Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Italy Top 10 Anniversary Special (Part 2)

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

Welcome to part 2 of my anniversary special. That is, my 10-year anniversary of being an Italian citizen.In the last episode, my friend Toni and I shared our favorite:PizzaPastaItalian customsToursMuseumsToday, you’ll hear about the best BeachesWinePastryMore hidden gemsAnd less-touristy Italian citiesAt least, this is the best according to us :) You are welcome to chime in with your own recommendations on Instagram. You can find me @sarahmikutelEnjoy the episode! 🇮🇹Visit sarahmikutel.com to get in touch about how we can work one-on-one together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Looking for a guide to help you discover your Enneagram personality type? Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionWant to connect on Insta? Find me hereDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy, a show about travel, living abroad, and location independence for people seeking a more meaningful freedom-puelled life. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel, an American who first moved abroad on our own at age 18, and who has been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. I am so glad you're here. My guests and I will share with you how we made our travel, living abroad, and location independent dreams come true, and how you can too, because you will never have this day again. Make it matter. Welcome to part two of my anniversary special. That is my 10-year anniversary of

being an Italian citizen. In the last episode, my friend Tony and I shared our favorite pizza, pasta, Italian customs, tours, and museums. And today, you are going to learn about our favorite beaches, wine, pastry, more hidden gems, and less touristy Italian cities. And again, this is the best according to Tony and I. You are welcome to chime in with your own recommendations. And if you want to share them on Instagram, you can find me at Sarah Micatel. Okay, let's jump right back into my conversation with Tony. Tony, do you have a favorite beach or a park or something in nature? I did one of all three. Okay. So the beach, we've went there together. It's called the Costa de Yittruski. And we were at the northernmost part of that, more or less, which is San Vincenso, which is when you

get to the southern part of San Vincenza, that's where the pretty beach starts. And then it goes all the way down to Barati, even further than Barati. And that's where you just have beach, like sandy beach for miles or for kilometers. And there's the umbrella pines and you can go under the umbrella pines and eat and then like rest in the shade. And you can take these nice long walks and the water is clean and it's pretty easy to swim and you don't have to like get on the slippery rocks and through the slimy stuff. I can't stand that. So I grew up. I grew up. I grew. I up in North Carolina. I need some sand in my toes. So that's my beach right there. And then as far as parks are concerned, I would say the walls of Luca, it's technically a park. And that's just, to me, it's still one of the coolest things ever that you can have a park up on top of a wall. Yeah, it's really cool. And I know you mentioned it a lot in a couple of episodes, right, because you were there. And so Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca and more Luca. And then as far as something in nature, I love the water. And when I moved to Florence, I started rowing skulls. It's called canoitomitajou in Italian. And I'm not good at it. I'm good enough that for the most part,

I don't fall in. I did fall in one time. It's a long story. But for the most part, I don't tip the boat over. And I just rode as to relax. And it's nice to be in the Arno River and look up on the shore or from the water. and you're passing and you can see the Ophizi and you can see all the monuments from far away. It's just a really cool experience to be down there. It gives you a different perspective. Very cool. I have to say, like, I know Italy has some amazing beaches. I don't think I've been to the best of the best yet when it comes to, like, blue water, but I've been to a few cool things. So I love Leche for a summer getaway because it's a really cute, old town, but, like, fantastic restaurants ate of a few places and it was a fantastic meal every time and then it's really easy

to get to the beach from there like I didn't have a car my friend and I ended up at this dog beach so just a beach that lets dogs go on there and the restaurant was so good like I felt like I was like I love when you know if you're in the States or something it's like a clamshack maybe which you know, it's fun. It is what it is. But I love that you can get like really healthy, nice food. And you can pre-order it and they bring it to, you know, can bring it to your chair or bring it to the table. So anyway, I love that about Italian beaches. So Leche is one of my favorite towns and I like those beaches. And then up near Venice, there's a beach called Yeasolo. That's J-E-S-O-L-O. I went there because my friends' families got like a beach house there and it was her birthday so we went and celebrated there

