808 See You in the Piazza; Lagers

0:00Frances Mayes wants you to follow her lead to the small, untouristy towns where the old world traditions of Italy are still a part of everyday life. Discover some of the ways that people still live that have gotten kind of run over in contemporary life. Coming up, the author of Under the Tuscan Sun reveals the small towns she's fallen in love with on family road trips across Italy. It just opened my eyes to how endless Italy is and how if you had, like, 10 lifetimes, you could never really see all of it. Dave Carpenter knows what goes into making a really good beer. He helps us find classic examples of lagers, pilsners, light and dark ales where they come from in Europe.

0:42If you've tried a German import in the U.S. and then you go to the source in Germany and you try it, it's going to taste very different. Explore where the back roads of Italy will take him and enjoy a break with a memorable lager. It's just ahead on Travel with Rick Steves. Frances Mays helps us find what's new under the Tuscan sun in just a minute on today's Travel with Rick Steves. She tells us about off-the-beaten-track small towns all over Italy where playful and inventive new recipes take Italian culinary traditions to a new level. And later in the hour, beer expert Dave Carpenter helps us celebrate any occasion by appreciating the traditions and innovations of brewers worldwide.

1:26Ever since Frances Mays got an impulse to buy a house in Tuscany and wrote about her experience in the bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun, she's been introducing the world to the delights of living in Italy. Lately, she's been wandering off the beaten path to discover the charms of dozens of small towns and cities all across Italy. In her latest book, See You in the Piazza, she takes us along as she, her husband, and her grandson explore the kinds of places Italians treasure, free from the crush of mass tourism. Francis joins us now to explore hidden Italy from the peaks of the Dolomites to the sun-drenched tip of Sicily.

2:05Frances, thanks for joining us. Thank you. It's wonderful to talk to you. Yeah, now you've spent 30 years loving Tuscany, kind of splitting your time between the United States and Tuscany. You wrote a number of books on Tuscany, and now you're talking about Italy in general. How would you relate Tuscany to the rest of Italy? Well, it's still the heart to me. I would always want to live there and go back there, but this book was such an adventure because I was on the road for 170 days last year, staying in all these really new-to-me places, and it kind of put the discovery back into travel for me.

2:46Not that, you know, it had ever gone away in Tuscany, but just finding these little tiny beach towns way in the south of Sicily and waterfalls way up north near the German border, it just opened my eyes to how endless Italy is and how if you had like 10 lifetimes, you could never really see all of it. Boy, I found that myself. You know, you've had the luxury of, you know, living near Cortona with your whole under the Tuscan sun experience, and that's a luxury to be actually putting down roots and getting to know the community. And then from a traveler's point of view, most of us go to Italy with just a couple of weeks and you got to see the biggies, but you had 170 days, and I'm sure you've seen Florence and Venice and Rome to your satisfaction, and now you had a chance to go to places that guidebooks don't even cover.

3:36Tell us a little bit about how you researched the book. Did you set out with five or six months, and your goal was just to cover Italy from top to bottom? Did you have a list of places you wanted to see? How did that unfold? I had a lot of places in the back of my mind, not only the places that are kind of unknown to almost anyone, but also to try to go to some of the places that get skipped. When you go travel to Siena, Assisi, Florence, Rome, etc., those are so great for a first-time trip. But after that, there's just layer and layer and layer of other stuff to see. So I wanted to see places like Genova.

4:18Everyone knows of it, but who goes there? I wanted to spend a lot of time in Parma, which often gets skipped. And places like Catania, which have a kind of bad rep. But once you get there, you really know how amazing they are. So I had this list that I wanted, but then I just set myself into a place that was central and started exploring out from there without necessarily even knowing where I was going to stop. In that way, I discovered a little tiny place in Puglia where there's a medieval bread oven, and they still make the bread there in the old ways, and people bring in their own bread with the cross on it and just trying to make lots of touches with the, you know, old country civilization and discover some of the ways that people still live that have gotten kind of run over in contemporary life.

