I wanted them to be well-rounded with a festival focus, but with all the normal travel guide things that you need to go to town and really settle in and enjoy.

And one story I tell in the books: my friend Annalisa lives in Rome. She had to move there for work. She’s from a small town in Lazio, which is Rome’s region. And every year she goes back for her saint’s day festival. And it was just a few weeks ago. And she says, “They created a discoteca with a DJ in town, and I was out till 2 a.m. dancing with all the youth of the festival,” people in their teens, 20s, and 30s. “And I got up at 6 a.m. because that’s when the procession starts. And I want to see Sant’Ambrogio, St. Ambrose, at every important viewpoint in town.” So she’s running around at 6 a.m. following the saint. And she said, “You need to understand that our saint’s day festival is more important than our birthday. It’s more important than Christmas. It is the most important day of the year for all of the citizens of Ferentino.” And that just kind of summarizes what these saint’s day festivals are to the town. And also, it’s kind of important to remember that in some of these small towns, you can support and preserve their local traditions, but you’re also supporting the school, because these are somewhat fundraisers, organized by volunteers to raise some of the money for the school. At these saint’s day festivals, there’s a special treat that you can only get on that day. And so that’s also fun, to search for the special cookie of St. Ambrose when you’re in town for the festival. So there are so many different layers, from the food to just the general energy in town. Everyone’s involved and you’re just so welcome.

Jason: Yeah, it’s a special thing as a traveler. I’ve stumbled into festivals before, and you’re like, wow, what’s going on here? But certainly planning trips around them is another way to go about it, because you can’t always stumble into one and be so lucky.

Katerina: Right. Yeah, exactly. And there are also music festivals, jazz festivals, art festivals, theater festivals. So whatever your passion is, we can find it for you. We can organize it.

Learning Italian and the Family Roots Behind It

Jason: And I saw, I believe on your website, or maybe it was in the book, your philosophy is simple yet profound, quote, “True travel is not just about seeing new places, but about allowing those places to change you,” which I think is definitely in line with the listening audience here, and certainly with some of my core values around travel. So we’re going to get into the destination stuff. I still need to know, Katerina, how did you learn Italian? Where did you grow up and how did you learn Italian? Was it something of interest, or did you have some Italian heritage?

Katerina: Yeah. So I grew up in the United States, and we’ve always loved traveling to Italy. We always learned a little bit of the language when we went anywhere, whether it’s Poland or wherever. We just want to make sure we can say please and thank you. But I just decided to really dive in. And when I started learning Italian, I didn’t realize what a rabbit hole it is. I mean, in high school you have a language that you’re sort of learning. But when you really want to learn the language, it’s a whole other thing. So I’m still learning. There’s always some new word that comes up. But yeah, several years ago I just decided that it was time to learn Italian. And it’s been incredible. I’m not sure if some of your listeners are aware, but if you’re learning a language, a great way to meet people is through a free app called Tandem. And so I have friends in Milan and Puglia and Naples who I talk to once a week, 30 minutes in English, 30 minutes in Italian, to kind of practice the language.

Jason: Tandem, yeah.

Katerina: It’s a free language app. My husband calls it a dating app for language learners, but I’m just talking to ladies my age with kids. And it’s really great. When we went to Puglia, we stayed with my friend Kate and her husband, Pierpaolo. They took us all over Puglia. You’re with locals. She cooked us a three-hour lunch with all the specialties of Puglia. I’ve got friends all over Italy, and it’s a great way to also travel and see those people that I talk to on the phone every Saturday.

Jason: But why Italy for you? Because you could have done this in any country. You could have learned a language. You could have started deep diving. You could have said, I’m going to write 20 books on Poland. You mentioned Poland. Why Italy for you?

Katerina: I’ve got grandparents from all over Europe, really. I’ve got four grandparents from four different countries who all settled in the Chicago area and met each other. So yeah, a Greek grandfather, and Italian as well. I did also try to learn Greek, just so you know. It was not as much of a success. It’s so hard with the letters being different. But I do know some Greek from my Greek grandfather. It’s actually a shame, because for all of my grandparents, being American was so important to them that they didn’t speak any of these languages to us at home or to their kids. Everybody just spoke English. I wish I could go back and tell my grandfather who was from Budapest, teach me some Hungarian, you know?

Jason: Yeah, it was a different mentality, you know, as an immigrant trying to fit in in those days. You were probably trying to keep that more low-key. But now I feel like things have changed quite a lot, at least in some circles, I guess. The Chicago area, is that where you grew up then?

Katerina: Yes, yes.

Jason: Are you in Chicago now? Or do you base in Italy? Or how often are you traveling? What’s your kind of setup?

Katerina: Yeah, we’re in Houston now. And we’re in Italy as much as we can be, weeks and weeks a year. And I’m really focused. So I’m writing the Tuscany book now, and we’ll go over to Tuscany for three weeks. Because I’m looking for festivals for photographing and experiencing, I can usually hit eight to 10 festivals in whatever weeks I end up there. And that way we can visit and experience the festivals, find the special food, and visit with the locals.

Jason: Yeah. Committing to writing 20 books, are you a big goals type of person? That’s not a small… Isn’t that a little overwhelming? They always say, don’t set your goals too high because you’ll set yourself up for failure. But you’re actually nine books in now, so it doesn’t seem like you’re going to fall short.

Katerina: Yeah. If I can get a book a year, I’ll be good. In 13 years, I’ll have the series done. But it’s just so fun for me to do the research and spend time in Italy at the festivals.

Jason: You connect much deeper, I’m sure.

Katerina: Yes.

Jason: To the Italian culture.

Katerina: And in some of these cities, their festivals have been celebrated for hundreds of years. For instance, the Macchina di Santa Rosa is a very famous festival of St. Rose in Viterbo, in Lazio. And these men carry around a one-ton, three-story statue. It’s just incredible to see them. They train for that. It’s such an honor to carry the Macchina in town. It’s very much prestige handed from father to son. And just to see some of those incredible traditions in person, it’s amazing. I highly recommend festival travel.

