When I was growing up in Antella, we often ate Sunday dinner with my Sardinian grandmother in her apartment. For dessert, she served seadas—semolina pastry filled with pecorino cheese. She deep-fried them in olive oil, then drizzled bitter honey on top while they were still hot. She made big batches and froze them, so she’d always have some for us.

You don’t find seadas in Tuscany—it was a treat I could get only at her house.

When she lived in Sardinia, in Tempio Pausania, she used miele di corbezzolo, honey from the flowers of the wild strawberry tree, famous for its bitter taste. She couldn’t find miele di corbezzolo in Tuscany, so she used miele di castagno (chestnut tree honey) instead.

Then I moved away, first to study linguistics in Siena, then to teach at the university in Grenoble, and I left Italy behind. My favorite restaurant was Lebanese. I traveled to South America, to New Zealand, to Asia. I visited my family in Florence, and most of my friends were Italian, but I was a citizen of the world.

Then I got married and moved across the ocean to Oregon. And suddenly, I didn’t know who I was. I’d lost my friends, my work, and the Italian culture I hadn’t even known was important to me.

I started compulsively cooking the dishes of my childhood. Pici al cavolo nero. Latte alla portoghese. Spaghetti alle vongole. Pan di ramerino. I bought a pasta maker and made my own pasta. I started a cooking class to teach Italian cooking.

And—in my kitchen in Eugene, Oregon—I made my Sardinian grandmother’s seadas.

Eventually, I found my way. But cooking seadas and all the other recipes was how I took the first step of acknowledging my Tuscan and Sardinian identities.

You can find my grandmother’s recipe for seadas here.

This post is the first in the Bitter Honey project, collecting the recipes the women and men of the Italian diaspora carried across the water—and the stories of how those dishes connected them to their paesi in Italy. Check it out at: https://numenvia.com/bitter-honey. I’m looking for recipes—and stories!

Elena is not the first person I’ve met who made a choice like this. That’s the thread I can’t let go — people who looked at the obvious path and turned away from it, toward something real and difficult. I see myself in them, because I did the same thing.

She isn’t a figlia d’arte — there was no family winemaking tradition. The grapes from those vineyards had always been sold to other producers. So Elena moved to Pisa to study enology, to become the first to actually make wine.

She defines her wine philosophy as modern but not modernist. Modern, because her wine, Titolo, is her personal interpretation of Aglianico del Vulture. Not modernist, because she deeply respects the terroir — that concept that encompasses the soil, the weather, the culture, and story of a place. The history that’s rooted in the soil.

Her vision doesn’t manifest only in her wine, but in the cellar as well. Built entirely on bio-architectural principles, it uses only recycled materials, no air conditioning, and rainwater to cool the fermentation tanks. One wall was deliberately kept exposed — layer upon layer of volcanic eruptions, the ash, the clay, all of it visible. The terroir, literally, is in the walls. It smells like soil and earth. Like a volcano. The winery is now completely energy self-sufficient.

One of her greatest supporters was her grandfather Generoso — one of three generations of men in her family who believed in what she was building. He had moved to Venezuela as a child before returning to Basilicata later in life. When Elena, fresh from her enology degree, came to him in the vineyards with a new technique, he laughed and said, “Seriously, Elena! I’ve been working here all my life — why haven’t I thought of this before?”

To respect the terroir of Vulture, the extinct volcano, irrigation is forbidden, even in the summer. As Elena put it, you can irrigate the desert and grow tomatoes. But those tomatoes will never be the expression of the desert.

If you’re ever in the area of Barile, in Basilicata, go and listen to her story.

Would you have had the courage to stay?

I hope I would have.

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There’s a video I took during my last scouting trip to Basilicata that I can’t stop thinking about.

I was on the pasture, talking to Mariantonietta Vaccaro, the owner of Podolico Reale, a Slow Food Presidium producer of Caciocavallo Podolico, one of Basilicata’s most celebrated cheeses, when her dad got close to the river and started making these unusual, primordial sounds. It got my attention immediately. He’s calling the cow on the other side of the river, she said. He wants her to come back.

I learned that each of the 70 Podolica cows not only has a name and a unique bell — so her dad can recognize them by sound — but that he has a specific call for each one of them.

Mariantonietta studied biotechnology and was offered a doctoral research position in chemistry. In 2016, she turned it down and joined her brother Antonio in formalizing the family's century-old cattle-raising and cheesemaking tradition into a proper enterprise. I could definitely hear her scientific training in her way of talking about raw milk and cheese.

Podolica cows are like the Bentley of cows—gorgeous. With their wide horns and different shades of grey, they live entirely in the wild — no stables. They move between pastures according to the rhythm of transhumance, following the seasons.

You can see the wild grass in the milk: it’s bright yellow.

A Podolica cow produces about 5 liters of milk a day, compared to the 30 liters of a standard Jersey cow. And she will only give milk if her calf is nursing at the same time. The milking happens while the calf is feeding — the mother allows it, because her baby is there.