and it's not like the best beach in the world but the water was really nice and worm it's a nice sandy beach i know you like that tony i do as well and it's another place where often in beach towns you've only got like fish restaurants or like fry-ups this town has so many nice restaurants and i really like that when you can have the best of both worlds. I like lying in the beach and I like eating good food. Me too. So you can get that in Yezlo. And it's also very close to Venice. And so if you want to do the Venice thing, then that's accessible as well. Those are two of my favorite things also. So we'll have to do another trip together to a beach. Absolutely. I would love that. I would love to

spend more time doing some southern beaches because I haven't spent enough time in the south. Me too. Me too. Summer 2021, Tony, we're doing it up. You betcha. that up. And what else I want to say? Oh, another thing like from Reggio Emilia, since I've been talking about that, Venice is very easily accessible. It's only like two hours away, I think, by train. And I just feel like everything is so close to Reggio. So it's like, I feel like it's my second home. I like visiting there. Okay. So yeah, leche for the town and yesolo for the beach up in the north. And now it's time to talk about wine. Okay, so, you know, I'm biased because I lived in a winery. And even if I hadn't lived there, I already liked their wine before I lived there. And so I'm going to definitely mention that one. It's called Salva Piana, and it's in the Kianti Rufina, which is a little tiny part of the Kianti. It's only about 5% of Kianti production.

And they make really good reserve wines. And I don't mean Rufino with 2Fs and an O. That's an actual name of a producer. Rufina has one F and an A at the end, and it's an area. So Selva Piana is the one in that Rufina area. And then I love, for Brunello, I love potatine. I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. It's one T and two Zs, potatine.

It's just, I'm not even normally somebody that goes nuts over Brunello, but, and by the way, I'm just talking about the wine. I don't even know what the winery is like. I haven't been. So if we're talking about actual wineries that I've been to to visit, I would say Salchetto. It's in Montepulchano, which is, so you've got Montalcino, Pianza, and Montepulchano. And Montepulchano, in this case, is the area, and the grape is still San Giovese. So not to be confused with a wine from the south called Montepulchano di Abruzzo. So that's a totally different wine with a similar name.

So Salchetto is in Montepulchano in Tuscany. and they have like a very low carbon footprint. I like their ethics and their wines really good, and they've redid the winery so that the roof has the plants growing down the side of half of the building to cool it, and the other half gets hit by the sun to heat it, and the force of gravity is used. So there's like as little electricity and energy used as possible to make the wine, and the wines are really good.

All that sounds good. I wrote down a few myself. So, Kianti, classical. I really liked that place that you took me the last time I was there. What was the name of that place? Castello di Birolio. Ah, Goprolio. Yeah, and the Vincanto.

Yeah, that was a nice place. The birthplace of Kianti. And it was really cool to see the castle, and I thought it was so neat that it's been the same family for over 900 years. And then we had a really nice lunch at Carlino Doro. Oh, yeah. And I thought it was really funny because you made a comment to me like, oh, you don't really drink that much. I feel like I've been drunk for days. I said that to you.

I said you don't drink that much. I can't keep up with you. Another fun, and of course I like Prosecco, but I had really nice experience with my mom where when she comes to visit me, we usually go somewhere. in Italy. And so this time we went to Trieste and decided to do a little day trip to Prosecco, because I don't even think I realized that Prosecco was actually a town. And it happened to be the day of this like annual Prosecco Festival. So they had these little kids in this parade and they were dressed like angels, little Praseco angels, I guess. That's where the bubbles come from. The patron saint of Praseco. And then, yeah, they just had certain

places just had their doors open, almost like VFW style, and we're giving out Prosecco. And so, but in that region, like, nobody spoke Italian. It was so interesting. It was so strange to me. But you know how the borders are always, like, criss-crossing. And so I should double check what they were speaking. Yeah, what was it?

