Places I Remember with Lea Lane
On this monthly award-winning travel podcast, host Lea Lane shares travel memories and travel tips with passionate travelers, travel experts, and savvy locals around the world. Lea has traveled to over 100 countries, is the author of nine books, a blogger at forbes.com, and a contributor to dozens of guidebooks. Smart. Fun! Over 100 episodes!
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Italy's Heart: Tuscany And Umbria
Tano and Nicole, the founders behind Bono Events International, share secrets about Tuscany and Umbria, neighboring regions in the heart of Italy. We start with Tuscany's iconic rolling vineyards, coastal fishing villages, great cities including Florence and Siena, and magnificent art scene and traditions.
Then we focus on Umbria's rich religious heritage in Assisi, forested landscape, hilltop towns including Perugia, and captivating festivals.
You'll find ruins dating from Roman Times, and even unexpected waterfalls. From the picturesque coasts of Forte dei Marmi to the the walls of Lucca to the flowers of Spello; from the great cathedral in Orvieto to the leaning tower in Pisa, this episode is both informative and enchanting -- with lots of surprises.
Guests Tano and Nicole, the founders behind Bono Events International, live in Italy.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, and has written nine books, including the award-winning Places I Remember (Kirkus Reviews star rating, and 'one of the top 100 Indie books of the year'). She has contributed to many guidebooks and has written thousands of travel articles.
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Our award-winning travel podcast, Places I Remember with Lea Lane, has dropped over 120 travel episodes! New episodes drop on the first Tuesday of the month, on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you listen.
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Website: https://placesirememberlealane.com
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The region of Tuscany in central Italy is a favorite destination of world travelers. Its neighboring region, Umbria, is also a wonderful destination. On this episode of Places I Remember, we'll be talking about both Our guests are Tano and Nicole, founders of Bono Events International, a luxury travel company that plans authentic custom travel itineraries all over the world. Benvenuti both of you to Places I Remember.
Nicole:Thank you so much. Thank you for having us Good to be here.
Lea Lane:Okay, well, let's start with Tuscany. If you're after rolling hills and cypress trees and sparkling lakes, medieval hill towns, ancient cities, thick forests, either region will do the trick. Tell us what makes it so beautiful to you.
Nicole:Well, Tuscany will always be Tuscany, it'll never go out of style, and my mom was born and raised in Florence, so I actually have roots to Tuscany. Florence is the city that I call most mine when it comes to Italy. I went every year to Tuscany and spent my summers in Florence with my grandparents. I think Tuscany has so much depth.
Lea Lane:Well, I think most people don't realize it also has the Apennine Mountains and the beaches on the Tyrrhenian Sea, so it has the coastal part too. We always think in terms of Florence or Siena, so there's more to it.
Nicole:Many people don't know that Tuscany is one of the largest regions in Italy. It's huge. It's not just Florence and Siena and Montepulciano. That's it right. Like there's so much more to it.
Tano:One of the things that you said is that people underrate the Tuscan coast. So in the northern parts of the coast there's the glitzy and glamorous Forte dei Marmi that I would describe kind of as the Beverly Hills on the beach of Tuscany, slightly inland, (or even more like the Miami Beach).
Tano:Even slightly more inland, you can go to Pietra Santa, which is a wonderful town, medieval town that has a huge modern art scene, which is only five kilometers from the beach. You can mix culture and also going to the beach. But my favorite part of the coast is when you go further down to the Monte Argentario Torbetello. Here you really feel like you're in the Italian Riviera, but it meets the Tuscan way of living and you're also only about an hour and 15 minutes from Rome.
Nicole:Yeah.
Tano:So it's convenient to escape to.
Nicole:As a travel advisor here I come in with all my hotels that I love. There's a hotel called Il Pelicano that is amazing, and there's the Argentario Golf Resort where they're hosting the Italy Open this year. So these are incredible places to really enjoy this coast of Tuscany that most people don't think of when they hear Tuscany, but it feels like the Riviera.