Hidden Gem #1: Scicli, Sicily

Jason: Well, let’s dive into the list. You have seven hidden gems. I asked you to kind of expand around Italy. And you said in the email that you sent over, “The focus will be on places that are beautiful, easy to reach, and tied to local culture, food, and festivals, so listeners walk away with ideas they can actually use,” which we love. And of course, you mentioned preferring the smaller towns with these incredible sites, but not as many tourists, which everybody’s looking for. So now you can understand why I have Katerina here today to share these seven hidden gems. So how do you want to start? I don’t know how you divided this up. I like to just go through these, and then we can kind of unpack them as we go. But I’ll let you take the reins here. I don’t know if you prioritized these by region.

Katerina: We’re moving a little bit south to north. We’re starting on the island of Sicily, which a lot of people target in their travels, and they’re targeting the bigger towns. They’re targeting maybe Taormina, which is famous, Palermo, Catania, Messina. But we’re going to head to a town called Scicli in the southeastern part of Sicily. It’s 25 kilometers, 15 miles, from Ragusa. That’s about a 30-minute train ride. And it’s also just five miles, or nine kilometers, from Donnalucata, which is a beautiful coastal town. So you can be on the beach in five minutes, or you can be in a bigger town on a 30-minute train ride. This area of Sicily is really interesting because in 1693, there was an earthquake that flattened everything. And you won’t see any bell towers on the churches here, because the bell towers killed people when they came down. You can think about, during an earthquake, how that giant tower of stone came down. So now you’ll see a lot of the facades are in this Sicilian Baroque tradition. What they found was that the facades of the churches that had that curve on the front didn’t fall. So now all of the churches are built that way, so they can withstand the next big earthquake. And there are towns around Scicli that are easy to get to. Modica has been the chocolate capital of Sicily since the Americas were discovered and the chocolate would stop there on its way to Europe.

And Scicli is a town where, when you go, you say, why didn’t somebody tell me about this sooner? How could I not have heard of this incredible town? It’s also famous pop culture-wise, because there’s a TV show in Italy called Inspector Montalbano, a very famous book series and also a TV series with many seasons. And it’s partly filmed here. So when I got to town, I felt like I had been there before, because I had seen so much of the city from that TV show. So that was also really fun for me. The historic center is Baroque and absolutely beautiful, built after the earthquake. So all of the structures are from that period, whether it’s the palace or the churches. And I would say in Scicli, if the church is open, go in, because sometimes even a small church can be such a surprise as it relates to the art, relics, the altar, the marbles. It’s just a really beautiful investment over hundreds of years by the locals into these churches. Their main church there is the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola, also called St. William the Hermit, San Guglielmo Eremita. And that is their local saint. He’s from town. And it has a beautiful Baroque facade from 1751. It’s got a 17th-century reliquary where the bones of St. William are. And it’s a good stop in these towns, that main church. This one isn’t a cathedral or a Duomo. It’s a mother church. So in the smaller towns, you have a main church, and here it’s currently this church. There are also beautiful Sicilian Baroque palaces. One of them is Palazzo Spadaro, and it’s got incredible painted ceilings and period furniture. It holds art exhibitions. All of this is just in the historic center, the core of this town. So it’s very easy, very walkable. It’s a flat city, this part of town.

We’ll talk about the hill that comes up next. When you’re standing in town, you’ll look above you, and on top of a cliff face, there is a church up there. It’s somewhat of a church ruin. It’s called San Matteo, St. Matthew. And you see it up there from below. If you’re willing to go up some stairs, you have to hike up there, because the walk is beautiful. The views are incredible. You can see the sea. You can see Ragusa and a lot of the towns that lead out toward the Mediterranean. But there’s a really interesting phenomenon on the way up. You’ll see the cave houses, because people used to live in these caves. Some of them are several-room cave houses. They’re called Chiafura, cave dwellings. And in the past, those were people’s homes. You see those in Matera. You see those in some of the other towns. And in some cases, people lived in these without plumbing and things until 1950. Really, in 1950, the Italians decided, no, we’re not going to live in these caves anymore. We’re going to build some housing and get the people out. But it’s an interesting part of history. And on the way up the hill, there’s another beautiful church, the Church of San Bartolomeo, St. Bartholomew. And inside is really surprising. They have a year-round nativity scene. And nativity scenes in Italy, if you don’t know, are very elaborate, with all of the pieces and parts. My dad did model trains when we were young, and all the little buildings of the city were there. It’s kind of like that. So it’s bigger than just a nativity. It’s a whole city of beautiful little pieces of art. And pay the euro to turn on the lights. You just put the euro in the machine, and the lights come on for a few minutes so you can see everything.

So we’re still climbing. I would say the climbing part took us 25 minutes to get up there. But most of it’s on stairs, which is really nice, instead of something super steep. I’m saying stairs that donkeys could go up and down. Nice, gentle stairs.

Jason: Okay. Donkey stairs.

Katerina: Yeah, exactly. Donkeys, horses, people on horseback. In Scicli’s history, San Matteo plays an important part because it was on the hill. And if you think about medieval times, before the earthquake, this is where people could stay safe. You can see in all directions, and the hill created somewhat of a fortress. So people lived up here for safety, and you could see all of the roads that were coming in and out. There were a lot of pirate raids and Saracen raids in the area. So this was a way that people stayed safe, staying up on top of this giant rock, the big hill there. That church, St. Matthew, has documentation back to 313. So it’s a really old foundation of the church. And after the 1693 earthquake, the church still stood, but the town decided to rebuild on the valley floor below. And so something interesting happened. They created the new church in 1874 down in the valley. But people still wanted to go up to their Church of St. Matthew, where their grandparents and great-grandparents went. So the diocese decided to take the roof off of St. Matthew. And that’s how they ended the debate about where people were going to go to church and what was the mother church.

What was really interesting when we were there: there is some restructuring going on where they’re trying to put the roof back on to preserve the church. And the workers had left it open. We were there with a guide at the time, and he was so excited to get in this church. He said, “I have lived here my whole life. Never have I been able to step inside this church.” And I did do some research, because that was several years ago, and I found out that in October of 2025, the Minister of Culture for Italy came down and saw the site, and they are going to try to fund some restorations there. So hopefully in the future, when people get to Scicli, they can also enter this incredible church. It’s got a terrace. When you go up the stairs by the bell tower, there’s a beautiful terrace even above the main area, the piazza out in front of the church. So if anybody listening to this podcast gets to Scicli and they get in, you have to email me at [email protected] and let me know you got into the church. So hopefully they’ll get the money together to restore that.

Jason: Wow. All right. Wait, hold on. Interesting story.

Katerina: Yeah.

