Guest Posting : “You See, This is the Thing”
This fourth guest posting is from Denise in New Haven
I think I may not be your most typical client because I lived in Italy for so long, from middle school through high school, starting in 1958. All my life I have gone back. I still have friends in Italy from my adolescence.
Italy was much more regional when I was growing up. Going from Rome to Milan felt like a trip to the moon. Food was so different; people were so different; dialects were so different. Living in Rome, we stayed very local. As Italians did.
I made my career in the United States but have returned to Italy every year since I left in 1966; including to Milano where my parents spent three years and I at last got to know Lombardy, Valle D’Aosta and Piedmont. I deeply desired to explore all 20 regions of Italy but not by zipping from one city to the next, rather an in depth, personal experience like the one Insider’s Italy offers.
But even for someone like me who speaks Italian, and has Italian citizenship, the planning you did for me was something I could never, ever do for myself. First because things change every year and with each return, I found favorite stores or restaurants closed. Indeed, when I went “home” I needed new points of reference which you provided. New museums had opened, new archeological discoveries were made, and because you are on top of these details, you help to assure a successful trip.
So, I have taken several trips with your guidance. Eight years ago, you planned Puglia, region of my paternal grandmother. I didn’t realize how big Puglia is, and contrary to what I suggested, you insisted on two bases so that excursions could be in much smaller geographical areas. Once there, we recognized immediately the value of this suggestion. We appreciated so much the bases you chose for us, Ruvo and an olive estate near Ostuni. Ruvo rarely, if ever, sees a tourist — as you told us. No one made an effort to speak to us in English, locals approached us with that warm hospitality that you see in Puglia and insisted on taking us into churches, to watch taralli being made, to visit cheese cellars, and into their trulli. We were enchanted all the way through — and this is before I talk about the value of the structured itineraries you laid out for us for every day, including where to have lunch (and if a picnic, where to pick up fantastic picnic supplies.)
On that same trip, en route to Puglia, we included Ascoli Piceno since my husband Rich’s family is from Marche. Ascoli was not a town I intended to include. You insisted, however, arranged car pick-up most conveniently and mapped out in detail our route through Marche and to Puglia. In Ascoli, you put us in the most fantastic castle-now-a-hotel with one of the Europe’s great palm tree collections, and introduced us to the owner, who could not have been more charming. We became very friendly with her over the next days.
This is the sort of door that you are so good at opening. Introductions seem to happen naturally because everyone you work with seems to be your friend.
In Ascoli the square you described as your favorite in Italy quickly became mine too. You as usual planned all restaurants, including a family run trattoria that not only introduced us to real olive ascolane (the local specialty) but also makes what I think have to be the best in the entire world.
Of course, the trattoria owners, as happens in all your restaurants, opened their hearts to us and told us exactly how to make them, including where in town we should pick up fresh olives so we could make them at home. (I did not have the courage to tell them my residence was New Haven CT and so tragically I could not take home the fresh olives, which I actually gobbled up in the car, an entire bag of them, fantastic.)
I want to emphasize how invaluable are the introductions you make to Italians with a long history of working with Insider’s Italy. Excellent relationships happen naturally because everyone you work with seems to be your friend.
By point of comparison, a year ago, a friend returning from a family Italian trip organized by his father told me that he sat in a restaurant for an hour, ignored by busy staff. This would never happen to your clients since you pave the way by introductions as Client of Marjorie Shaw – so the better tables and personal attention are offered. Personalized service is the key.
When we had you plan our Umbria trip three years ago, we wanted to walk in Assisi by day and night. You encouraged us strongly to consider a special convent hotel. This turned out to be one of the best tips ever because we fell asleep and awakened in an ancient palazzo in the heart of town and that since the 17th century had accommodated religious sisters. This deepened our perception of the profound spirit of St Francis, a spirit that we soon understood as ecumenical, and that makes Assisi intensely attractive to travelers of different faiths and from all over the world.
Church bells were sweet in the morning. The nuns were warm and helpful. We were not surprised to learn that the restaurant that they always went to for celebrations was exactly the same one where you had booked us a table for our first evening. We walked high in the hills, on a route you suggested, with wildflowers, and took great strength from the experience of following trails taken by St Francis. Our second Umbria accommodation was an upscale and really glorious inn that during the 16-19thcenturies, popes used as a guest house for travelers on pilgrimage. It is surrounded by vineyards, and our dinner there was made better still by the delicious wines. The owner set aside time to visit with us at the dinner table, and the following day to provide history of the inn, show us pictures of the reconstruction, and answer my questions about the lovely linens he had on display…including calling the producers to ensure that they would be open for us to visit. They were — and we became friends with them too. We left with a bottle of their olive oil, and the promise to come back and see them again. (And they also sent us some beautiful linens that bring daily joy to our dining room table.)
A trip to Veneto in 2014 featured yet another bijoux accommodation, this time in the village of Asolo. The hotel, owned by sisters, is so well run, beautifully decorated and comfortable in every way. Walks through the hillside olive groves, a restaurant hidden in the valley and the town itself make it an ideal retreat and jumping point to head for the villas of Palladio.
We would never had found this on our own. We would never have arrived feeling already like friends or left with deepest regret.
An Insider’s Italy trip feels sometimes like a relay race where you are the baton and are passed between one runner and the next — in the nicest way.
For Sicily (May 2019) I appreciate how you insisted that we start planning early. You sent maps, as you always do, the fantastic Touring Club Italia maps that my family used when I was a child in Rome and that are still only printed in Italy. We talked through destinations over the months that led up to setting an itinerary, and you gave me a Reading List that kept me busy for much of the winter. I really became immersed in Sicily. Your suggestions were history, memoirs, novels, detective stories, plays, cookbooks, a guide to Sicilian marionettes, and the Blue Guide to prepare me for the astounding Greek architecture.
On every trip you chose guides for us — guides who brought out details, history, context for everything we saw with them. I am thinking right now of Nicoletta in Agrigento, who spent four hours with us at the Archeological Museum.
She made it, for those four hours, the most interesting place in the world. We were absolutely absorbed in every Greek vase, every sculpture, every bas relief. My friend Kathy, who was with us, and who is a trained archeologist, said that she drew as much from Nicoletta as did we.
I can’t imagine ever going back to Italy without your help. It is not that I cannot plan a trip myself. I can. I speak Italian and I know Italy well. It is that when you are involved a trip that could be good becomes something amazing.
I am counting the days till I can start planning a trip to Trentino-Alto Adige with you. I know you are deeply familiar with the region having spent so much time visiting Rovereto when your children were small. You see, this is the thing: your trips spring from a deep well of hands-on experience.
You have been there and done it.
Thank you again and again, Marjorie and Insider’s Italy.