5:11In Italy, it's like night and day, touristic places and places that almost never seen a tourist. And I would think the prices are about double where all the tourists go. And the folk culture and the traditions actually are more vivid in places the tourists don't go. When you talked about the place in Puglia, which had that traditional oven, talk about a little bit of how traditions survive that a tourist that just goes to the big famous places might be completely oblivious to. The deeper you go into Italian life, the more you realize that it's bottomless and that you go to a place like Puglia, which has its famous spots, you know, but you get into the whole civilization of the place, the whole history, And that is what leads you, like reading a little bit about Frederick II, led me to explore a lot of his castles and to know how responsible he was for just the way modern Puglia is shaped.

6:08And even behind that, the whole sheep culture in Puglia and how these migration paths made the country develop the way it was. So the deeper you go, you know, the more you find out that everything you step on has a past and that it's available for you. Now, where exactly is Puglia and what's the big city in that region? Puglia is way south. It's down in the hill. And Brindisi is the place you can fly into. And Puglia has been kind of put on the map recently by the fact that there are now inexpensive flights from London to Brindisi. So people from there can get there in two hours. So that's opened it up quite a bit.

6:53But when I first went to Puglia 25 years ago, there was no one there. But it's still such a place to discover. There are these cone-shaped houses, the Truli. And they're in a little town called Barobello. And it's very touristy now. But it's still magic. You feel like the elves are going to come out of these little houses at any minute. And they go back, way back to when farmers just built something out of the field stones. And they look like they've been there for a million years, but they have been there for a thousand. Frances Mays is known for her best-selling autobiography, Under the Tuscan Sun.

7:34She's telling us about the Italian road trip destinations she features in her book, See You in the Piazza, in this interview from the Travel with Rick Steves archives. Frances has written eight titles centered on Italy, plus others set in her home base of the American Deep South. Her website is francesmaysbooks.com. So, Frances, when you're traveling, when you're venturing away from the tourists, you really find that different dimension of Italy. You could take away all the top 10 places that 95 % of the tourists spend 90 % of their time in, and you could still have a great country to visit. You mentioned Parma, Catania, Genova.

8:13These are places that very few people go to, even though they're great destinations in themselves. Talk about Catania a little bit. I mean, because a lot of people think the charm is in the villages, but Catania is a big, rollicking city in Sicily. And you described vividly the market in Catania. I just love you. I think you wrote, its fish market makes Venice's Rialto market look like Whole Foods. It does. I have never experienced a market like that. But the way people were shouting to sell their goods, you felt like you'd step back into the Middle Ages. And it's a handsome town. I had kind of fear of Catania.

8:49You know, it's a raucous seaport and had kind of a bad rap. But it's so beautiful in the interior and so civilized. The first night we were there, people were walking by our table, outside table, going to the opera. And they all looked like they stepped out of daguerreotypes. They were in their jewels and their, you know, the men had the big mustaches. And it was just one of those moments when the curtain of time seems to part. Daguerreotypes like a 100-year-old black and white photograph? Yes, yes. Wow, that is a great image. But everyone was pouring into the opera house. So Catania is very sophisticated and civilized.

9:29And you just have to get beyond those stereotypes that some towns have. Like Torino, everyone thinks, oh, Fiat, you know, Alfa Romeo, cars, cars, manufacturing. Torino is a regal town. It's an amazing culinary destination. And also the gateway to all of Piemonte with all the wines. But I could live in Torino. That was another aspect of all these travels was I kept finding places I would like to live. I felt a little unfaithful to Cortona. You were two-timing on Cortona. I was. Well, Torino is one of those industrial cities in the north, and I think most people would go to Milano because it's got the Leonardo da Vinci art and the Great Cathedral, and Torino gets overlooked.

10:15But I think you make a very good case in your book that Genova and Torino, there you feel the pulse of Italian urban culture maybe even more vividly than in the places that are so packed with the tourists. Well, you do. You mentioned eating in Torino. Describe a good meal that you had in Torino. Oh, there's so many. It's hard to choose. But right outside town, we drove out in a taxi. It was about a 20-minute ride to this restaurant called Combalzero. It was regal and very contemporary, very beautiful. And the chef was having fun. He did a lot of playful things. He was playing tricks on us all the time.