Would it be Austrian? Would it be Slovenian? I think it's Slovenian. Okay. And so, yeah, it was so strong. to me that they at least wouldn't speak both. I'm not sure when that part of Italy became Italy, but it had to have been fairly recently, I would think. Yeah. And then my last one is kind of random, but I do like tremina. And it's not, I wouldn't say like it's my favorite wine, but I feel like, if there's

nothing else that I like, saying tremina in a bar makes me feel cool. It makes me feel like proper Italian because they're surprised that I even know what that is because it sounds so German, but it's actually named after an Italian town, I think, called Termino. It's just a crisp white wine. And so if there's in certain bars, that's what I'll order. Traminer aromatico. Traminer. I can actually speak Italian and I feel like whenever I do a podcast, I don't know if I'm having a block, but my accent is like crap.

So that's okay because your two options are accent being crap or being like the person when you're watching the news and they're like yesterday and Uruguay. You know what I mean? They like totally flip over to the other language. And you're like, wait a minute, dude. I don't know what you're saying to me right now. Barcelona. You're in Barcelona. Don't get me started on Ibiza.

The whole Ibiza thing. Don't get me started. Tony, let's focus. Pastry. Mm-hmm. Okay. So I am Sicilian. Well, actually, I'm part Sicilian, part Calabrian, and a little bit Napolitana, because all my great-grandparents are born in all these places. And I just happened to love the, from the area outside of Naples, you've got the Arragosta, which is like a lobster tail, the crunchy one that's got like a cream filling, but it's injected into it. So it's not soggy. Yeah, not a real lobster tail. The pastry. Yeah, yeah.

It's a pastry that looks like a lobster tail. And then I also love Zepaulet, which is like a fried dough. And then they fill those with cream, except for, you can keep the cream. I don't want the cream. I just want the fried dough. Because when you have the Zepolet, when they're made really well, they almost taste like the French patisieu, the chokette. And that's like my favorite thing ever. And then I love Sicilian canoli, the ones with recalta cheese.

I have to say, I have not had a good canoli. in Italy. I prefer the ones in America, to be honest with you. I felt like that until I went back to Palermo that second time when I gave Palermo a second chance and see what happens. Things can happen when you give them a second chance. Give Genova a second chance. I'll go for you and let you know what I think. So Palermo, that's basically like kind of the, not the birthplace of the Canolo, but that's where it came in from northern Africa, that area of Sicily. And that's kind of like the birthplace of the Sicilian canola. So when you get them there, they're made.

Did you have one there? I may have. I definitely had one in Sicily, but it was not that good. But it depends because if you're on the coast, the west coast, Palermo, that's where you want to have canoli. If you're on the east coast, Katanya, Messina, Sirajusa, forget about it. The canoli are crap. And I learned that the hard way because my family is from that side of Sicily.

So they made them for me. I was all excited. And then they weren't good. And I was like, oh, these are. delicious and I was like how am I going to finish this? Yeah, it's more like chriscoe when you have it bad, but if it's good, it's much more ricotta. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, Palermo all the way, baby, Palermo for the Connole. I'll have to go back there. So, all right, you named some good things and you also sparked a memory in mine. So mine was more of like a memory when I was thinking about my favorite pastry just because it was such a nice experience. some of my friends from the states came over to visit me. When I was living in Reggio, actually, and we went on a little road trip to Cinque Tengue Tere and a few other places. And so we stayed in Monterosso, and that's the island that I would recommend that you stay if you are visiting that area.

And then you can just hike or bike around to the other little five villages. So there's five in total. So I would recommend staying in Monte Roso. But we had, for breakfast, our first day, we found this place that served this pastry that had Nutella in it, but it was really warm. And just like melting in your mouth and having Cabuccino and just looking out at the sea. It was such a good memory. We still are all like, oh, my God, I'm still dreaming about that. But then, as you were talking, I was thinking about a birthday cake alternative that somebody got me for my birthday.

there when I was in Italy. So it was milet folie, which means a thousand leaves. And it's very light thin, like layers of dough, I guess. I'm not sure. And then cream. So it tastes really light. It's probably not.

But it's so nice. It's one of those things that tastes really light. But it's not. It tastes almost. This must be good for me. But yeah, oh my gosh. That's delicious. So that's one of my favorites. And then also, Tony, when on your tour there was a place that I really liked. What was that called that we got?