I had the pleasure of watching Antonio — Mariantonietta's brother and the cheesemaker — work. He crafted their famous caciocavallo, and manteca: a rich, golden butter made by separating the fat from the whey, then wrapped inside a layer of stretched-curd cheese to preserve it for up to a year, without refrigeration. It's one of those solutions so elegant it makes you wonder why the rest of the world forgot it.

Talking to Mariantonietta and witnessing their work, what strikes me most is the radical choice of not following the rules of modern farming. Only raw milk. No artificial enzymes. Wooden tools instead of metal. Everything is done by hand.

I often question if following a tradition is simply nostalgia, but in their case is really about putting the quality of the product first.

By transforming the milk immediately, without long transport, they don’t need to reduce the bacterial load. Her father once introduced a milking cart to milk two cows at once — but when they analyzed the milk, the bacterial count was ten times higher than with hand milking. Every choice they make exists to keep their milk healthy, raw, and never pasteurized.

If you ever find yourself in Basilicata, go visit them. You can find Podolico Reale in Brindisi di Montagna, in the mountains near Potenza.

And I’m curious… Between an academic career and crafting raw cheese in the mountains, which path would you have chosen?

You can also read this newsletter at https://numenvia.com/blog/

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“You need a place, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. A place means not being alone —knowing that in the people, in the plants, in the earth, there is something of yours, that even when you’re not there, it stays and waits for you.”

— Cesare Pavese, La luna e i falò, 1950.

Pavese’s novel is the story of an orphan who emigrates to America, and then returns in a melancholy homecoming. In Italian, ‘place’ is paese—it means village, hometown, place of origin. But for Pavese, paese is also the place you choose to make your home.

The story of Basilicata is the story of a people—the Lucani—longing for home. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, hundreds of thousands of Lucani left for the Americas, fleeing the terrible poverty of Italy’s South. They made new homes, but they carried the villages they left in their hearts. Now, some are returning. Others are choosing to stay, to make something new in this land Lucani have been building for at least nine thousand years.

I wasn’t prepared for Basilicata. I grew up in the green rolling hills of Tuscany, where the landscape alternates between olive groves and vineyards. It’s soft, picturesque.

Basilicata is nothing like that — sharp eroded ridges of white clay with villages perched on top, spires of rock with villages wrapped around them. So much of it is empty. Abandoned towns. Silence.

I remember driving around its countryside with Adele, and thinking, where is everybody?

In Tuscany, wherever you look, there’s a medieval village or an old farmhouse. But standing at the top of the ghost town of Craco, all you see are bare hills-the calanchi-all the way to the horizon.

The missing people were stonemasons, laborers, seamstresses. They helped build the Americas. In New York, the emigrants from Craco founded the Società San Vincenzo Martire in 1899; the feast of their saint is still celebrated there every fourth Sunday of October. The story of the Crachesi is the story of emigrants from so many towns: San Giorgio Lucano, Campomaggiore, Vietri di Potenza, Venosa...

In April, I stood with Adele and her friends in Craco, in front of the house of Joe Rinaldi. Joe’s family left for Toronto in 1967, when he was six. He wrote this letter for us to read aloud in front of his house:

“…inside our home, Craco lived on. In spring we celebrated Easter with roasted lamb and homemade taralli. In summer my father planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cicorie, parsley, and basil. My mother preserved tomato paste for the winter. In the fall we made wine. At Christmas, seafood filled our table on Christmas Eve, followed by savory zeppole and sweet chestnut-filled pastries. In January, there was salami and pancetta.”

Adele’s family left Pisticci for Toronto, like Joe’s. She came back to Pisticci with me, and sat laughing with Rosetta, who isn’t quite sure how old she is.

But the story of Basilicata is not only a story of leaving and bittersweet returns. It’s also the story of the people who choose to stay, wherever they are from.

Elena Fucci, who gave up a future in genetics to stay on her family’s land on the slopes of an extinct volcano. She stopped her grandfather from selling their vineyards. Now she crafts world-famous wine from those vines.

Sabrina, a baker whose family has worked the same oven in Matera for generations. She chose to stay while the young people around her were leaving.

Elena and Andrea, a couple from Rome and Milan. Andrea drove past an olive grove with a Vendesi sign and just knew. The patriarch—a massive olive tree planted when Galileo lived—rules the grove. They bought the land, and now they make olive oil, and when their friends come to visit from Milan, they can’t sleep for the silence.

For all of these people — whether their family moved across the sea, or they were born here, or they choose to make it their home — Basilicata is their paese.

I don’t have the words to tell you why these people love Basilicata—but I will try to show you. I’m going back in October, to listen for more stories.

If you can, go to Basilicata. Let these stubborn, generous women and men welcome you.

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I visited Matera for the first time in November 2025, on a research trip preparing for an upcoming Spring tour.

As an Italian seeing this town for the first time, I was honestly speechless.