10:57And at the end of the meal, these little bubbles were served that you put in your mouth, and they were actually laughing gas. So he was playing tricks the whole time, but the food was enormously sophisticated. And my grandson was so impressed that they had a water menu, waters from all over the world with all the contents. I love the basic trattorias, the mom and pop, the recipes of Nona. But there's such a big movement in Italy now toward experimenting and taking the traditional ingredients and doing something fresh with them. So I love to combine those two ways of eating and traveling to try a lot of the, you know, the starred restaurants, the lauded restaurants, the ones that the chefs usually have gone away and trained.

11:45And then they've come home because they want to be with their family. and they never intended to really leave their home, but they've brought back new thinking and new information and they're putting all this to play and to work in their restaurants. It's funny you say the word playful because I have also found in Italy, more than other countries, I think, chefs are kind of playful and they're like enthusiastic, creative, young chefs, even if they've been at it for a long time. and it feels to me they want to come out and see how you reacted to their playful creation. And it just brings a sprightliness to the meal.

12:22They do. It's fun. Like bruzz in Leche way down in Puglia. They serve the roasted quail on a bed of straw so he looked like he was in his nest. Just funny things like that. They're really having a good time. But it's not just theater. It's just kind of an attitude, I think, that they're trying to play out, not only in the food, but in the presentation.

12:52Frances Mays bought a fixer-upper Tuscan farmhouse on a whim, and she wrote about acclimating to life in the countryside of Cortona in her bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun. Since then, Frances has written a dozen books. She provides quick pasta recipes in one of her latest called Pasta Veloce. Just ahead, Francis takes your calls at 877-333-RICK as we look at the charms of small towns across Italy, which she features in See You in the Piazza. By the way, thanks to our friends at North Carolina Public Radio for helping us with today's interview. It's travel with Rick Steves. All it requires is a sense of adventure and maybe a rental car to experience the charms of dozens of small towns all over Italy.

13:37Francis Mays writes about places she fell in love with from the foothills of the Alps to the rugged coast of Puglia. In her book, See You in the Piazza. Frances, it was so refreshing to see you writing about towns that just don't get listed in many of the guidebooks. They sound like the kind of laid-back Italian villages we all dream about. After more than 30 years in Tuscan, what is it about Italy that still keeps it exciting for you? I think it's because everything always seems different. You go 20 miles down the road and they're serving a different kind of pasta, or the color of the stone is different.

14:14All the towns have their own particular art, and there's just such a kind of integrity to each place. And the root of that, of course, would be that they used to not be able to travel in the Papal States, or, you know, there was no way to travel. And so all these places developed their own dialects, and they're strong still. So in our town, there are two very distinct dialects, and I found particularly in Puglia, there are even roots of Greek words still in some of the dialects. So you're saying in your hometown of Cortona, you'd have people on different sides of the square or whatever with their own dialects?

14:54Yes. I found that in the Cinque Terre also. Each town in the Cinque Terre, which are little tiny villages, a half-hour walk apart, you've got different words, And I guess it is a matter of local pride. It's a matter of in the old days you weren't able to travel so easily. And now when you have modern infrastructure, you can pull it all together. But Italy still has that. I love that notion of the campanilismo. Yes, within the sound of the bell. Isn't that a great concept? What does campanilismo mean to you? It means the piazza. It means the church in your town. You want to be within the sound of that bell.

15:29It just means home to you. And in our town, Cortona, there are four or five different bells that you can hear right in the piazza. And everyone knows what bell is from what church. One of them is called a nanny goat bell. One of them sounds like you're hitting a dishpan with a stick. People love their own bell. It's kind of an interesting thing. And it's a big issue with the new priest if he's going to ring the bell through the night or give everybody a break from midnight to 6 a.m. Yes. Yes. But it's interesting always to me that that specialness that each town has, each region has, it comes out of that history of isolation.

16:09But one thing I discovered in going north to south to write this book is that every region is fantastic. I always thought, well, who wants to go to Molise? Oh, it was so beautiful. It's so rugged and the people are just friendly and very robust cuisine, beautiful little beaches. Where is that exactly, Molise? Molise is way south above Puglia. It's right next to Abruzzo. Okay, see, I'm a typical American. I don't know anything much south of Naples. You've got to go. I know it. Well, in your book you say there's such a vast cultural diversity packed into a land the size of Arizona. Yes, it's just astonishing.

