Traveling in Italy: Slow Down and Smell the Coffee

Building a client’s itinerary recently, we were running up against a common hitch: Some travelers want to see a full day’s plan, and they’re often tempted to add in extra things to do in addition to what we’ve suggested.

Since we don’t take commissions from any of the places that we sent people, we always tell them that of course they’re welcome to skip our suggestions and add whatever they want. But we always recommend that they leave enough time to take it easy and allow for unexpected opportunities to just enjoy a place.

It reminded us of a story from our travels a few years before we moved here. We were flying from Nashville to Rome by way of Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta, though, the Romeo flight had been cancelled. Since we were traveling with only carry-on baggage (another thing we always advise our clients to do), the airline was able to re-route us on a flight to Paris, and from there to Rome.

The upshot was, we arrived in Rome around 10 AM instead of our original 7 AM arrival. That meant we had to adjust our plan for the day, to account for the three lost hours.

We decided to chance it and drive straight from the airport to our lunch reservation in Chianti - a favorite restaurant we wanted to revisit. Since we had only carry-on bags, we were able to get out of the airport, into our rental car, and on the highway by 10:15 AM, which meant we should have been able to make it. Our original plan had given us 5.5 hours to drive a 3 hour route - that’s the kind of padding we like to work into our schedules, so we can stop for photos, coffees, or bathroom breaks - or manage flight delays - without stressing out.

That day, though, we seemed to encounter a lot of drivers on the highway who must have been transporting Faberge eggs filled with nitroglycerin, judging by how slow and pedantically they were ambling around - very unusual for Italy. We also had to stop for one much-needed double espresso at a roadside bar. We did end up making it to lunch, though we were nearly 40 minutes late. (We had called them on the way to let them know we’d be late - this is, by the way, one of the things we do for our clients when they’re traveling and running a bit behind.)

Though it ended up all right and we had a lovely lunch at this beautiful location, what could have been a relaxing drive turned out to be a fairly stressful one — which leads me to the point: We always tell our clients to pad their drive times, exactly for this reason. It's almost always a struggle to get them to commit to that. This is understandable, because people want to see as much as they can in the limited time they have; but we maintain that the best way to "see" things is to really spend some time in those places, taking it all in. To be able to stop and take a photo, or have an extra coffee - or account for a wrong turn.

At lunch that day, we were able to sit and spend a long time just taking our time to enjoy our food, the scenery, and the conversation. The osteria is right on a little country road in the Chianti hills, and every few minutes a car would go by. The sound of the car passing seemed enormous compared to the peaceful quiet of diners clinking glasses, children laughing, bees buzzing in the geraniums. In a street-side cafe in Rome that traffic sound would be so ever-present that you wouldn't even think about it.

You have to get out in to the countryside to truly slow down. And you have to allow yourself the time to give that slowness a chance to unfold.