Matera is disorienting — in the best possible way. No matter where you are, you feel like you’re in the heart of the city, until you turn a corner and find yourself somewhere else that also feels like the heart. Among the Sassi, the ancient cave district, there is no periphery. Every angle is the center.

Then there was the view. When I filmed this short video from one of the overlooks, I felt genuinely puzzled. The colors, the canyon, the scale of the landscape — it didn’t feel like Italy at all. For a moment, it felt closer to Morocco or Algeria than anywhere I knew back home.

And then there’s the light. I’m not a photographer, but I’m deeply sensitive to it. Every place has its own specific quality of light. In Matera, at sunset, the way light reflects on the limestone is almost unreal — quiet, ancient, and absolutely jaw-dropping. This is the reason why during the Spring Basilicata tour we’ve decided to include one night in the Sassi, a choice against my usual preferred concept of having one home base for guests.

Growing up in Tuscany, I had always associated Matera with a phrase I’d heard since childhood: la vergogna d’Italia — the shame of Italy. The story I knew was about poverty and neglect: over 15,000 people living in cave dwellings without electricity or running water, until the government evacuated the Sassi in the early 1950s and relocated everyone to modern housing. A problem solved.

But in Matera, I heard another version. Patrizia, the owner of Panificio Perrone, told me that the real shame was never the people or how they lived — it was the Italian politicians who had spent decades ignoring them. And she offered another perspective I hadn’t considered: that the forced relocation, however well-intentioned, came at a cost. Life in the Sassi was built on an extraordinary closeness — neighbors who shared everything, a social fabric woven from proximity. Moving into modern apartments meant losing that. It was, she said, a kind of rupture. Not unlike what many of us experienced during Covid, when overnight, the texture of daily social life simply disappeared.

What surprised me most, though, was Matera’s relationship with its own future. In Florence, where I come from, the dominant question in tourism has long been how do we attract more visitors? In Matera, I sensed a different conversation, more far-sighted. What do we want this place to look like in 50 years? You can see it in the choices: the preference for considered, high-quality hospitality over cheap, high-volume options.

Matera is an absolute must. But know this: if you visit only this city, you are barely scratching the surface of what Basilicata has to offer, which is why our Spring tour goes much further than this one extraordinary place.

There’s an Italian word I keep coming back to: struggente. It means something between haunting and heartbreaking — the feeling of being moved by something so deeply that it almost hurts. Matera is struggente. And once you feel it, you’ll understand why I can’t stop thinking about it.

P.S: I'll be in Basilicata this April. If this region has gotten under your skin the way it got under mine, follow along. I'll be sharing the behind-the-scenes of both the scouting trip and the tour on my WhatsApp channel. Feel free to join :)

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You’ve probably seen Val d’Orcia before.

It’s the Tuscany of the collective imagination: rolling hills, cypress trees, that golden light. Val d’Orcia is the perfect postcard, and a dream destination for photographers.

But places like this don’t become meaningful because they were filmed, photographed, or chosen by someone famous (hello, the Obamas). They become meaningful when you start digging a little deeper and asking different questions:
Who lives here? Who works this land every day? What choices are being made quietly, far from the postcard?

This is how I see Italy, my home country—not only as a collection of beautiful views, but as a web of people and bumpy relationships. Lots of ups and downs. In short… the real stuff.

And this is how I love to design my tours: by introducing you to the people who give a place its depth, real people beyond its image.

I value beauty deeply, especially as a gateway to awe. But without context, beauty doesn’t stick with us for long.

Val d’Orcia is famous for its pecorino di Pienza, a delicious sheep’s cheese made with raw milk. And once you stay here long enough, once you really look at those hills, a question becomes almost inevitable:

So… where are the sheep?

The answer is less romantic than the postcard suggests. The cheesemakers who moved from Sardinia in the 1970s originally raised sheep locally for cheese production. In recent years, however, to cut costs, some producers have started buying milk from outside the region—sometimes even from other European countries—and transforming it locally. It’s efficient. And it’s legal.

But not everyone chooses that path.

I wanted to meet Ulisse, at Podere Il Casale, because he’s an outsider. As I’ve written before, outsiders are often particularly good at truly seeing a place.

Together with his wife Sandra, Ulisse arrived in Val d’Orcia in the early 1990s, coming from Zurich’s punk and countercultural scene. They were looking for a different way of living: producing their own food and creating a space where artists could experience a communal life.

What they found was Podere Il Casale: a run-down farm with no electricity and no running water. Not exactly the dream. But for them, it was radical and deeply liberating (though for Sandra, who was 38 weeks pregnant at the time, it understandably took a little longer to adjust).

Today, Podere Il Casale is a farm-to-table restaurant and artisanal dairy producing pecorino di Pienza exclusively from their own sheep’s and goat’s milk. Everything comes from their land: olive oil, wine (or grape juice if you don’t drink alcohol), flour for bread and pasta. The only meat—rarely found on the menu—is goat or sheep.

Well, almost everything. They buy their salt from the Adriatic coast.

No shortcuts.