16:51You mentioned that travel is a journey into one's own ignorance. What did you mean by that? Absolutely. One of the joys of writing this book was that I just read everything about each region and had to realize how little I knew the successive waves of conquerors of Catania and how just the way the mountains plunged down into the sea in Catania influences the way people are. So you get into the geography, you get into the history, and then who the person is you're meeting makes a lot more sense to you. It's that revelation that comes from travel that is really the reason I travel. People are always asking me, you know, how do you save money?

17:34What's a budget trick? And, you know, it's going to cost you to eat well. It's going to cost you to see the great sights. And the more understanding you bring with you, the more context, the more ability you have to appreciate what you're consuming or what you're seeing or what you're enjoying, the more value it is. So my good budget tip is to do exactly what you're talking about. Know what you're looking at, and it becomes a much more rewarding experience. Yes. The other great budget tip for Italy is the whole agriturismo idea. Those are farm stays, and the website's just agriturismo.it. Each region is packed.

18:12I mean, forget Airbnb. Right. It's just fabulous to go stay on farms with working families. This is a farmhouse, kind of you could call it a farmhouse B &B, and to get that prestigious Agriturismo title, I understand it has to be a working farm. They have to actually, it's not just a nice house in the countryside that used to be a farm. They have to have stuff going on where they make money with their agriculture or their animals. And it's a real working farm. You know, in our country, the family farms sort of just couldn't make it. But in Italy, they supplement their income by renting out rooms.

18:45And the family farms can survive and talk about a way to connect with the people and to really connect with the culture. And you get to pet a goat or you get to sit down at the table and have that zero-kilometer meal where everything is right off the farm. Yes. And sometimes they will have cooking classes. They make special things for your breakfast, like a wonderful frittata, and you get to go out and get the eggs. And you get to know the family. And they can give you great tips about where to eat in town and things that you might not know to do that they know about. Do you have a couple of favorites, Frances, as far as agriturismi go?

19:21I've stayed in several. I've stayed in the countryside in Tuscany at very small farms in the Morema. And that is such a wonderful area. I'm way south in Puglia, in Sicily. I've stayed in a lot of them. Some of my favorite meals have been at the family table. And you've got generations of the mothers and fathers all around you on these portraits. And you see the family wine being poured by grandma. And it's been in the family for generations. And there's something that just makes it a beautiful experience. It does. They're putting up the blackberry jam, and they give you a jar when you leave. I love it.

19:57It's just an intimate experience. Anywhere in Italy, you know, you don't need to bog down on a specific recommendation. Anywhere you're going in Italy, you can get online and find the agriturismos in that area, and then you can have that more intimate countryside experience. You know, Frances, I've always wondered, you're the expert on Tuscany. You love Cortona. You've written books on Tuscany. But Tuscany has gotten quite popular. And is the Marquet sort of the next Tuscany, or what would you recommend to people that would like, quote, the untouristy Tuscany? So much of Tuscany is untouristy.

20:31And I hear all the time, oh, Tuscany is overrun. It's not. I mean, in mid-July, in places that tourists flock to, it's going to be kind of crowded. But here's all the rest of the year. Like, if I were in Cortona right now, I doubt if there'd be any tourists there. So I'm a big one for traveling off-season if you can. But even in Tuscany, like in the wine country, Montepulciano, Montalcino, Pienza, Cortona, those are popular in the summer. But they're not overrun. Florence can be overrun. Venice can be overrun. But I think it's very exaggerated that these small hill towns are— Or Vieto can be overrun.

21:15There's a few places that are tourist traps. But you're right. If you just venture out a little bit, you can do fine. Frances Mays is our guest right now on Travel with Rick Steves. The author of the bestseller Under the Tuscan Sun explores her favorite, less-explored corners of Italy in See You in the Piazza, new places to discover in Italy. There's more on her website. That's at francismayesbooks.com. Our phone number is 877-333-7425. You can email us anytime at radio at ricksteves.com. Gloria has called in from Daytona Beach in Florida. Gloria, thanks for your call. Hi. Hi, Frances. Thank you so much for all your hard work and helping us through these years educate our seven daughters of their heritage, which came through Sicily.