Jason: We’ll have to make sure we get this list from you, because I know people are listening, maybe driving in their cars or jogging or whatever.

Katerina: Exactly.

Jason: And Scicli, how do you spell that? Yeah, we’ll make sure we get that. Are we still on number one?

Katerina: Yes, I know. I know.

When to Visit Sicily and the Festival of the Madonna delle Milizie

Jason: Okay. I mean, no, that’s incredible, all this stuff. Before we move on, I don’t know if you still have more for that, but I just had a couple of general questions. Because if you were planning a trip to Italy… The last time I went, I would say it was off-season. It was February, and it was still a madhouse in Rome in many ways. I know these hotspots can be like that at this point. But what’s your general best advice for when to visit Italy? And then if you’re planning a trip, it sounds like geographically for this list you’re working south to north. Would you recommend starting in Sicily and working your way up, or maybe working down? Just general travel advice on how to tackle it.

Katerina: Yeah. So for me, the best time to visit Scicli is during the festival of the Madonna of the Military, and that happens in May.

Jason: The Madonna of the Military?

Katerina: The Madonna of the Military. This is the only Madonna on a war horse with a sword, and she is very unique. She also has brown hair, because the hair was donated by the ladies of the town. And so instead of a blonde Madonna, she is a dark-haired Sicilian Madonna. Her festival is the last Saturday of May, but things start on Thursday and Friday. Now, of course, Sicily is really accessible year-round. If you’re going there for the beaches, you want to target the summer, but there are people swimming in December, depending on how the weather is. Obviously, if you’re there for the beaches, you’re talking July and August. If you’re there for everything else, you want to avoid July and August, because those are the hottest months. If you want to hit Holy Week and Easter, there are a lot of things that go on for Holy Week, but there are more people around. If you want it to be a little more tranquil, really March, April, May. In September, October, November, you’ve still got great weather in the south here in Sicily. So Sicily is unique that way. It’s a lot warmer, more Mediterranean.

Jason: Now, are you sure the singer Madonna didn’t do a video on horseback with a sword? Because that might not be the only Madonna. I feel like that’s something Madonna would have done.

Katerina: The only Madonna of the church. How about that?

Jason: So how did this Madonna get famous?

Katerina: In 1091, 15 days before Easter, there was a Muslim invasion. The Turks invaded the town, and the Madonna came on horseback and scared them away. So they won the war. The Normans were ruling at the time, Count Ruggero, and the Normans defeated the Saracen invaders. And each year since then, for over 900 years, they have celebrated the Madonna and her victory. So that’s a unique factor here in town. You can’t see the Madonna unless you’re there for the festival, so that’s another reason to visit. They’ve got processions in the afternoons, and one of the incredible things about the processions is the tamburini, the drum corps, the drum groups. I remember the first time I heard them, I said to my husband, “What is that? We have to find what that is.” Their music is so coordinated, so energetic. You find this drum group, and it’s got an eight-year-old and an 80-year-old in it. They’re all dressed in medieval dress, and when the drumbeat vibrates off the Baroque palaces, you have goosebumps. Your heart skips a beat. It’s absolutely incredible. And so they were around town for the festival, just elegant in their medieval dress, but with such beautiful sound coming out of those bands. And then there are the falcons and falconers. There’s the historic court in their beautiful dresses, with the Duke and Duchess.

And one other thing about this festival is it has a special festival treat called the testa di turco. That’s the head of the Turk, and it’s only made for the festival. There’s actually a sagra, or food festival, inside the festival of the Madonna just for this sweet, and there are competitions. Some of them are huge. Some of them you can fit in your hand. It’s a cream puff shaped like a turban. And of course, it’s got sheep’s milk ricotta, because sheep’s milk is local here in the south of Sicily. It’s the dessert of the vanquished. And locals pair it with Moscato wine, which is also a local sweet wine of the area. So it’s fun to be there for the competition. When I got to town, because I had seen the testa di turco on my morning show, we were hunting for it immediately to make sure we could taste it before we left. So there are the different aspects, from the historic court to the Madonna and her procession. They do a reenactment of the battle with the Saracens in town. So it’s really unique and just an incredibly vibrant time to visit this town.

Jason: I love that they’re pairing their festival with a dessert. Maybe when I start baking my next treat, whatever it is, I should name it something with dramatic flair like that. Dessert of the Vanquished.

Katerina: Yeah, that’s good.

Jason: I’m not going to say marketing, because it’s hundreds of years old. It’s just good flair, I would say.

Katerina: Good drama, good tradition.

Immersion Experiences: Cheesemaking, Cooking Classes, and Pilgrimage Routes

Jason: Yeah. Okay, wow. I mean, that’s a lot going on.

Katerina: Yeah, yeah. So my book also has chapters on what I call immersion experiences. They can be a pilgrimage walk or wild swimming. There’s wild swimming in Sicily and all over Italy. Wild swimming is where you hike into a secret spot to go swimming under a waterfall, things like that. I always have a cycling chapter, whether you’re on an e-bike around a lake or you’re a mountain cyclist who wants something harder on your cycling trip. So one of the immersion experiences near here is a caseificio, and that is a cheese factory. In our case, it was a local farmer. You have to make an appointment. You can’t just show up. But we came there, and he has the cows and sheep in the fields. He makes the cheese fresh every day, ricotta and also caciocavallo, which is another local Sicilian cheese. This farmer speaks no English. They offer a translator if you want. I was the translator for my husband. But he is so proud of his cows and his pigs. They also make some salamis and other traditional meats of the area. And it is such an incredible experience. He takes you into the aging room. He just bought a brand-new food truck. He is so proud of this food truck. They take it all around, so they’ll be in one city on Monday, another city on Tuesday. And that’s where the locals go. Instead of going to the supermarket, you go to his food truck once a week and get his fresh-made cheese. Just an incredible experience.

We feel like experiential travel is so much more memorable. So yes, we visited some churches in Scicli, but the fact that the Madonna of the Military was waiting there in the Duomo, or the mother church, made it so much more memorable. And so these experiences are part of my travel guidance: making ceramics, doing something related to mosaics. We did a mosaic class when we were in Venice, and it’s just a really memorable way to travel.

Jason: You mentioned the pilgrimage routes. I know this is something that we talked about via email before this. You defined it as slow adventure travel, which is a good way to put it, and something we talk about a lot on the show. I’m not sure if you have any of those in your list. If not, that’s okay, but I do want to touch on that at some point during the interview.