Ulisse has a gentle German accent, and first and foremost, he’s a shepherd. But part of his work is also education. He shares what it really means to farm today—without romanticizing it or sugarcoating it.

Meeting people like Ulisse and Sandra is like peeking through a window into a Val d’Orcia most travelers never get to see.

And they’re not the only outsiders who helped me understand this landscape more deeply.

Like Ulisse and Sandra, Pamela Sheldon Johns is an outsider—someone whose presence has blended seamlessly into the region through deep curiosity and a profound respect for local culture.

Born in California, she settled at Poggio Etrusco in the Montepulciano area over forty years ago. Over time, by attuning herself to the rhythms of daily Tuscan life, she became one of the most knowledgeable voices on cucina povera—the traditional, peasant cooking of the region, all about seasonal, simple ingredients stretched in many ways.

Spending time with Pamela isn’t about a simple cooking class. It’s about stories. Stories that reveal the social and historical layers behind the food we eat. One of my favorites is about her outdoor oven. Shortly after buying the property, she discovered by chance that it was actually a communal oven. Every Tuesday, she was expected to light it so neighbors could come and bake their bread. Unaware of this unspoken tradition, one morning she found a woman with dough in hand, glanced at the cold oven, and walked away. Small moments like these show how deeply food is woven into community and daily life.

With Pamela, you don’t just learn what Tuscany tastes like, you experience it.

Val d’Orcia is also shaped by people who intervene in less expected ways, by reimagining how the land itself can be used.

One of my favorite discoveries is Puscina Flowers, a flower farm run by three sisters passionate about sustainable floral design. When they started in 2014, there was nothing quite like it in Italy—growing seasonal, local, organic flowers for weddings and design was virtually unknown in rural Tuscany. Inspired by Northern Europe and the U.S., they brought a new way of seeing and using the land.

Their journey wasn’t easy. Convincing suppliers, clients, and even neighbors that a flower farm could thrive here took years of dedication. But today, Puscina Flowers is both grounded and dreamy—a space where you can experience the rhythms of the seasons, the patience required for growth, and the beauty that comes from deep care and connection to the land. And, for sure, one of the most beautiful lunch settings in the valley.

Visiting them isn’t just about seeing flowers. It’s about understanding a vision and the creativity —and maybe even bringing some of that inspiration home with you.

Over the years, I’ve learned that places reveal themselves through people—the farmers, the cooks, the creatives who intertwine their personal stories and craft with the landscape.

That’s why the Val d’Orcia tour isn’t about ticking off sights. It’s about creating space for these encounters and traveling in a way that gives value and visibility to the people who shape this place every day.

No matter what, I want these people and places to be known. Because Val d’Orcia is not just a beautiful landscape—it’s a living one.

And if this way of traveling resonates with you, I’d love to share it with you, on the Val d’Orcia journey.

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I fell in love with jigsaw puzzles a few weeks ago.

It started with my oldest son. We were working on a puzzle together, and I was so absorbed that it took me a while to realize he had already moved on to something else, while I was still trying to find the eyes of the dolphin.

Now, in the evenings, after the kids are in bed, if I’m not asleep myself, I work on puzzles. Actually, Noah’s puzzles. My husband even gifted me a Cinque Terre puzzle, so I don’t have to spend all my evenings on puppies and fairies anymore :)

At some point, I realized something: what I was really craving wasn’t just lying down or doing nothing. I wanted something to keep my hands busy while my mind wandered freely, connecting dots and generating ideas.

What I was really craving was flow.

Flow is that precious state where you know the end goal, like finding the dolphin 🙂, where the challenge keeps you engaged but never blocks you, and where you’re so absorbed in what you’re doing that the world around you fades away. You do it for the sheer joy of doing it, not for the reward.

And I realized that maybe the same could happen while traveling.

What if the joy of a trip isn’t just seeing a place, but immersing yourself fully in it with you hands. Kneading fresh pasta, stirring a pot of milk as it slowly turns into cheese, picking vegetables straight from the garden?

Maybe the real gift isn’t just the skill you learn, but the space it creates for your mind to wander, to notice things you might otherwise miss.

In Val d’Orcia, this is exactly what a day can feel like: your hands busy, your senses alive, and the iconic Tuscan countryside all around you.

What if travel wasn’t about escaping or relaxing, but about discovering something new inside yourself?

What are your hands curious to try, so your mind can wander freely?

I’d love to hear!

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What I cook for Christmas matters a lot to me.

Not because I’m religious, and not because I feel the need to stick to a specific tradition, but because I deeply love the process of cooking. Planning, chopping, tasting, adjusting. It’s how I slow down and pay attention.

This year, my husband and I are spending a few days in Canada visiting his family, where Christmas dinner will be Indian food (one of my favorite cuisines) on Boxing day. So I decided to do my cooking marathon a few days earlier, on December 21st, the winter solstice.

I had my Jewish friends over, who of course don’t celebrate Christmas, and my neighbors Svetlana and Grisha, who are from Ukraine, so technically Orthodox. You see why calling it Christmas didn’t feel right.

