Piedmont's wine country is known for producing exceptional red wines, and it's an ideal destination for a walking holiday. Photo / 123rf
With gentler temperatures, lower prices and fewer tourists, now is the perfect time for an Italian getaway, writes Lee Marshall
We’d clearly all been craving the romance, food, wine, landscapes, art and dolce vita of this most Mediterranean of Mediterranean nations, because it’s been a record-breaking summer season in Italy. No surprise, then, that Telegraph readers’ voted it Best European Country in the paper’s 2023 Travel Awards.
But with record numbers come disadvantages, too. The global appetite for Italy in the first truly normal year since 2019 has been so insatiable that many of the country’s bucket-list destinations – Venice, Florence, Rome, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre – were full to bursting between May and September, not to mention sweltering, as summer temperatures flew up into the 40s and beyond.
Luckily, where Italy is concerned, the best is yet to come. From mid-October, the country enters a glorious period of golden hues and few crowds, yet with temperatures still rarely dipping below the high teens (and higher down south, in Sicily, Calabria or Puglia, where a dip in the sea is not out of the question even in early December).
One small issue, of course, is that hotels in most seaside destinations and many rural areas shut en masse on or around October 31. But things are changing: more and more country hotels – especially in wine regions like Piedmont, Veneto, Tuscany, Umbria and the northern lakes – are extending their seasons at both ends, joined by a handful of enterprising island and coastal resorts.
In Italy’s cities, this is open season for art and culture. In Rome, the long-running Roma Europa Festival, until November 19, offers a feast for lovers of dance, performance and avant-garde music, while the overlapping Roma Jazz Festival (November 2-26), now in its 47th year, brings talents such as Ibrahim Maalouf to the Renzo-Piano-designed Auditorium Parco della Musica. Food fairs like the White Truffle Fair in the Piedmontese town of Alba and traditional events like Venice’s Festa della Salute on November 21 (one of the few times you’ll see far more locals than tourists in the lagoon city) also help to make a persuasive case for a shoulder-season jaunt.
And if you’re still in need of inspiration? Here are the finest ways to make the most of an Italian escape in October and November – if you can’t get there this year, take inspiration for 2024.
Starring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari and Penelope Cruz as his spiky signora, Michael Mann’s high-octane biopic Ferrari is due to hit cinemas at the end of 2023. Visit the legendary sports car marque’s Modena home where two museums offer a full immersion in the company’s history, racetrack honours, and design innovations: the Museo Ferrari and the Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari, where Enzo’s original house and workshop was given an audacious contemporary extension in 2014. Modena is also one of northern Italy’s foodie capitals, known for its salami, balsamic vinegar, Parmesan cheese and stellar restaurants.
How to do it: After visiting the Ferrari shrines, test drive one of the cars in the hills around Maranello or – if you want to go full Enzo, on the legendary Imola racetrack. Test Drive in Maranello offers various cars and timeslots for the road drive: 30 minutes in a Ferrari Portofino comes in at NZ$585. The three-hour racetrack experience starts at $5847.
Central Florence is not only a short stroll away from some of Tuscany’s most idyllic rural landscapes, it also has a symbiotic relationship with them – witness the great palazzos and city centre restaurants owned by the Antinori or Frescobaldi winemaking families. Late autumn is a perfect time to combine Florence’s classy urban pleasures with forays into the countryside – perhaps on a truffle-hunting expedition. Among the cultural draws this season is Anish Kapoor’s takeover of the city’s premier exhibition space, Palazzo Strozzi (until February 4).
How to do it: Running from November 29 to December 3, the Rocco Forte Hotels experience Unearthing Tuscan Truffles may have a luxury price tag – $9635 for two people sharing a double room, flights not included – but it buys you four days with genial Tuscan culinary genius Fulvio Pierangelini. Included are a Premium Room at the Hotel Savoy, activities including truffle hunting with a local expert, all meals and airport transfers.
Around the villages of Barolo and Barbaresco, some of Italy’s greatest red wines are coaxed from the nebbiolo grape. This is perhaps the only wine zone in the country where, in true Burgundy style, aficionados will rave about bottlings from a single micro-plot the size of a large garden. That granular level of detail lends itself to the kind of slow travel that only a walking holiday can provide. And hotels here – unusually for an Italian country destination – stay open right through November. Alongside misty rolling hills, good places to eat and, of course, great wines, the area also has some eye-catching site-specific art, like the vibrant Cappella del Barolo by Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett.
How to do it: The Natural Adventure offers an eight-day self-guided Piedmont Wine Country walking tour priced at $1515 per person, based on a shared double room, on a bed and breakfast basis. Flights, transfers and other meals not included. Begin on any day up to and including November 15.
In late autumn and early winter, Italy’s opera houses launch their new seasons. Rammed with celebrities, heads of industry and public officials, the opening night of La Scala in Milan (December 7, Don Carlo) books out months in advance, but the city’s rich classical music scene is not all about dressing up. Running now until November 13, the top-notch Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano is hosting a Mahler Festival during which all of the Austrian composer’s symphonies and lieder will be performed. Italy’s design, fashion and finance capital is full of energy right now: tempting new hotels include the stylish Portrait Milano, part of Leonardo Ferragamo’s Lungarno Collection.
How to do it: Ever fancied sitting in on a masterclass given by one of the world’s leading conductors? A collaboration between Fondazione Prada and Riccardo Muti allows you to do just that between November 18 and 29. Muti will be coaching a group of young musicians through to a concert performance of Bellini’s opera Norma. Tickets start at $42 for half-day sessions, while $836 will buy you the right to attend all sessions, including the closing concert.
It’s not easy to find somewhere for a late seaside break in Italy after the mass hotel shutdown at the end of October. But a few places, like Le Calette, on Sicily’s northern coast, refuse to follow the pack. Covering two adjacent properties wrapped around a scenic bay – the more upscale Le Calette N°5 and the four-star Le Calette Bay – with access to the same heated pool and the same gourmet restaurant, this family-run place is a poster child for the Mediterranean island’s dynamic new hospitality and food scene. Autumn experiences on offer include mushroom foraging and Sicilian pastry-making courses. The historic town of Cefalu, with its glorious Norman cathedral, is a short walk away.
How to do it: Le Calette offers incremental discounts with its “Stay More Pay Less” offer. For a three-night stay in mid-November prices start at $206 per night for a Standard Room in Le Calette Bay, breakfast included. The nine new-for-2023 Lotus Cabana suites at Le Calette N°5, with private gardens and outdoor jacuzzis, will set you back $749 a night for the same three nights.
GETTING THERE
Multiple airlines fly from Auckland to Rome with one stopover, including Emirates, Qatar Airways, American Airlines and Air NZ on a codeshare basis.
DETAILS
© Lee Marshall / Telegraph Media Group Limited 2023
The chef chats to Herald Travel about unforgettable foodie experiences in Aotearoa.