Katerina: Yes, yes. So I don’t have it on my list. We’re almost done with Scicli. So I’ll just mention, from a pilgrimage trail perspective, the Via Francigena comes through Sicily. This was an ancient pilgrimage route. And the thing about the pilgrimage routes in Italy is they can be five-day treks, 20-day treks, or you can just do a day. And you’ll also find other pilgrims along the way. Sometimes you have incredible sea views.

Jason: Have you walked any of them for more than a day?

Katerina: We have. Yeah, we have. And it’s an incredible experience. I’ve gone with friends who know what they’re doing. I’m one of those people who wants my hotel booked. I want to know what’s happening. And they’re like, no, we’ll find something. So it’s just really interesting. But I have Italian friends… This is called a cammino, and it’s very much a tradition in Italy that you sort of go off the grid and spend a few days walking with other travelers. I said, well, how does it work? Do people walk faster or slower? You just kind of find a groove and meet people. So it’s an incredible tradition in Italy that they all go on cammini. They just do it. It’s part of what they do on their days off, whereas we don’t necessarily have a 2,000-year-old pilgrimage trail around here. But it’s very interesting.

Scicli Fun Facts: Affordable Stays, a Vintage Train, and a Ferry to Malta

Katerina: I have two fun facts before we leave Scicli.

Jason: Okay.

Katerina: Well, first I want to say that hotels in these small towns are incredibly low-cost. You’ll find a hotel on Piazza Duomo for 79 euros a night. You do want to do your research ahead, but I won’t necessarily mention a list of hotels. The cost is low because you’re not in a big town like Palermo or an expensive town like Taormina. So you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the costs of staying. One fun fact is there’s a train line that connects Noto and the Val di Noto, Ispica, Pozzallo, Scicli, the town we’re in now, Modica, the famous town for chocolate, and Ragusa. And it’s one of the most scenic routes in Sicily. In the summer, they’ll put a vintage 1930s or 1950s train on the track, and you can stop in all of the towns of the UNESCO Val di Noto, where we are right now. The Val di Noto is UNESCO because of that earthquake and all of its Baroque architecture that got built at the same time after the earthquake. So that’s an interesting, fun train route, not expensive. You can hop on and off.

And then one other fun fact is a ferry fun fact. We went from Scicli down to Pozzallo and took the ferry an hour and a half to Malta. And you’re in a different country, a different Mediterranean island nation. The ferry is not expensive. It’s just 30 minutes away. We just took a taxi. And then you can be in the island nation of Malta for a few days. We flew out of Malta, but you can also just come back and fly out of Palermo if you want.

Jason: Cool. That’s a nice way… I like when you can dip in and spend just a little bit of time in another place.

Katerina: Yeah, under two hours. I mean, you could go for the day if you wanted. I would say you maybe want to spend a night, or have a tour guide. If you’re going for a day, have somebody meet you at the port, get you around, and get you back. But yeah, Malta was surprisingly beautiful. And of course, that’s where they filmed Gladiator and some of those interesting movies. The other thing about Malta is it was a British island until 1950 or something, so they speak English. So Malta is easy from that standpoint.

Pilgrimage Routes for Non-Religious Travelers

Jason: Yeah. And thanks for touching on the pilgrimage routes. I always like to remind people, we’ve talked about a lot of these walks around the world on this show over the years, and I just think it’s an important reminder. People who are dipping their toes into that, or researching perhaps doing one of these things, often find information about the Camino de Santiago or some of the more well-known ones. But these pilgrimage routes are in different countries around the world. We’ve talked about some in Japan. We’re talking about Italy now. You can find these experiences where you walk and sleep in small villages, and you can find them in different places around the world where perhaps it’s less crowded. There’s one here in Norway that has a fraction of the number of people that go on some of the larger ones. Of course, that might be due to the weather and some of the challenges in the nature here. But everyone’s going to be different and unique. I just wanted to highlight that this is perhaps something to consider looking into if you want to explore this area in a different way.

Katerina: Yeah. And every one of my books has a pilgrimage chapter, because there’s always a pilgrimage route wherever you are, whether it’s the Way of St. Francis in Umbria… You can certainly find routes that connect with the Camino de Santiago, because people would be coming up through Italy to connect.

Jason: Slow adventure travel. I love it. One more thing about that, because one of the bullet points you sent over is that pilgrimage routes appeal even to non-religious travelers. This is another thing I wanted you to speak on, because oftentimes the pilgrimage thing gets associated with religion, but that’s more historical than it is modern in many ways.

Katerina: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So the pilgrimage routes are nice because they’re set up with the infrastructure to house the pilgrims, whether it’s a hostel-type setup, with food to offer the pilgrims. And then you’re on the path with others, but you’re not on the path with a group of monks. I mean, you might be, but it’s really just people interested in slow travel, walking, getting out into nature. And it’s a nice path that you can follow through all of Italy. There are lots of different trails.

Jason: Do you find that with people you’ve met on these things… What does it mean to be a pilgrim? Oftentimes it’s a trek for religious reasons. But I’ve heard a lot of stories from pilgrimage routes of people for whom perhaps it’s not directly related to religion, but it’s something they’re working through. It is something spiritual.

Katerina: Divorce, or spiritual.

Jason: Yeah, in those places you do meet some interesting people, because you’re also meeting people who may be going through some things in life. Did you have that experience?

Katerina: Yeah, more people trying to overcome a challenge, that sort of thing, or make a big decision in their life. Some people want to chit-chat. Some people just want to move along, but still be in a group. So yeah, it just depends. And I include options if you’d like to cycle near a pilgrimage way. So there are also options where maybe you don’t want to walk the pilgrim route, but you’d like to see some of the sites. There are certainly ways to cycle in the vicinity of the path.

Jason: Yeah. It just adds another layer or dynamic to the travel experience on those pilgrimage routes. We can move on. Wow, that was an action-packed recommendation right there.