The warm one. The spolia la crema. That's really good. I love that one too, by the way. I didn't mention it earlier, but if I'm going to have a pastry here, I'm either going to have that, the pasta, the spolia la crema, or budino di Rizzo, which I also love. Yes, so tasty. This episode is sponsored by me or rather by my online course, podcast launch academy.

You are a podcast lover and thank you so much for being here, but I was wondering, have you ever thought about creating a podcast yourself? Well, visit sarahigatel.com to learn how we can work together and to take the podcast personality quiz. Hidden gem. Okay, hidden gem. So you mentioned lece, which is impuglia. And going down there as well in that area, very similar food, lots of good vegetarian options. They do fabulous things with fava beans. And did you have that?

Like it's like a hummus they make out of fava beans and then they put chikori on top? I've had fava beans. I don't think I've had a hummus style, which this sounds nice. It's so good. So they do that. They like puree it. You know what I mean? And then they put greens on top of it.

There's so much good vegetarian stuff down there. So I, you got your citizenship in Reggio Amelia. I got my citizenship in Larino, which is this little town that was a Roman town. And all of the stone is white. And it's like kind of a. hill town, but not too complicated, but just super cute. And basically, I had to go stay down there for several months to get my passport while all the paperwork was going through. And so I ended up getting to know, like, the mayor who also owned the restaurant in town, like the restaurant

that happened to be really good. And then like the top tour guide. And he was trying to get me to increase the tourism of Molis. And I was like, I'm working on it, dude. You got to give me some stuff to work with. So he showed me a bunch of stuff. And they have really good olive oil that tasted like Tuscan olive oil. And what I mean by that is it tasted really green and peppery and yummy. And so I brought it back to Tuscany and like pretended like it was Tuscan oil and fooled all the Tuscans. Are you okay? Are you about to see? Sorry, I was going to sneeze and I was trying to hold it in. I was like, either she's going to cry because she's excited about something I'm saying. I either brought back a memory or she's going to sneeze. I couldn't tell me her face. I should have just let it out.

I should have just let it out. I wanted to let you keep going. It was so cute. I should get your face right now. Okay, so basically they make this amazing oil. And then my favorite thing to eat down there was they're called Palette de Kachoi, Kachoi, I think. So basically, it's not a meat ball.

There's no meat involved. It's like breadcrumbs. You're going to sneeze again. No, no, I'm good. I'm good. This is just my face. And your eyes are still watering. So it's,

This is why I normally do my podcast audio only. Oh, okay. So it's like either leftover bread or breadcrumbs, egg and cheese, usually pecorino. Mm-hmm. Grated, you know, and you like, you mush it in some, yeah, the eggs in there. You mush it together like you would make a meatball. And then you can either like bake it in the oven a little bit or pan fried a little bit. And then you finish cooking it in red sauce.

and it's so good. Like everything I ate down there, it was just, it blew my mind. And then that was Lurino, but I was in Campo Basso, which everybody's like, Campo Basso. There's this restaurant, no clue what it was called. Somebody brought me there could kick myself that I don't know what it was called. The best food. Like, one of the best meals I've ever had.

Everything I had there was amazing. So Molese, great food. some of the towns are pretty, some are not, but you've got the sea on one side, you've got wine being made, you get great olive, you get great food, you get hospitality. I happened upon a festival

where there were like oxen pulling things and people celebrating the oxen, no clue what that festival is called because I just like walked through the town one day. But it was just one of those, nobody really talks about Moli-Ze, but it's beautiful and affordable. It's just hard to get to.

You just gave me two memories. Okay. Number one. As you were talking about food, I was thinking about this salad that I had in Syracusa in Italy. My mom and I went there and I'm not a big salad person. And I don't remember if we ordered this or if they gave it because it doesn't sound like something I would normally order. But it had blood orange, tomatoes, like I think yellow and maybe red tomatoes and red onion and fennel. and maybe like a light drizzle of olive oil and some salt.

Best salad I've ever had in my life. Yeah. Yeah. So freaking good. I love that combo. So yeah, if you can find those ingredients, you can make it at home yourself because I can't remember the name of this restaurant either. I need to be a better note taker. I love Cedacuzza.