Tano:For the Tuscan archipelago, because Tuscany also has five islands. The main one is Elba.
Lea Lane:That's where Napoleon is associated, right.
Tano:Napoleon was exiled there, but also, more infamously, Isra del Giglio, where that cruise line you know got stuck.
Lea Lane:Oh yes, the Costa, cruise line.
Tano:Unfortunately also one of these beautiful islands with crystal clear waters. You think you're in Greece, but you're right off the coast. What a perfect trip.
Lea Lane:I'm sure people would go to Rome or go to Florence and have the wonderful beach as well. So that's a wonderful idea and I think most people perhaps would do this if they knew about it, because I know I didn't learn about it until I had been a couple of times. Let's just talk about what not to miss. The top three things. Let's say you're on the beach, you're going for a day, you had modern art on the coastline. You've got the fabulous Renaissance art, obviously, the sculpture of David, the Uffizi Gallery with the birth of Venus, Botticelli. You have a Da Vinci's Annunciation.
Lea Lane:You've got the Medici tombs I mean, I'm throwing it out there, but you also have places to walk, like the Ponte Vecchio, which is the bridge over the Arno, with the shops Everyone knows about, the Duomo,
Nicole:One of my favorite things to advise for people who are only going for a day is pick the thing that you want to see the most, whether it's the Galleria or the Uffizi or the Palazzo Vecchio or Palazzo Pitti or any of the unbelievable things there are. But also we have some amazing rooftop terraces, whether they're bars or restaurants, that we like to send people to, to just sit and enjoy the city from above, where you can really see the atmosphere. I think that's a really special way to absorb a city and that's something for me in Florence that's like not to be missed, because Florence is really, really overcrowded. It just is Mass tourism. On a nice rooftop with your Aperol Spritz, you see the Duomo right in front of you. It's like a different way to enjoy it. Your time could be potentially so limited in the city.
Lea Lane:So we have our spots. It's also crowded, but it's less so. A couple of things One is the wonderful festival there, the Palio. Tell us about that.
Tano:The Palio di Siena is a wonderful horse race which pits all the different neighborhoods of Siena and old medieval Siena, and they each ride bareback throughout the main square. It is really an incredible experience. As they do it twice a year, July and August so all the neighborhoods manage to rotate in. It is super intense, extremely crowded and very hard to get tickets to. So if people want, there's other amazing such festivals. In Tuscany, just in nearby Arezzo, they have a full-on jousting festival in September where you feel like you're transported directly back to medieval times and it's a way of having that same kind of immersion into these traditions without having to be really kneeing and elbowing people tightly packed in and all the prices triple or quadruple.
Lea Lane:Very good tip. I know the festivals all through that area are superb. I've been to a couple. It's just a wonderful area for food festivals, music festivals, medieval festivals, renaissance it's all there, very important. I always try to mention this. Try to look at the festival listings and, if you can, some of these festivals are well worth detouring your trip to sometimes get in there and I always try when I travel to note if there's a festival around when I'm traveling. I've missed a few because I didn't do that.
Tano:We do the same for our clients when they're traveling throughout the region. If we know that there's a festival happening where they are whether it's a food festival, a cultural festival, an art festival we ask them if they're interested and, if so, also to make it easier for them to deal with these situations. If they're not very comfortable, you know, maybe in Italian settings we have them be accompanied by a guide that can help them kind of navigate these situations. They can enjoy the full experience of these food festivals or these cultural festivals and not feel overwhelmed.
Lea Lane:Yeah, I just want to mention Lucca. It's one of my favorite cities. On the Sergio River, it means the 'Bringer of Light,' and it's known for its walls. It's gorgeous walls about two and a half miles of them.