Hidden Gem #2: Noto and the Infiorata

Katerina: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So our next town is not far. It’s close to Syracuse, so we’re still in the southeast corner, and it’s Noto, the city of Noto in the Val di Noto. I was attracted to this location. It was actually my first festival target, because they have a festival called the Infiorata di Noto. It’s a famous flower festival. They make flower art on the pavement on a street called Via Nicolaci, which is a beautiful street with Baroque palaces on both sides and a church at the top. It’s on a hill, so you can see all of the flower art all the way up. We’re about eight kilometers away, so not super far. You could definitely do both of these. And the thing about the Infiorata is it was about the same time as the festival of the Madonna of the Military. It’s just the weekend before. And what they do for the Infiorata is they lay the flowers overnight. Friday night, the entire town is involved. They’ve saved flower petals and seeds and all the pieces they need for the artworks. They put them together overnight on Friday. And of course, everyone is praying that there’s no wind and no rain, because it’s just laid on the ground in its artworks. And every year is a different theme.

This year was the 47th edition, will be the 47th edition, in just a few weeks. And this year’s theme is called La cultura pop si racconta, or Pop Culture Tells a Story. We’re talking Freddie Mercury, the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Coco Chanel, and they’re all pieces of art based on this pop culture. So it’s really interesting. They’ve been doing this since 1980. And I had seen it on that morning show. I watched them putting the art together, all the colors. Of course, all the art is planned well in advance, but they come out and put the flowers down. And it’s also part of a wider celebration in Noto called the Primavera Barocca, or the Baroque Spring. So again, you’ve got people in medieval dress, you’ve got the tamburini working their way around town, and the bands, the medieval court. So it’s not just this street, the Infiorata. It’s everything else in town. And the town is absolutely stunning. It really is the capital of Baroque architecture, with its cathedral and the Baroque palaces. And my advice is, if you can get there and see them setting it up, it’s really interesting to see, and then visit the next day and see the art when it’s finished. This is something that does require a ticket, and it’s not expensive. Most of these festivals are absolutely free. This one, they want just a couple of euros. And really what they’re doing is putting you in a time slot so it’s not a total madhouse. The tickets are available on their website, Infiorata di Noto. You can just search that, or we can put it in the show notes. But you do want a ticket, because that’s how they organize the flow. It’s a narrow street, the art’s in the middle, and you’re walking up both sides of the street. They just don’t want it to be a mob or people waiting in line for hours. So you do need tickets for this.

Jason: I mean, I’m looking at a few pictures of these installations now. It’s just incredible. Do yourself a favor. If you’re listening to this on the go and you’re looking at the show notes later, just do a quick Google search and you’ll see. It’s just, wow.

Katerina: Yeah. So every year, like I said, there’s a different theme, and the whole town is involved. When you go into town for the Infiorata, you’ll also want to visit the town hall. It was the Ducal Palace back in the day. And you’ll actually see all of the canisters of flowers that they use, what they’ve got left over, all the petals. They’re collecting this stuff for months. It’s really, really incredible. The Infiorata tradition actually started in Genzano, near Rome. Noto’s is the most famous Infiorata, but there are Infioratas all around Italy. Many of them are on the Feast of Corpus Domini, or Corpus Christi, which is when Genzano’s is. So it’s not unique to Noto, but Noto’s is very famous because of the Baroque architecture and the whole festival around the festival.

Noto’s Sweet Stops: Granita, Cannoli, and an Arancini Class

Katerina: And I do have to mention two spots in town as far as food. One of them is Caffè Sicilia. We actually found Caffè Sicilia because we were watching a Netflix show that featured the owner. It’s called Chef’s Table. In the area of Noto, there are almond trees, and they’re a special kind of sweet almond. And he has turned those into a very special granita. Now, granita is Sicilian. I don’t want to call it a slushy, because that would downgrade it. It’s more elegant than that. It was started during the Arab times, when the Arabs would go up onto Mount Etna and get snow and mix it with local flavors: strawberries, almonds, coffee. I know, we can’t call it that. The granita is a very famous breakfast in town. You eat it with a warm brioche out of the oven, and you’ll say, what? We’re having a granita and a brioche for breakfast? But once you’ve had it, you won’t turn back. And in Noto, Caffè Sicilia is very famous for their almond granita. If there is a line, just wait. It’s worth it. I’m going to admit that my husband and I go here twice a day when we’re in town. We go for breakfast, and then we go for our afternoon snack. Because of course, a granita is great on a warm summer day. It’s a nice way to cool down. And it’s a 1,000-year-old tradition, really from when the Arabs were in control of Sicily. So the granita has several hundred years of tradition. And so yes, this is a great place to stop. They offer lemon, pistachio, another local flavor, strawberries, almond, and other flavors when they’re in season. So it’s a prize. Yeah, it’s a treasure here.

Jason: Now, is that on the main street?

Katerina: That is on the main street where you’re walking in, so you’ll pass by it no matter what you do. Corso Vittorio Emanuele is the street.

Jason: Katerina, have you ever been tempted to buy one of these one-euro houses in Italy and pick up and move to one of those small villages? Tell me you haven’t thought about that.

Katerina: I would say I would buy a house in Sicily today if my husband wasn’t like, just wait a minute, let’s go spend 90 days there and make sure that’s the town for us. Absolutely. Yeah, I would. I feel like I could speak enough Italian to work with a contractor. But we’d probably be more into… I’m not exaggerating when I say you can get a great house with a sea view that’s already been restored for $118,000 in Sicily. So you don’t really have to do the work to restore something when you can get a hundred-thousand-dollar house with a sea view.

Jason: Well, if anybody can sell them on it, it’s going to be you, I think.

Katerina: So there’s one other sweet stop in town. Of course, Sicily is famous for the cannolo. And Caffè Costanzo is also in the center of town. My husband swears they’re the best cannoli in all of Italy. And if you’ve been eating cannoli in the United States, you’re maybe eating them pre-made, which you do not want to do. At Caffè Costanzo, you’ve got the crispy shell, and they fill it with the sheep’s milk ricotta right in front of you. And that’s what you’re looking for, because if you fill it ahead, you get a somewhat soggy shell. Here they’re filled to order. And they may stick pistachios on the end, or candied orange, which is another local specialty, and sprinkle powdered sugar on, and you just eat it fast, walking down the street. Really simple, but very delicious. And that sheep’s milk ricotta is key, because it has a tangier flavor. So that’s why it’s a little bit different than the cow’s milk ricotta that we have here.

Jason: It is. Well, I used to work in an Italian restaurant in high school, and even a bit in junior high, I think. It was owned by Italians, and I filled the cannolis in the back when somebody would order them. You’d squeeze it in, and you bet that I would make sure I’d get a little extra finger full, or a spoonful at least. I probably used my finger. Sorry, folks. Just of that cream, because it’s so good, the filling. Oh, I still remember eating many of those.