That's another place I love. That's probably my favorite part of Sicily, actually. Well, we went to a church there that was built on top of a pagan church. So I thought that was, like, I loved how certain buildings were, you know, repurposed rather than knocked down. You can find, like, little hidden treasures everywhere. So my hidden gem, I feel like I've been talking about them throughout. For some reason, I wrote down to Stachio, which is not really a hidden gem. I feel like I've lived in a few different neighborhoods in Rome. And the one that I would recommend now is Testace. So before I've lived in Tristevere, which is cool, but as long as you are like a tiny bit outside of like the really crazy busy places or all just too loud, I used to really recommend Monty, which I still think is super cool to hang out in. It's definitely not as busy as Tostevere. But it's definitely gotten, like I remember when I lived there, people always spoke to me. and Italian. And now when they look at me, they'll just speak English because they just know. And I like, I like going to areas where they're going to speak Italian to me. So to Stachio is a super cool neighborhood. It's where the place that I go to for a Peritiva that I mentioned, they've got like a really edgy new museum and a cool market, outdoor market. I just like the vibe. It's more local than some of the other places. Yeah. Yeah, I really like to Stachio. Just going back to customs that we like, I love how.

there's always some sort of festival going on in Italy, some sort of sagra, some food festival, or especially in the fall. I really think the fall is my favorite time in Italy, September, October, November, you know, November for the truffles up in like Alba region near Turin. But I love the saga. I love that there's always something like that going on. And the political parties have these really big sort of festivals as well. I remember when I moved to. Reggio, Emily, I made friends with this girl and we went to a few together. And yeah, we went to this, like, it was like hosted by the Democratic Party or whatever that equivalent is. And I was just surprised at how big it was. It was like a big fair. I think there were even rides. And like all these different food tents. And I'm sure at some point some politician spoke, but yeah, I was really surprised at that, but it was super cool. It's one of those things when you come here and you discover that. And then you find out that it's like a political event. You're like, this is amazing. I have any respect for politics.

I might actually be able to talk about politics while I'm eating. Yeah, it was really neat. So, all right. So last question. What is your favorite, like less touristy city? So not Florence, Rome, Venice, or Milan. Okay, you're going to laugh because I'm actually going to say a city I haven't been to. That's a cheap, Tony.

Well, I didn't know it was supposed to be favorite. But it just says less touristy city. Yeah, but we're doing our top best. Oh, yeah, that's true. Okay, I'm going to go on a limb because I have the vibe. I've done my research. I know somebody that lives there. I've asked her too many questions.

She can't take it anymore. Trivizo. Have you been to Treviso? No, but I think. So there is a, I think, once a year food festival, but it's mostly, I think it might even be called Belavita in London. And it's mostly for shop owners because all of these different wine producers and cheese makers and stuff come. And like you can sample their goods and they decide if they want to have you in your store and their store.

And I don't even know if the public can go anymore, but the press can go. So if you can have a way to maybe you're a bloggerling, try to go because it's the most amazing event ever. and you're just going to sample so much good food and wine. And I think one of the ones there that was the best one I've ever had in my life, I think it was from Treviso, and I think they won a bunch of awards. Maybe if it's... I don't know because I haven't been there. So, okay, the reason I'm convinced that I'm going to love Treviso is because it has

a park on the wall like Luca. It doesn't go all the way around the town, but it has walls that you can walk on for a big portion and just like Luca where it's been turned into a park. And there's canals. So there's water. So you get like the best of both worlds. And then the food's supposed to be good. The people are supposed to be nice.

The whole everything. Where is it near? Treviso is going up towards Venice. Like I think it's only maybe 45 minutes from Venice, maybe an hour. All right, Tony. Well, when I visit you, we're going to Treviso and then taking a really long trek and going south to the beach. Okay.