Nicole:Lucca. Well, I'm a music lover. If you love Puccini, that's where he's from. Yes, the museum which has some important moments of his life, and for opera lovers or for music fans, that's a really cool experience. For Comic-Con nerds, Lucca is also the home of the Comic-Con of Europe. Right? Lucca is truly a wonderful place. Whenever we send our clients there, they're like 'oh my gosh, how do people not talk about this place more?
Tano:It's so charming and so pretty and we love, love, love Lucca Wonderful antiques as well, because they have amazing stores, because they can rent out their storefronts for one week for Comic-Con and pay their rent for the year. So they can afford to have these antique stores when people don't really buy that much, they don't really live off of the stores. Because they can live off what they make during Comic-Con.
Lea Lane:Okay, that's very interesting. The walls, by the way, are the second longest in Europe, behind Nicosia, which is the capital of Cyprus, so they're really immense and stroll bike. I just want to mention Pisa, because people all talk about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I read that it's leaning a little bit too much and it may not be around much longer.
Tano:They always move it. When it leans too much, they bring it back.
Nicole:They don't want to lose that, right. I like to be very frank and transparent with my clients when discussing Pisa. I say why do you want to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa? What draws you to Pisa? I love the enthusiasm and it's one of those places that people just want to check off of their list. They want their photo holding the tower. There are photos holding the tower. Pisa is really overcrowded. It's just that one little square.
Lea Lane:Yeah, they come in and they put their hand against it and lean and everyone's holding it up and you see hundreds of people with their hand up, and it's kind of funny just for that.
Nicole:If people are not interested in going in and doing the whole experience, I often suggest that they go at night to see Pisa, because the Piazza dei Miracoli is beautiful at night and there's a lot less people. Because that rush of the cruise ship effect right, the in and out is gone. Is it worth seeing?
Lea Lane:Absolutely it depends on how much time you have. So I just want to mention, speaking of time, you want to go to see a couple of hill towns if possible, because that is so much a part of Tuscany with the gorgeous countryside. Which two, if you're going to pick two, would you say? Everyone loves San Gimignano I can't even say it correctly. With the tall, tall towers, it's very crowded sometimes. Also, with 14 towers, there were 170 there. It was a powerful place.
Tano:What do you feel
Lea Lane:about it?
Tano:San Gimignano is is really convenient if you're leaving Florence because it's close to Florence, so I think it's a good stopover to make. I feel like i. it's not as maybe genuine feeling as other towns, because it's so close to Florence that it gets too much foot traffic throughout the day, but it is a beautiful experience to go as a jaunt from Florence. The two that I think are most special are the two in the Val d'Orcia, near Siena, which are Montepulciano and Montalcino.
Lea Lane:Yes, that's a gorgeous area.
Nicole:Absolutely beautiful. And number three to that I would just say is Pienza. Pienza is probably one of my favorites. I think it's so charming and I love Pienza. I think the views of the Val Orcia from Pienza. I prefer Pienza to Montepulciano in terms of a town, but Montepulciano is often so important because it's a landing base when we do a lot of wine and gastronomy tours. Fabulous wine, and Montalcino is our favorite, little Cortona.
Lea Lane:It's an attractive town so I wanted to.
Tano:It's a wonderful town. It has a lot of history related to St Francis of Assisi as well. you know did a lot of his work around that area. It kind of blends Tuscany with more of a natural forest feeling to it. It's really on the cusp between Tuscany and Umbria, so it's a great place to stay as a departure point to explore both the regions.
Lea Lane:Right, so let's mention Umbria. It's known for the forest, as you mentioned. It's much greener. It's called the Green Heart of Italy by many and it has a different look, very beautiful as well. There are medieval hill towns and delicious local cuisine. Tell us about Assisi. Let's start there.
Nicole:I think you should talk about Assisi because he goes there a lot with our clients. He does food tours around that area a lot.