Katerina: Yeah, and that sheep’s milk ricotta is also used in the cassata, and they have the cassatine, which are the little cakes here made with that ricotta. Oh, so good. I know I talk about experiences. We did an arancini cooking class in town, and I love arancini. Arancini are the fried rice balls. I specifically wanted to learn how to make them, because every mom and every grandmother in Sicily knows how to make these. And I have made them since we returned, but they take a lot of time, because you’re preparing the rice ahead and refrigerating it, preparing the ragù, the meat sauce, ahead and refrigerating it, and then putting everything together, wrapping it up, and frying it. So it’s a very special treat. I recommend learning how to make them if you’re in town.

Jason: Nice. Okay.

Hidden Gem #3: Trani, Puglia

Katerina: Okay. We need to jump off the island now and move over to Trani. Trani is in Puglia. Puglia is the heel of the boot of Italy. Bari is the capital of the region, and we’re about 28 miles, 45 kilometers, north. A lot of people don’t get to Trani. It’s my absolute favorite town in all of Puglia. People head south to Lecce, which is Pugliese Baroque. They head to the more famous towns. But for me, Trani is just stunning. It’s on the sea, and you’ve got a very beautiful marina there in the port. But you’ve also got the Cathedral of Trani, built in the 1100s. The interesting thing is, you ask, why is this town so spectacular as far as its castle, its Norman castle, and its cathedral? It’s because it was along a pilgrimage route. Pilgrims would stop here on their way to the Holy Land. It was a boarding point for ships to the Holy Land. So these spots were really built out because the pilgrims were coming through. And so the cathedral is the Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Pilgrim, San Nicola Pellegrino, built in 1099, right on the water. So if you’ve seen this tall, beautiful Romanesque church on the water, you’ve probably seen the Trani Cathedral. Really incredible.

And it’s right in front of the castle, the Norman castle, the Castello Svevo. Oh, sorry, Swabian castle, then Norman. But it was really interesting for me, because I went to the castle when it opened in the morning, and I was the only one there. You walk out on the parapet, you’re right on the sea, looking down into the sea, looking at the cathedral. I actually got lost in there. There was no one to help me. I was completely alone. Not an employee, no other tourists. Really stunning views. I didn’t mind that I was lost. I figured eventually I would find my way out. But it’s just incredible. An incredible town with the sea views, and obviously a lot of special restaurants with local fish right on the water, watching the fishing boats come and go. My favorite spot here for breakfast is called Bar Europa. It was just a quick walk. We stayed at a hotel that was in a convent, San Paolo al Convento. So it’s a convent turned into a hotel, a really nice, beautiful spot to stay, right on the water. So it’s another town that’s not on the tourist path, but you say to yourself, how could this not be? Because the history here is so incredible. And I had again seen its festival, the festival for the saint, on my morning show. That’s how I’m always targeting my cities. I’ve seen them on my show and I can’t wait to arrive.

As far as experiences here, one of the things I want to mention about Puglia that you might not know is that Puglia produces more olives and olive oil than any other region in Italy. I know Tuscany is famous for olive oil, but there’s a chance that you’re getting Pugliese olives in your Tuscan olive oil, because they supply most of the olives. So when you’re here, a great experience is to book a spot at a mill-to-table olive farm and do an olive oil tasting. And really, when you’re driving around Puglia, you’re not going to be able to miss the olive trees, because they’re a thousand years old, they’re right next to the street, and they’re everywhere you go, fields of olive trees. So it’s definitely a great experience to visit Trani. And like I said, it’s a quick train ride if you’re in Bari. I think they’re even doing some direct flights from New York to Bari now, which is super exciting. So you can get there and just take a quick train along the coast, which is super convenient.

Hidden Gem #4: The Castelli Romani

Katerina: So yeah, now we need to move toward Rome, because I know a lot of our visitors are visiting Rome, and they’re in with the crowds at the Fontana di Trevi, the Trevi Fountain, hustling and bustling.

Jason: Oh, well, it’s hustle and bustle. That’s for sure.

Katerina: Wall-to-wall people, hustle and bustle, year-round, really. And so I would recommend, if you can, taking a little side trip. The Castelli Romani is a group of hill towns. It’s actually 17 towns, all clustered together outside of Rome, about 15 miles, 25 kilometers, outside of Rome, so not far. But for more than 2,000 years, this is where Romans have gone for the weekend. This is where they go to escape the crowds. Even emperors had villas here, because they also wanted to get out of Rome in the heat of summer, when diseases were spreading and everything else, and get the fresh air of the hill towns. So there are Roman villas, vineyards, lake views. Frascati is one of the towns, and it has an incredible wine festival where the wine comes out of the fountains in the city. During the wine festival, you fill your glass out of the fountain.

Jason: It’s like Willy Wonka’s factory.

Katerina: I know. I know. It is. It’s red wine, so it’s splashing out through the fountains. Genzano, which I mentioned, is in this area. It was the first Infiorata festival. Castel Gandolfo is another one of the towns, and it is where the papal palace is. Actually, during the reign of Pope Francis, he had opened the papal train, which was a train route that went from the Vatican to Castel Gandolfo. That’s all it did, go back and forth to get the Pope to his summer villa. I don’t know if it’s still open under Pope Leo. We’ll have to do some investigating. But I thought that would be an interesting experience. Here you’re going to visit the papal house and gardens. The papal palace is here. We visited Castel Gandolfo during Pope Benedict’s reign, and it was really interesting. We traveled out here because we were in Rome in July, and he wasn’t in Rome. He was at his summer palace, and we wanted to visit with him. So we booked a ticket with the nuns that organized things for the papal audiences in Castel Gandolfo. And we got to go inside the palace courtyard with some other Catholic pilgrims who wanted to hear the audience of the Pope. But it was very unique. Instead of being in Piazza San Pietro with 10,000 people, you were with just a couple hundred inside. So it’s a very unique experience here in Castel Gandolfo, which sits around Lago Albano, around the lake.

Jason: Can you swim there?