My only rule in the kitchen is simple:
I cook only food that I genuinely love eating.

This year, that looked like this:

Something very Italian:
Crostini with butter, anchovies, and capers.
I know anchovies are a deeply divisive food, but honestly, this might be the best thing life has to offer.

Something very traditional in my household:
Crostini with butter and smoked salmon, finished with lemon zest (my personal addition).

Something that every Italian would be horrified to see:
Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes.
I know. Tomatoes in December. I was simply executing a request from Grisha, who absolutely loves bruschetta!

Then there were two dishes by Anna Jones, my personal hero. A mushroom tart and a squash and kale parmigiana. I love her cooking so much. One of my wildest dreams is that one day I’ll organize a tour with and for her: going to this Sicilian farm, cooking together, talking about cookbooks and food. Just putting this dream out there :)

And finally, Anna Jones’ carrot cake, with candied oranges that I made myself. Such a fun project. The only Italian ingredient was the mascarpone in the icing, but this is also the cake I made for my son Isaac’s first birthday, back when we were in Italy in November. Everyone was absolutely skeptical. Turmeric and fresh ginger in a cake? Lime zest and mascarpone? I got the eye roll…

And yet, they all loved it. Someone said it felt unconventional, like something you’d buy at a bougie vegetarian bookstore in Florence (BRAC, to be specific). I’ll take that as a compliment.

Looking at this table, I realize how little it followed the rules, and how much it followed pleasure. I’m starting to think that’s what keeps traditions alive.

If you’ve ever made a tradition your own, I’d love to hear about it.

Happy holidays,

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One of the parts of my work that excites me the most is meeting farmers and makers, the people who keep Italy’s oldest traditions alive in their own way. Their stories always leave me inspired, and often with a new perspective on what it means to live intentionally.

When I began looking for a small-scale organic olive oil producer to include in a Basilicata tour I’m working on, I came across Mantenera and immediately felt drawn to Elena and Andrea.

As someone who grew up in Tuscany, olive oil isn’t just a condiment for me, it’s the ingredient I can’t live without. Running out of olive oil (or coffee!) is unthinkable in my home. As a teenager, I used to do the olive oil harvest during the weekends in October and get paid in green bottles of olio nuovo, the freshest olive oil. Honestly, best experience ever. It made me laugh when I read an article where Bill Gates said, “The thing you do obsessively between age 13 and 18 is the thing you have the best chance of becoming world-class at.” If that’s true, then no wonder I feel most alive when I’m meeting farmers and producers.

So when I search for a new producer to introduce to my guests, I look for people who respect the land, have a story and a purpose. With Elena and Andrea, I felt it immediately.

They aren’t native to Basilicata. They come from Rome and Milan, beautiful but exhausting cities. At a certain point, the pace of life there stopped feeling like living. Basilicata entered their story almost by chance. Andrea was traveling across Italy on his motorbike, searching for a quiet place to start over, when a small country road led him to Mantenera. He saw the old olive grove, the forest, the view of the Lucanian Dolomites, and a sign that simply read Vendesi.
In that moment, he knew, this was home.

If you ever join the Basilicata tour, or visit on your own, you will understand why. The energy there is grounding and the silence is deep.

But as beautiful as it is when you visit as a guest, I try not to romanticize it too much. Working the land is humbling and hard.

Andrea told me that the biggest lesson he has learned is the true value of things , olive oil included.

To produce the highest quality oil, he goes to the frantoio, the olive mill, at 3am, so the olives are pressed immediately before they heat up and lose their goodness. If he waits until a more appropriate and comfortable time of the day, like noon, the mill workers might be juggling too many tasks, and the olives could sit too long, changing the final result.

During the tasting of their two oils, one thing amazed me. Olive oil is, of course, a fat, yet when you swish their oil around your mouth so your papillae can taste it, it doesn’t coat your tongue at all. Instead, it leaves brightness rather than heaviness, a sign of great quality.

And then there is the silence of Mantenera… truly an introvert’s dream. Andrea told me that when his friends from Milan come to visit, they have trouble falling asleep because they aren’t used to so much quiet.

This is why I chose to bring guests here. Not just to taste olive oil, but to meet people who have chosen a life of meaning and beauty.

If part of you is curious about the Italy that still feels untouched and authentic, Basilicata will feel just right for you.

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Today is my birthday and besides celebrating with my favorite dish, spaghetti alle vongole, I decided to pause for a few minutes and reflect on the things that truly matter to me.

First of all, relationships.
They are at the heart of everything I do. I want to work for people and with people. Guests who join on tours, of course, but also the farmers, artisans, and makers who open their doors and share their vision with me.
With farmers and artisans I want to support their vision for their life and their craft.
With travelers, I know I can’t control what they’ll retain or what moments will stay with them but I want every journey to offer something meaningful, something that can be felt long after returning home.