Tano:Assisi is such an important place for people to visit because of its religious history. St Francis of Assisi is probably the most well-known saint in the world. The basilica is incredible, with some masterpieces from the medieval period, from Giotto, among others, and the double basilica is really unique to see, and the entire town has been born out of the cult of St Francis. It has dozens of churches, palaces. Even St Clair and all her orders are in Assisi.
Tano:Even down valley you can visit the original Porziuncola, the house that he built with his own hands, that they built this mega church on top of now. So you see this tiny little home that he built with his hands and they built this enormous cathedral over. With this massive dome that towers the region. You can get lost in the woods of St Francis, where he used to walk around and allegedly speak to animals. So it really is an enchanting place to visit. Of course, you have to be careful to make sure you're not going during a religious holiday or a jubilee event, because you could be stuck waiting for hours to move around.
Lea Lane:Yeah, Nowadays we do want to always say, if you can go off season off hours, you know, unless there's something specific, like we mentioned, some festivals but it's much, much better to try to go off. Nearby is Perugia, a beautiful town. It's known for its chocolates. I remember them and I went to a jazz festival there many years ago, which was fantastic. They had jazz all through the piazzas and buildings and it was just a great, famous jazz festival. Anything else to say about Perugia.
Nicole:Well, Perugia is technically the capital of Umbria, so when it comes to logistics, people often can land there. Trains as well service, and there are a couple of hotels that we work with in Perugia that we love. I find that Perugia it's not necessarily the beating heart of Umbria. I think that the hilltop towns are more, but Perugia has so much to offer. There's this one place specifically. Tano always calls it the Game of Thrones.
Tano:Perugia is built on top of the hill. You have to get to the Acropolis on top. It has Roman origins. The historic center is absolutely unbelievable with 13th century churches, all of these palaces that hearken back to Perugia. Perugia was under control of the Vatican States for a thousand years. There's these halls you can visit, where you see all the frescoes of all the families you know that used to come together as a guild to decide what to do vis-a-vis the Vatican, leave the Vatican. Perugia also famously fought a war against the Vatican states on the tax on salt, which is why, to this day, Umbrian bread is not salted.
Lea Lane:So all these historical things you can tie back to the city. We're getting great tips. I have to mention another city, the city you live in, Orvieto. That's a beautiful, beautiful cathedral. I think it's one of the most beautiful ever. If you look at the detailing on it, the facade, and inside, you know Orvieto.
Nicole:Okay. So Orvieto when everyone comes here, they don't know what to expect because it does look like this little Tuscan town. I think we've brought at least over 400 people to Orvieto specifically. Everyone is always so blown away by how charming it is, how many stores there are, boutiques there are. The Duomo is, of course, the Duomo and there's the Pozo di San Patricio, but there's the whole underground. There's the Etruscan Caves, where I've actually planned a party in one of the Etruscan Caves for like a bachelorette moment. Vineyards all around. This is a wine town, Orvieto Classico, but people in this area love food, love gastronomy. So Orvieto has all these cool little bars and eateries and places and in high season there's things going on in Orvieto.
Tano:There's the medieval festival which matches up with the holiday of Orvieto, which is the Corpus Christi.
Nicole:Yeah, the Corpus Christi.
Tano:Yeah, the corpus christi because the church was built for eucharistic miracle in 1292. So that's why the whole festival and everyone dresses in costume and there's music and they parade around the city even winter, take out the relic of the of the eucharist, when the blood drops during the ceremony.
Lea Lane:It's one of the best festivals in terms of costuming and so forth.
Nicole:Orvieto is truly one of Umbria's most impressive towns. You can walk along the rupe, which are basically these Etruscan walls that hold the city up. You can hike around it. There are two hotels that I would love to shout out to in Orvieto. One is Palazzo Michatelli and the other one is Palazzo Petrus. They're both boutique hotels, five-star, unbelievable service. They're both family-owned, very different. But if anyone ever wanted to stay in Orvieto anywhere, those two hotels would be where I would always recommend them staying. And then, similar to that, there is a beautiful, beautiful vineyard called Locanda Palazzone, which is five minutes outside the city center in the hills. That is the entire reason why we live here, because I fell in love with this place and then ended up planning a wedding for a client here there and then we just stayed.