Katerina: Yes, you can. There are nice walking trails. Of course, the views from these hill towns down onto the lake are incredible. There are lots of places where you can eat lunch. Even in the summer, you get some cool breezes, which is why the Romans would come out this way during the summer. And Castel Gandolfo is famous for its peach festival in July, and they always gift a crate of peaches to the Pope. So it’s beautiful year-round here in the Rome area. Like you said, even in February it’s going to be pretty busy in Rome, but you’re going to come to these towns and there’s nobody visiting. Ariccia is another famous town, famous for porchetta, which is a famous dish in Lazio. It’s pork, sort of hammered flat, and they roll it up with spices like fennel and rosemary, and then they cook it. You’ll get a slice of it, and it’s absolutely delicious, savory, slow-cooked, and famous here in Ariccia, where they have the festival of the porchetta in the summer, of course. So there’s lots to see in these small towns. You can get to Castel Gandolfo by train. For the other towns, you’re going to want a car. I actually just booked a driver from Rome to take me to all the towns I wanted to get to in the Castelli Romani in a day. And in a town like Nemi, which is famous for its strawberries and wild strawberry festival, you only need a couple of hours. They’re pretty small towns. So yeah, just beautiful places, fresh air right outside of Rome, and a very memorable day trip.

Jason: Nice.

Katerina: Yes, yes. And one note about the Apostolic Palace: you get the tickets to Castel Gandolfo on the Musei Vaticani, the Vatican Museums’ website. So you can get tickets to the gardens, the secret rooms of the castle, the general castle tour. All of those are available at a minimal cost, again, on the Vatican website.

Hidden Gem #5: Treviso

Katerina: Okay, we’re moving north. And this time we’re visiting Venice, but we want a day trip, because Venice is wall-to-wall people. And you think, I’d like to visit another town with canals. Why not go to Treviso? Treviso is a 30-minute direct train ride from Venice. You know, the Venice train station is right on the canals. You take that train out, and all of a sudden you’re in the beautiful medieval town of Treviso. This town is famous for its canals that run through town and its water mills that still run today. They would mill the flour, and they would make fabrics with these mills during medieval times. The monks usually owned the water mills, and so there’s a monastery here. It’s surrounded by defensive walls. And it’s got a merchant connection, because of course the merchants of Venice were part of the reason that city became so rich, and Treviso was close by, right on the waterway. And so Treviso is so local. It’s got incredible churches. It’s got incredible sites to see. It’s known to be the birthplace of tiramisu, so you’ll want some tiramisu when you’re in town. There are some shops that offer varieties of tiramisu. It’s got another church of St. Nicholas, some grand Franciscan churches, incredible art. And it’s all very walkable from the Treviso train station. So you get off the train, you enter the historic walls over the moat of the town, and it’s just beautiful.

I actually visited Treviso because I have a couple of friends through Tandem who live in town, and they took us around on a tour. It was just an incredible way to see the town. We ate at a pizza place on Piazza dei Signori, the main piazza. Delicious. Just people watching and enjoying the views. Quiet, not another tourist in town. And you’re saying to yourself, why are more people from Venice not taking this quick train ride to see these canals and these water mills running and the flowers and just the beauty of this town? But people don’t know about it. They’ve never heard of it. So that’s why they’re not getting over there.

Jason: Love it. Bring your sweet tooth on this trip too.

Katerina: Yeah, lots of sweets. I have a sweet tooth. Their festival is the Feast of San Liberale. It’s April 27. So if you’re going to be in town around then… And of course, it’s in my Venice and the Veneto book. Every one of the towns we’re talking about is in one of the chapters in the books, so it’s easy to get your bearings.

Hidden Gem #6: Sirmione and Lake Garda

Jason: Great. We’ve got two more stops in Italy by my count.

Katerina: Yeah, two more stops. I know, I know.

Jason: What an amazing list.

Katerina: Yeah, we could do this 20 times, because there are so many off-the-beaten-path stops that people don’t know about. They’re just a quick train ride away. So a lot of people, when they’re in Milan and in the north, head to Como, the very famous lake. George Clooney has a house there.

Jason: George Clooney.

Katerina: I love Lake Garda.

Jason: Everybody knows Clooney lives there.

Katerina: Yes, exactly.

Jason: Poor guy.

Katerina: At Como, they also filmed some movies, so it got famous for 007 and things like that. But Garda is my favorite lake. Lake Garda, Lago di Garda. It’s very similar. It’s also a mountainous, glacial lake. It’s actually the biggest lake in northern Italy. There’s also Lago Maggiore, which seems like it would be the biggest lake, but it’s not. This one is. It’s also very deep. My son wanted to go hang gliding, so he went hang gliding in Malcesine, off the mountain, off the White Mountain there.

Jason: I’m sure you weren’t nervous at all.

Katerina: No, I wasn’t going to sign up for it, but I wasn’t nervous. He had a plan. And so the town that I wanted to mention is Sirmione, which is actually on a peninsula that goes up into the lake. And I love Sirmione in the morning, before anybody’s out and walking around, because you’ve got water on both sides. It’s beautiful in the morning and just so quiet. At the end of the peninsula of Sirmione was a Roman villa. So since Roman times, people have been coming here. There are thermal baths in Sirmione, so you can spend a half day at the spa with lake views and thermal baths that were, again, found during Roman times, where the water comes out sulfuric and steaming. The Italians really see the terme as healing places to visit. You can visit the castle, a beautiful Scaliger castle built in the 13th century. It’s worth climbing up to the top, to the parapets, just for the incredible views of the lake. There’s also a castle in Malcesine. And I really love the town when it’s quiet, before there are a lot of people walking around.

And there are other towns. Once you’re in Sirmione, you go by ferry. There are great ferry connections. Desenzano is another town. Desenzano actually has the train station, and Peschiera has a train station. So if you’re coming from Milan by train, you’re going to end up in one of those towns, and you can take the ferry over to Sirmione. No car needed. And of course, ferries are a great way to get on the water without spending a lot of money on a private boat. So Lazise, Bardolino, Malcesine, which I mentioned, Limone sul Garda: there are many incredible towns on this lake. Just quiet hill towns, mountain towns. Some of them have nice beaches. The water is cold, I will say. It’s glacial, snowmelt kind of water. So it’s a deep lake, a little bit cold even in the summer. Refreshing, let’s call it refreshing. There are vineyards here. So if you want a vineyard experience, you’ll get to the vineyards nearby. It’s a really incredible climate here, where they can grow lemons in the north of Italy and have those vineyards. They’re protected by the faces of the mountains. So it’s a really beautiful place to visit on the lake. One of my favorite places in all of Italy.