I value beauty, but especially beauty with stories.
Beautiful landscapes are everywhere. You don’t need to travel far to find them. I actually believe there’s nothing more democratic than beauty. It exist everywhere, if you train your eyes and your mind to notice it.

What makes a place unforgettable are the people who inhabit it and the stories intertwined with their land. Without those stories, a destination becomes an empty container, a pretty object on a museum shelf. It’s there but it lacks context. With them, it becomes alive.

Home, whatever that means.

After 15 years of living abroad, I’ve finally accepted that “home” isn’t a fixed point on the map.
It’s an ensemble of relationships: my family in Italy, my friends spread across Europe, and the family I’m building with my husband here in Oregon. I usually feel that sense of home most intensely in the space in-between, on a plane, flying from or to Europe. It’s a magical space where I can process and have perspective on things.

I value traditions.
The ones I grew up with, the ones I’m creating now for myself and my family, and the ones I encounter around the world. Not traditions as rigid boxes, but as inspirations, ways to slow down, be mindful, and remember what matters.

And I value journeys, especially the ones still ahead.
I’m building my own tour operator to connect curious travelers with Italy beyond the beaten path, not just Tuscany, but the overlooked corners filled with food, craft, and people. As the brilliant Elisabetta said, 75% of travelers visit only 5% of Italy.
I want to open the door to the other 95%, so people can feel the layers of richness, uniqueness, and humanity found behind the doors of crafters’ workshops and producers’ homes.

So here’s to another year of exploring and creating. Cheers to another year around the sun!

P.S: If you’d like to send a birthday wish, the most meaningful gift is to share this newsletter with a friend who loves Italy, follow along on Instagram or Facebook, or leave a review. Thank you for being here, your presence on this journey means a lot!

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I just got back from a research trip for a tour I’m organizing with, and for, my friend Adele in the deep south of Italy, Basilicata.

It was my first time in the region, and although our schedule was packed with meetings and visits, I traveled there without a fixed idea of what I should find. I had done plenty of research before leaving, but once I arrived, I let the place reveal itself.

Italy is my home country, and somehow it never stops surprising me. I have yet to find another geographically tiny country that holds so much diversity in landscape, traditions and food not to mention languages and dialects.

Since I’m from Florence, I couldn’t understand a single word of the local dialect. But I did managed to retain 3 beautiful words that I kept hearing and they somehow became the perfect representation of the trip: mier, wine, ciucce, donkey, and rupo, cliff. ( I’m sure I misspelled all of them!).

Here is a moodboard with some videos and impressions that stayed with me.

I definitely won’t forget:

• The warmth of the people and the level of hospitality. Everywhere we went, we were met with genuine kindness, including an unexpected birthday gift for baby Isaac from the owner of the apartment where I stayed. She must have seen his birthday on the passport during check-in.)

• Elena Fucci, an oenologist and winemaker working in a land rich in tradition and folklore. I loved how she talked about terroir, how every element of the land around an extinct volcano, the Vulture, shapes her wine. She said :“You can grow tomatoes in the desert, but that doesn’t mean tomatoes are the full expression of the desert”. Her wine is the full expression of the Vulture. In a food system where products are so often disconnected from their origins, seeing someone defend terroir so passionately was striking.

• Elena and Andrea, olive oil producers who left stressful, chaotic lives in Milan and Rome to buy an old olive grove near the Lucanian Dolomites. Their story reminded me how farming can be a legacy passed down through generations, or a radical choice made by people seeking a completely different rhythm of life. I won’t forget the quiet and silence in their grove.

• A personal realization: one day I want to live somewhere where I can grow grapefruits in my backyard. Is it just me??Anyone?

• Matera bread. A huge loaf of pillowy bread made with semolina flour. I learned all about its story, the hard work of the women who made it, the stamp used to mark each loaf with the husband’s initials, so it could be recognized at the communal oven. I even managed to bring one back in my suitcase. (And I highly recommend you do the same!)

• The ghost town of Craco, inhabitated only by three ciucce (donkeys), its silence and stillness were unforgettable.

• The old town of Matera. The third oldest continuosly inhabitated town after Aleppo and Jericho. I was in awe. Matera touched me in the same way Macchu Picchu in Peru or Varanasi in India did. Believe me when I say that once you see it you can’t forget it.

I’ll be sharing more videos and pictures about this trip on social media so if this region intrigues you, you can follow along here.

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I wanted a place that was brand new to me, somewhere I could walk from home to the beach and that wasn’t overrun with tourists. I’d knew I found it. We were almost alone on this beach, and it felt like the world had paused for us.

We decided to intentionally skipping Athens, although none of us had ever been there.

Right before heading back to Italy, though, we felt the pressure to visit the Acropolis. I mean, can you really go to Greece and not see the Acropolis??

So we went. The heat was scorching, and we, along with thousands of others, were herded through a narrow line, like cattle, while security people waved their arms to keep the crowd moving.

Was the Acropolis stunning? Yes.
Was it a great experience? Definitely not.