Nicole:We just never left,
Lea Lane:Of course, all around our hilltop towns, tiny towns. When you drive around you see them on the tops of the hills. We stayed in one called Spello, which is one of the prettiest villages in all of Italy. There's a festival there, the Infiorate --I'm not going to say that right-- where they put carpets of flower petals all through the streets and there are usually flowers all over. But many of the towns there are originally. o's one of them, Todi, is another where you see Roman ruins. And then there's Gubbio, which is a very lovely town as well. We rented a place. There are rentals, you can stay in B&Bs or there are all kinds of ways to stay in these little towns and be a part of them.
Nicole:So we do a lot of villa rentals for our clients, like week long or more when it's short stays. We work mostly with hotels and four star five star hotels. I think it's fun if you want to hop around. It's like island hopping, but for Umbria it's hilltop town hopping, absolutely. We do a couple of nights here, a couple of nights. They look like islands on top of the hills. It's almost like an archipelligo of hilltops right.
Lea Lane:I mean you want to go to each one because as you look at them, they all have that wonderful look, but they're all a little bit different, so it is fun to hop around if you can do that.
Nicole:Or some people prefer to have a home base and then do day trip which is also, there's good train service.
Lea Lane:Right, there's very good train service around from the major cities. Then you have to sort of work it out. But some of the towns are a mile away from each other and you could walk. I know at Spello you could walk to another town in about a mile.
Nicole:Yeah, yeah. Worth mentioning in Umbria is the waterfalls which nobody knows about. Yes, yes, but there's this unbelievable waterfall park. People go to Croatia for the waterfalls, come to Umbria because we've got them too.
Tano:Cascata delle Marmore.
Nicole:The Cascata delle Marmore and the wonderful lake.
Nicole:Yes yes, exactly. We are so lucky that we get to milk this destination for everything it's worth with our clients. You latte it. Yes, with our travel clients. This year I'm planning two destination weddings here. One is in Elopo and one is a wedding with this fantastic collaborator I have with two properties here, Pietra Campana and Torre Colevento, which are stunning four-star properties I think are worth everything. They're just so precious and homey and family run. Yeah, I'm in love with Orvieto. So you're, you know you're asking people who have completely uprooted their whole lives here.
Lea Lane:It's very hard not to fall in love, If you don't do that, I'll tell you, yes, you want to go back. So the slow food movement which started in the area this Tuscany and all that area is a very important movement around the world now. And just mention a few of the foods of Tuscany and Umbria. I know it's a lot of game and meat and it's heavy, but it's delicious. What would you not miss A couple of this is a great thing for me.
Tano:I'm a slow food member. You know I go to all their events whenever I can. Orvieto is a slow food city and I'm really supportive all the work they do in preserving historical products and allowing artisanal producers to still produce their products and have market and have some support. So in umbria the biggest thing to do is, I think, porchetta, which is the typical fully rolled, deboned, stuffed pig, and there's actually a porchetta slow food festival called porchettiano in San Terenziano, which is close to Todi in August. It cannot be missed. All the best porchetta from all of Umbria and Rome and even Tuscany, come and meet and you have, you can eat them all. The typical food of Perugia is called la torta al testo, this round kind of bread which is stuffed with pig fat inside, which goes back to the Roman times. But the typical pasta of Umbria is the umbricarlo, which is like a water and flour fresh spaghetti and we actually collaborate with locals here in Orvieto to host cooking classes where our clients and other clients can come by and make all of these foods.
Nicole:Our cooking classes. What makes them different is that we're going inside the homes of people from Umbria, so it's not like a cooking studio or something generic. Incredible home cooks, italian women to open the doors at home. It makes for a really, really incredible experience.