Jason: Nice. Okay. I’ve been scouting out these places as you’ve been talking about them, looking at some pictures and stuff, and it does look spectacular. So these are my kind of recommendations, I would say.

Katerina: Yeah. One of the things I love about Sirmione is you have to enter through the castle gate to get into town. There’s one way in. The water was the moat, and you go over the bridge to enter. When we arrived last time, there was a thunderstorm threatening. We had parked our car, of course, outside the gate, and we were running with our luggage to get through the castle gate like we were being chased. But instead of being chased by invaders, we were being chased by the thunderstorm. Yeah, it’s a really great place to visit. I love being on the lake, being on the water. It’s just so tranquil and relaxing, even on a ferry. It’s a really great way to get around.

Hidden Gem #7: Spoleto, Umbria

Katerina: Okay, we need to make it to our last stop, and it’s in the center of Italy, in Umbria. It’s called Spoleto. Umbria is the only region of Italy that has no access to the sea and doesn’t touch another nation, like Austria. So it’s unique in that way. You’ve heard, of course, of Assisi. Assisi is an incredible pilgrimage town with a double-decker cathedral, a beautiful place to visit. Spoleto is about 35 minutes from Assisi, so still in the heart of Umbria. And for me, Spoleto is my favorite town in all of Umbria. In Assisi, of course, you’ve got your pilgrims, you’ve got a lot of people. There was no one but us and the locals in Spoleto. It’s got an absolutely incredible Duomo with just beautiful art. You get such a unique experience visiting here. When you arrive, you park outside of the hill town and you take a series of escalators to get in, moving walkways bringing you from parking into town, and elevators, of course. And the cathedral there was built in 1207. It’s got beautiful mosaics on the front, and it’s got some spectacular art from Filippo Lippi, an incredible fresco cycle inside.

And again, we were the only ones in the piazza. We were the only ones in the church. We made the climb up to the Rocca, which is the fortress at the top of the town. A lot of the fortresses throughout Italy are ruins. This one isn’t, because it was a prison until 1982, so it was maintained as a prison. So you can go inside the fortress. They also have an incredible bridge here. It’s called the Ponte delle Torri, and it crosses the gorge between the Rocca, the fortress, and the other side of the hill. It’s a 13th-century aqueduct bridge that was built over a Roman aqueduct foundation. So it goes from the Rocca across the gorge. And what this creates for visitors is a unique hiking experience, because you can hike to this bridge. There are nice trails around. Then you can hike up to the Rocca for incredible views of the valley. So it’s just got a panoramic feel to it, and a great feel of getting out into nature while also visiting this town. I know maybe some people aren’t into hiking, but we really like to see some of the spots in nature that were maybe used during Roman times. So there are really incredible trails here.

Jason: Yeah, I love an activity like that during the day. And then you feel like you earned your meal later when you chow down.

Katerina: Yes. Yeah, you’re going uphill even if you’re just going to the Rocca. But getting out into nature and being on the trails is really nice too. So here I want to mention there’s a restaurant called Il Tempio del Gusto, and they make a special pasta that’s made in this area called strangozzi. These are a long, rectangular pasta, something like tagliatelle, if you know what that is, made from flour and water, so no eggs. They’re famous between this town of Spoleto and another really great town nearby called Foligno. And they got their name because during the time of the Papal States, there were anti-clerical rebels, and they would strangle clergymen passing through with their shoelaces. So they got their name from this strange tradition of the time, when there was some competition between the Papal States and other leaders. So in theory, they resemble that. And so you’ve got the strangozzi pasta here in town. That’s what you’re looking for when you come to one of the restaurants in town.

Jason: That’s some dark history for a piece of pasta.

Katerina: I know, I know. Our biggest surprise here was just that there’s no one here. There’s the Duomo, there’s the castle, there are other beautiful sites in town, and nobody is making the trek out here. They’re just going to Assisi and heading out. So it’s a really great town to visit, and again, easily accessible. So those are my seven towns, and I’m just passionate about all of them. We really prefer to be in the towns filled with locals and not necessarily just the bigger tourist towns. So these are some great secret spots.

Where to Find Katerina

Jason: Speaking my language, speaking our language. I’m sure I can speak for the listener a bit there. I love the “go here instead of there” type of lists as well, and you gave us some of those alternative destinations along the way. You clearly know your stuff. Will you please share where everybody can connect with you and learn about the books? And I know you have a podcast as well. So here’s your chance to mention it all.

Katerina: Yes, absolutely. My website is Katerina with a K, Ferrara, F-E-R-R-A-R-A, dot com. I’ve got the books there. You can search Katerina Ferrara on Amazon and all the books will come up for you. My Immersion Travel Italy podcast comes out every Friday at 7 a.m. with a new episode. We travel all around Italy. We visit some of the incredible festivals of Italy. And I also have a YouTube channel that has those podcasts on video, just like you do, if you want to see some of the images of the festivals. So yes, those are all my weekly activities, as well as all my writing. And thank you so much for having me on today.

Jason: Thank you. Very much appreciate your time and the thoughtfulness behind the list. I’ve now got a whole list of recommendations for my next trip to Italy. And if you don’t mind sending over this list, we can get it to everybody as well, of course. If you made it this far, you’ve already listened to the show. But I always encourage people, don’t peek at the list too much, because you don’t get the in-depth nuance and stories behind the recommendations like you do when you listen to the podcast. And of course, if people want more Italy, check out all the stuff you mentioned, which we’ll link to in the show notes. And yeah, I hope we can keep in touch.

Katerina: Thank you so much. Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. I’ll talk to you soon. Have a good day.

Jason: You too.

Closing Thoughts

Jason: There you have it. Hope you enjoyed that one. Thank you once again to Katerina for stopping by the show. I’ll leave you with a quote from Federico Fellini, who said, “Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” We eat a lot of pasta in this house, so I had to leave you with that one. What other places do you want to hear hidden gems from? You know, I’ve been publishing at least one Hidden Gems show a month. You may have noticed if you look back in the feed. Are there some towns, cities, or countries you want me to do a Hidden Gems episode on? Shoot me an email and let me know: [email protected]. Get in touch anytime. I love to hear from the listening community. And thank you, my friend, for being a part of this community and for listening to the pod. I appreciate you. I just wanted to say that. Thanks for listening. Peace and love to you and yours. Cheers.