I don’t think I even took a picture. It was underwhelming, and somewhere in that slow shuffle uphill I was like Why on earth did we do this?

The day before, we’d been driving in Andros down a small country road when we noticed a tiny white and blue church on the side with this giant tree shading its entrance. We stopped, went inside (the door was unlocked), and when we came out my toddler started playing chase around that majestic tree.

It was a moment of lightness and bliss, the kind that stays with you years later.

It really made me think about how easy it is to fall into the trap of what we must see (especially by social media).

Maybe the trip to Tuscany that you’re imaging and dreaming of doesn’t need another checklist.

(and trust me, if you skip the “famous” panino at Antico Vinaio or the Vivoli affogato in Florence, you can still have an incredible experience!)

Instead, ask yourself.

What do I really want from this trip, and why?

Maybe it’s connection. With your family or your friends. Maybe is inspiration or reconnecting with your roots.

What kind of feeling am I longing for?

Your answers will guide you far better than your checklist.

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One of the things I love most during a tour is that the most meaningful moments are never planned, almost by design.

During my last tour in Val d’Orcia in Tuscany, we had just finished lunch at cookbook author Pamela Sheldon Johns’ farmhouse. As we were about to say our goodbyes, the priest of the local church walked in. It is a tradition in Tuscany, especially in the countryside, that once a year the priest visits households to bless the home. I remember this very well from my own childhood. My grandmother’s house, the priest walking around with the incense censer, the sweet smell filling the air. Pamela was so happy to welcome him; it was the first time the priest was coming to her house since Covid, she told me.

As Pamela shared with me that day, I’m not Catholic… but the farmhouse is. I love that idea: a house belonging to its landscape, carrying stories and an identity that go far beyond its current owners.

The room grew quiet as everyone gathered around the priest in a moment of prayer. And it didn’t matter if you were religious or not. There are moments like this when you can feel something in the air, a sense of reverence and awe, where people move together in unison.

These are the moments that linger, long after you’re back home and settled into your routine.

When you think back to your last trip, what comes to mind first, the historical facts, or that one instant when you felt something larger than yourself?

I’d love to hear ! Hit reply and tell me what moments from your last trip stayed with you.

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It’s been a while since my last newsletter. 2025 has been full, mostly with this little guy in my arms.

One of the big highlights of this year was definitely my Val d’Orcia tour. Last spring, when I was still in the early (and very nauseous!) stages of pregnancy, I traveled to this tiny but precious corner of Tuscany with a dream: to create a tour that would reflect the soul of this place I love so much.

Designing a journey through Val d’Orcia has been in my heart for a long time, and to see it come to life, and to watch my guests enjoy it, filled me with joy.

Here are just a few favorite moments from the tour:

• Cooking all together at Pamela Sheldon Johns’ house. Her knowledge on Tuscan peasant cooking and the stories that come with it were so beautiful.

• Wandering around a flower farm and having lunch under an old olive tree.

• Seeing my baby becoming the mascot of the tour :)

• An impromptu pastry tasting (brilliant idea by our guide, Marta!) at a Pasticceria in Castiglione d’Orcia. Oh my! Those pastries were unbelievable. When I went to pay the owner smiled and said “We never see new faces here, I’m just happy you came”. That moment reminded me why I do this work: to bring people to the hidden, authentic corners of Tuscany, that still have a soul.

If you’re curious to see what a tour in this amazing part of Tuscany looks like, here are some videos about it.

What I’m reading:
For the Love of Lemons by Letitia Clark. If you love lemons as much as I do, this book is a treasure.

What I’m looking forward to:
The elderberry bushes in my garden are almost blooming! Since coming back from Tuscany, I’ve been enjoying weekend Aperol Spritzes, and I can’t wait to recreate the elderflower version I had at Amblé in Florence. I’ll share the recipe here soon.

Thanks for reading, and for being part of this little community. It means a lot.

A presto,

Giuditta

Hello friends,

I’m popping into your inbox this week for a special cause!

My friends Valentina and Nicolò at Podere le Fornaci in Greve in Chianti are running a crowdfunding campaign to purchase new tools for their cheese production. They aim to raise 5,500 euros, which is a significant expense for a small farm with modest profits.

I absolutely love their work because they have a holistic approach to farming.

They make decisions based on what’s better for their “princesses”(their small herd of goats), the land and the local community.

How do they do this?

1. They only milk their goats and produce cheese from April to October. This choice impacts their profits, but its aligns with their values and ensure the well-being of their animals. If you’re someone who doesn’t like goat cheese because of its pungent smell, I highly recommend trying Valentina’s cheese. When goats are well-treated and live in spacious conditions, their milk doesn’t develop that strong smell!

2. Their approach to hospitality is authentic and not sugar-coated. Being a small farm in Tuscany is challenging, to say the least.

3. They love their land and are committed to supporting the local community.

   Instead of listing their small properties on Airbnb, they decided to rent 3 rooms to young people from the nearby town of Greve. These young tenants pay a small amount and help in the community-vegetable garden during the week end. While renting through Airbnb would generate higher revenue, it would negatively impact the community in the long run.

