Since 1977, the year I married into an Italian family, I have traveled with my wife to Italy almost every year, in particular to San Marino, Romagna, and the Marche.
Initially when we went, her cousins over there had the best greeting ever: “We’re going to take you to a great place for seafood.” Or “There’s a town nearby that serves the best spaghetti alla carbonara.” Or “We can’t wait to take you up to Acqualagna for truffles.” We would go and I would think, “No one but a local could ever find one of these places. I’m with locals.” How lucky I was. With time, I acquired the language and learned a few road signs and started to drive. We traveled up and down the coast and up into the hills and continued this process of discovery with her relatives and on our own.
Now, so many years later, when friends come with us to Italy and stay a week, we take them to our favorite destinations–to hill towns with castles, to towns along the Adriatic with Roman ruins, to local joints with awesome food. I tell them “You’re getting the back-roads tour.”
I have an idea for a project, for web documents (and probably eventually a book) that take you to some of those back roads, routes rarely traveled by people who are new to Italy and even by those who know Italy but have never explored Romagna and the Marche. Using these resources, if you are a first timer, you might begin a trip to Italy with some popular destinations–Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice–and then get to the back-roads tour for 2-3 days. Or, if you’ve already been to some of the postcard destinations, you might travel back roads for a week, going slow, taking it easy.
Think of the back-road tour as “slow travel. “The “slow” concept was born in Italy in the 1980’s, when “slow food” became a thing. The idea was to spend time at the table, appreciating local and traditional foods, rather than rushing.
Slow travel means no bus, no train, no stretches of long hours as you travel from point A to point B. Most of the time, your feet are on the ground. Feet on the ground is slow. On back roads you go slow. There’s time for coffee and pastries in the piazza, for aperitivo in the late afternoon. Slow travel means you don’t try to see everything. You focus your gaze and your attention; you drill down, you sink in.
Where in Italy exactly?
I saw this headline recently, “Italy named No 1 most beautiful country in the world.” And saw this map:
There’s Emilia-Romagna on the Adriatic coast. I notice that neither the Marche nor San Marino are even on the map. If they’re not on the map, that’s good. That means fewer tourists. You know tourists–the swollen line outside the Vatican Museum, the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in Piazza della Signoria, the barely standing-room-only spot you grab on the vaporetto in Venice. The back roads experience is not like that.
For this project the area I’m talking about is shown below:
To the west, the Apennines. To the east, the Adriatic coast. And a network of state and provincial roads connecting 20 towns where you will enjoy amazing food and wine, spectacular hills and valleys, Roman ruins, and hill towns with castles and fortresses. The sights are spectacular, the food and wine fantastic.
You’re going to need a car. And you’re going to need some digital satnav help. Satnav is the game changer. You can get to the most remote locations with relative ease. (Could I interest you in a seafood lunch at Ristorante Falco, in Baia di Vallugola? You can make that happen. And it will change your life.)
We fly into Bologna and get into a car. For this project, our exploration will begin there.
First stop, the Republic of San Marino. Where do we walk? What do we see? Where do we eat?
And after that, we’ll take the scenic route to Rimini, Torriana, Verucchio, Santarcangelo, San Leo, Pennabilli, Sant’Agata in Feltria, Pesaro, Gradara, Urbino, Fano, Cagli. Acqualagna, Ravenna, Comacchio, Dozza, Brisighella, Ferrara, and Bertinoro.
I’ve never done it before, on foot. Next week I plan to cross the Rubicon.