Lea Lane:Yeah, it is, I think, cooking in that region. I know many people who have done it. They go for a week or two and well, some people like to paint and some people like to do many other things, but cooking is a big deal and the food is very, very delicious. Rich, you know truffles and mushrooms and meat. It's heavy, and with the wines, come on, how can you beat it?
Tano:And the same with Tuscany. It's very famous for its beef, la bistecca, la fiorentina for the big white pianina, maremma cows. Also there's the tordello, which is like a big tortellino which is stuffed with beef, and it's served in a beef ragu, very hearty food.
Tano:There's a wonderful festival of tordello outside Lucca that they do every June. You can go and try all these different torrtelini, all the local grandmas make in one place. You know, Tuscany is known for its use of liver. You know livers, pate, crostini, and it's such a normal part of day-to-day life that even children here have no problems. Delicious. One of the best steakhouses in the world is in the town of Saturnia in Tuscany. It's ranked number seven or six in the world and they have all these amazing Italian varieties of international cows and they serve it in a very Tuscan style. It means you can't get anything more than rare they don't ask you.
Nicole:This steakhouse. It's called Iduecipi, it's in Saturnia, it is phenomenal. The number seven steakhouse in the discovery is endless, of central Italy, speaking to Tuscany and Umbria as a whole because, as you know, the border goes like a squiggly line.
Lea Lane:Yes, and it's very beautiful. I just want to say there are certain roads that are especially beautiful. If you're going to go between the two, check it out. There are a couple of roads that are exceptionally gorgeous which we have taken. It's worth it. It's an hour or two of driving, but it's so, so pretty and you see the difference between the Tuscan countryside and the Umbrian countryside. They're both gorgeous, but the changes are very interesting as you drive. If you can rent a car or bike or whatever. Whatever way you do it, I just you know I'm thinking of it right now. I'm walking in Spello with a gelato of roses or something I remember. The flavors were all so floral. It's wonderful. So Tuscany and Umbria are destinations you can return to year after year. There's so much to see and do. The name of the Podcast is Places I Remember, so I want to ask you, Nicole and Tano, can you share a special personal memory of your beloved region?
Nicole:Well, we got married here. We got married in the Duomo of Orvieto and we had the reception at a castle called Castello di Torre Alfina. The night before, we had our welcome event at Locanda Palazzone, which was that vineyard that I was speaking about, and that evening I had my bachelorette party in an Etruscan cave with my girls.
Lea Lane:Oh my goodness, it's a destination wedding. I doubt if anyone didn't show up.
Nicole:Oh yeah, the day after we had a beautiful brunch at Palazzo Petrus, which is this gorgeous hotel palazzo in the city center of Orvieto. I mean, this is what I do professionally, this is what we do, but part of our memory of this, which is so special to us, is that we really wanted to together design a wedding that was our love letter to Orvieto and for all of our closest friends and family to experience it, and the best compliment we got was that I feel like we got to see Orvieto from so many different angles. To get married in the Duomo is quite the experience. There's no privatizing the Duomo. You cannot get rid of the tourists and you have to go through a zillion things when it comes to bureaucracy and paperwork, but I married a lawyer and he really, really, really helped.
Lea Lane:Well, nothing's perfect, right?
Nicole:That's okay too, no but it was worth it and this place will always be important to us, whether or not we stay here in our lives. I mean, that's truly something we will it's a great memory.
Lea Lane:It's a great memory to imagine, let alone to go through it. So congratulations on both having a wonderful wedding in the most perfect place I can think of. I want to thank you very much, Nicole and Tano, founders of Bono Events International, and you make us really want to go there, and you've given us some great tips too. When you go to a place like this, it's so popular you do need to study it a bit and to try to think about it ahead of time to make the most of it. Spend as much time as you possibly can.
Nicole:It's really worth it. We would love to take you around for a spin.
Lea Lane:I'd love it. Thank you for so much, Joy. Thank you, thank you.