4. They’re also part of the WWOOF network, so if you ever interested in working with goats you can join them for a short time.

5. Valentina is the only farmer I know in the Chianti area who places so much value on sharing her knowledge about food and cheese making. She willingly takes time to teach others.

6. On a personal note, when I was teaching in France, I had a huge career and identity crisis. My coworkers and I at the Italian department often joked about leaving academia to raise goats in the French Alps. None of us did that (though we all took different paths!), but I see in Valentina and Nicolò what my life could have been :)

If you can, please consider helping them with a donation!

Remember the butterfly effect: 
Invisible and inevitable, like a butterfly that beats its wings in one corner of the globe and with that single action changes the weather halfway across the world

You can support their crowdfunding campaign at this link.

A presto!

This was a brand new experience for me. I have been truffle hunting in wild oak woods, where the uneven terrain, scattered branches and the need to keep up with the dogs can turn it into quite a workout. So, walking in a tartufaia was a pleasantly relaxing change of pace.

What fascinates me most is the love and passion that people like Giancarlo pour into their work with the land. Establishing a tartufaia is fraught with risks. Even if trees are inoculated with truffle spores, there's no guarantee they will produce any truffles.

It’s a true labor of love, dedication, and patience.

A presto!

On my last trip to Italy, I was researching a new itinerary in the Val D’Orcia region, south of Siena. In this next set of videos, I’m going to bring you along while I walk through green rolling hills, explore ancient villages, and eat amazing food, looking for the perfect experiences to share with my guests on my upcoming Val D’Orcia tour.

You’ll get to see all of this for yourself, but here’s what I’m looking for:

- the chance to get to know people who live and work in that place, and who have a deep commitment to it. 

- beautiful scenery that fills you with wonder

- convivial experiences that you’ll treasure

- delicious food

- learning how food is prepared by getting your hands dirty and doing it yourself. Not too dirty — this is a vacation! — but enough that the food is so much more meaningful when you eat it later.

Have you ever been to Val D’Orcia? What was the highlight for you?

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I love truffles!

You might associate them with fancy restaurants, but in this video I show you how they’re collected in the Tuscan countryside. I went truffle hunting with Becky and Adele, and you’ll see Daniele and his dogs digging them from the earth beneath the oak trees. And how we enjoyed the truffles in Daniele’s farmhouse with great food, family and friends.

I hope you’ll love the experience as much as we did.

Adele and Becky, if you’re reading this email I hope you’re doing fantastic!

Hello there!

I recently got back from 3 beautiful weeks in the Tuscan countryside and I’ve decided to share with you all the things that I did so you can get a taste of life there.

If you’re watching this while at home, I hope this newsletter will bring you a glimpse of Tuscany from wherever you are.

Join us in June and September for a week in Chianti.

Why Chianti ?

Because it surprises in every season, with rolling hills, olive groves, vineyards, villas, and medieval hamlets. Stretching between Florence and Siena, it’s world-famous for its wine. But you’ll experience much more with us.

The small town of Greve in Chianti and its surrounding hills are the perfect place to stay for a few days. No suitcase to pack every morning.

This 7-day tour features lovely walks through olive groves and vineyards and visits to medieval hamlets.

You’ll connect with local makers and crafters, and get the chance to make food with your own hands. You’ll enjoy amazing local food in farmhouses and trattorie. All without spending hours in a tour bus, since everything is close by where you’ll be staying. 

This is the right tour for you if :

• You’re passionate about food and how it’s produced and prepared

• You love history and art and local stories

• You get inspired by artisans who are passionate about their craft

• You love to spend time getting to know a region

• You love walking in the countryside (our walks are not strenuous, and there’s always a driver to take you if you prefer)

• You appreciate beautiful accommodations and comfort, but want to do as well as to see

You’ll come away from the Exploring Chianti tour :

• Inspired by local farmers and makers

• Relaxed, recharged, and eager to return to your daily life with new energy

• Certain your slow tourism experience helped local farmers and artisans to live and prosper in the place they love

Curious to know what previous guests said about the tour?

Ratna O., Toronto, CA : “ Giuditta is a perfect guide, an organizer par excellence. Her local knowledge of the region, its hidden and other secrets as well as her connections with the community all served to make our trip to Greve unforgettable.”

Golijeh, Los Altos, California: “ The goats, the goat farm, the natural surroundings, all the ancient buildings and traditions that are still in use, all together really went right into my heart and made me feel connected, as if I had belonged to that land in some past life.”

Anders G. : “ When she had answered all our questions and was wondering if we were ready for cheese, my children were standing close by her and a few years older. For my part, besides being star struck, I was deeply appreciative as a parent, whispering to my wife that the last hour had been worth the family’s airfare to Italy.”

For more details about the dates and itinerary you check here :

Itinerary

Do you know someone who might love this tour? Please share this email with them and help me spread the word.

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I hope to see you there,

Giuditta