22:01Oh, beautiful. And, you know, the quickest path to memory is taste and smell, so we're all about food and your cookbooks. So the question I had for you was, where would you recommend that two of our daughters, 33 and 40, are planning to go on a trip to visit the homeland and stay in a small town and immerse themselves in the culture, just the way you prescribed to get to know the real Italy. We just came back from Catania, my husband and I, so I was wondering, what would you suggest? Maybe Puglia, or would you suggest Tuscany? What time of year are they going? Well, they're teachers, so there would have to be summer.

22:46For young women in summer, I think the little beach town of Marzomemi in the south of Sicily would just be wonderful. It's a beautiful small piazza lined with gorgeous cafes. It's right on the water, right on a nature preserve. And it's also very convenient for exploring Syracuse and the Baroque towns of Noto Modica and Chicli. And it's just a great base, but they would be there for this wonderful nightlife in the piazza. And I think they would absolutely love that. Yeah, we really enjoyed Ortizia. Gloria, let me bust in here because Ortizia is amazing. And it's a little confusing because everybody thinks of Syracuse.

23:29But the historic little island birthplace center, old center of Syracuse is Ortigia. And I found that to be one of the greatest discoveries also in Sicily. So that's nice. And I would add, I really like Francis's idea about establishing a comfortable base. And from there, you side trip out. And the beach town Francis mentioned would be delightful to take advantage of the great infrastructure that Sicily has. It seems like they've got better roads than they deserve. And there's probably a reason for that as the North tries to subsidize the South to keep them up to speed. And with that base that Frances mentioned, you could visit so much in southern Sicily.

24:05What was the name of that town again, Frances? It's M-A-R-Z-A-M-E-M-I, Marza Mamie. Marza Mamie. All right, Gloria, thanks for your call. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. Glenn is calling in from Sun Prairie in Wisconsin. Hi, Rick. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to Frances. I've got two quick questions, if you don't mind. Sure. The first is about the Albergo Diffuso movement. I've been reading about that, where they kind of try to resuscitate an old town by putting a hotel in the middle of it, but the hotel rooms themselves might be somewhere else in the village. Is this destroying those towns, or is it preserving them?

24:46What's your opinion? I'm so glad you brought that up, because it's a great movement, and it's catching on. It's a way that someone can have a hotel when they don't have a hotel. You check in at a central place, and someone takes you to a room in town that is usually beautiful. The one we were in was over the sea. And then you go back to that office for breakfast if you want to. But it's a great neighborhood kind of experience, too, because you're not in a hotel. You have neighbors, and if you stay a few days, you can figure out what they're cooking by the scents that are coming out the door. And it's lovely, and it's reviving these towns, I think.

25:28It's not doing anything negative. So that's Albergo. That is really good to hear. The word is Albergo Diffuso, and I've encountered that also. It's wonderful. You have the main check-in area, and then they usually have a person who will take you to your room, even if it's a few blocks away, and set you up. and then you're situated and you feel more like a temporary local. What was your other question, Glenn? The other question was about this year. They always have two cities of culture in Europe, and this year it's in Italy, a little place called Matera, way down south. And I'm wondering if this would be a good year to go there or maybe skip this year because it might be a little bit too crowded.

26:06I understand the infrastructure may not be quite up to having the number of people who are expected to go there. That's a good point. I'm not sure about that, but it's a fascinating town, and even if you wait a year, I think it would be worth going back to. It's where all the cave dwellers were on the side of the hill. I was there 30 years ago. It was dismal indeed, and it's been so cleaned up, and nobody lives in the caves anymore, so they've become objects of interest. But the main part of the town, other than the caves, is also really a pleasant town. It's in Basilicata, so it's a little bit out of the way.

26:44But if you're traveling to Puglia, Matera used to be part of Puglia, and it's still very close. So combining a trip to Puglia with going to Matera would be a good move. Wasn't Matera made famous with the Mel Gibson movie The Passion? Yes, it was filmed there. And the book Christ Stopped at Ebole features Matera. You know, Glenn, I've never found that when these cities are made the cultural capital or whatever, It's an excuse to invest in the towns and bring them to the forefront, but I've never found that they're overrun with tourists because of that. So as Francis said, you could go the year after, but you could also go the same time, and I think you would enjoy it, especially down there.