Well, I'm sure there's plenty of places along the way that we can stop. But yeah, I don't think I've been to de Vizzo and I would like to go. And what about you? What's your favorite non-touristy town? So I said Turin or Torino. I don't think many English speakers go there. At least when I'm there, I never hear any. So I didn't think anyone went to Torino. But I think it actually is in the top 10 of Italian city. So maybe a lot of Italians go there. But it is just a city so full of life and culture. There's always some sort of festival going on. There's lots of artists, lots of art galleries, but musicians as well. And so there's always a gig happening. It's another place where along the river, like in the summertime, there's a bunch going on. They used to have a jazz festival also every summer.

I'm not sure if that's still going on, but they've got some great museums. I think the biggest collection of Egyptian art outside of Egypt is in Torino. Italy, that giant Italian store that you can find in some cities outside of Italy was founded in Torino. Grom, my favorite gelataria, which you can find throughout Italy. And there's also one in New York as well, was started in Torino. I've spent like a fair bit of time there because I have a good friend from there and lived with her mom for a little while randomly. And so I just think it's a really, really cool place to spend some time. And it's very close to Milan. So I think if you want to fly into Milan and then leave

right away and to go to Turin, I would definitely recommend that. And there's like some famous chocolate made there. I forgot the name of which one that was. But like in coffee, it's just like another really good foody Italian place. So culture and food. If you like those things, you'll have Turin. I'm going to have to agree. I forgot about the river in Turino, just because like when you said the river, I forgot that I actually, when I was there, I fantasize. I have a tendency to like fall in love with places. Unless I really don't click with a place, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to live in a place. And Torino checked all the boxes because there's a bunch of rowing clubs there. And they're like, it's like if you took like a luxury golf course kind of club,

like country club, and turned it into a rowing club. I mean, they're swanky. They've got restaurants and lounges and it's really cool. And there's not two. There's like, because in Florence, you've got two in Torino, there's probably 10 different rowing clubs. And then the architecture style, like that style, you know, the Casa del Vino, that the wine, that, the wine, you know, shop right across from the bakery on my tour. It's that wine shop that's got the checkered floor and everything that has the wooden shelves and it's kind of long and thin. Like all of the places I went to in Torino had that style where they would have mirrors

and woodwork and that kind of architectural style and kind of like the flat iron building kind of feel to it. I just, there's something about that I love. So yeah, might have to like latch on to your Torino plug there. Torino with the side of Treviso. Yeah.

Another place will have to go together because they've also got great aperitivo. Yes. Just great food in general. And it's very classic, I want to say. Like, it's not, I feel like it's just like a normal place to live. The people aren't too snobby. They're not too cold. They're just like a very nice mix of normal.

Yeah. No, no. I know what you mean. The very culture, you know. Oh, and now I'm remembering, apparently, and we should Google this, if I'm not mistaken, Torino, Has more covered walkways, the loggia. How do you say loggia in English? I don't know about.

Arcades. Okay. Has more arcades than Bologna. And you know Bologna's got a whole bunch of arcades. They're very proud of there. Portici. Yes. So Google that.

I'm almost positive that somebody told me that when I was there. All right, Tony, thank you for chatting with me in this epic conversation of our favorite things in Italy. It might have to be like a 10-part episode, speaking of 10. Definitely a two-parter. Yeah, it's a two-partner for sure. Tony, where can we learn more about you? Please visit tasteflorence.com and follow me on Instagram at TasteFlorance. And I currently am doing my food tours online.

So please do check out my website and join me for an online tour. It's great for birthday presents, for anniversaries, for holidays, for fundraisers. Sarah knows I never plug myself, but I'm plugging away right now because we got a work and we're in the middle of a pandemic. So definitely check that out and join me for an online tour. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Sarah. What is your favorite part of Italy? I would love to know. And if you are seeking some help with moderation after all of this Italian food talk, then definitely go listen to my new podcast, part of something greater. I just interviewed Jen Hansard. She is founder of simple green

smoothies and her fresh start 20-day cleanse will make you feel amazing. I have to do it whenever I leave my parents' house because when I was growing up, this was like a junk-free zone. But when I come back and visit here, it's like Candyland. So go check out my podcast part of something greater if you would like to check that out. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start random? when someone puts you on the spot. I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.