What to do in Italy?

What we would do here

Not a place to walk into, but something to do: our pick per area.

• Gladiator school

  On the Appian Way there is a school that teaches the technique and weapons from Roman sources, and it is the one thing in Rome that puts the Colosseum back into the body rather than the gaze

• Truffle hunting with a dog

  The hills between San Miniato and Cortona are truffle country, and the hunt is done with a trained dog and someone who knows the woods. It is the only way to see where the shavings on your pasta come from

• A Vespa through the Chianti vineyards

  The roads between Florence and Siena are narrow and winding, which is exactly what makes them right for a scooter rather than a car. In Tuscany the view is between the places rather than at them

• A winery visit in the heart of Chianti
  Antinori nel Chianti Classico · 4.5 stars · 2336 reviews

  Antinori built its winery inside a hillside, so the roof is a vineyard and the cellars sit beneath it. The visit passes the oak barrels and ends with a tasting facing the valley, which is how you see wine being made rather than only drinking it

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• A Venetian rowing lesson

  In Venice you row standing and facing forward, a technique that exists in this lagoon and nowhere else. A lesson in it takes you off the main canals into the ones the gondolas do not enter

• Fresh pasta workshop
  Trexento pasta experience · 4.9 stars · 168 reviews

  Venice has almost no kitchens open to visitors, and here you roll the dough by hand and eat what you made at the end. It is also the chance to ask why lagoon pasta differs from the southern kind

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• A Neapolitan pizza workshop

  Naples is where this pizza was born, and it has a written standard governing the dough, the temperature and the time in the oven. A workshop here is the difference between eating one and understanding why it is what it is

• The limoncello house of Capri
  Limoncello di Capri · 4.4 stars · 277 reviews

  Limoncello comes from the lemons grown on the coastal terraces, and here you see the path from peel to bottle and finish with a tasting. It is the stop that explains why the lemon here is a symbol rather than a garnish

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• A silk workshop in Como

  Como has been making silk for Europe's fashion houses for generations, and its workshops teach printing on fabric. That is the real link between the lake and Milan, not just the view

• A guided walk on Etna

  Etna is an active volcano, and its upper zones open and close according to what it is doing. A licensed guide is not a garnish here, it is who knows where you may walk today

• Wine tasting on the slopes of Etna
  Benanti Viticoltori · 4.7 stars · 240 reviews

  The vines here are planted in black lava soil, and the wine that comes out is mineral in a way that is hard to find elsewhere in Italy. The tasting explains the volcano from a completely different angle than the climb to the crater

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• Orecchiette in the alleys of Bari

  In the old town of Bari this pasta is rolled by hand on tables in the street itself, and it still is. A workshop here happens in someone's home rather than a teaching kitchen

• Via ferrata

  The fixed cable routes in the rock were invented in these mountains during the war, and they are what lets a non-climber reach the walls. It is what the Dolomites gave the world