Giada De Laurentiis’ Italy Travel Tips

Watch this before you go to Italy! Giada answers all of your questions about travel in Italy.

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so summer travel is coming up and I’ve been getting a lot of requests about where to go in Italy and what to do and what places to visit what restaurants to eat at I asked on Instagram what exactly you guys want to know so we can really make this a more tailored Italian experience and so I’m going to answer some of your [Music] questions my favorite times of year to visit Italy are usually in the spring and in the fall and Christmas time if you need a destination for Christmas the big cities are just they’re just so they’re lit up it’s it’s so magical so those those are the three times of year that I prefer to go to Italy best way to travel uh within Italy train or car or driver I love taking the train I find that it’s relaxing I can see the countryside and I don’t have to worry about getting lost uh but a lot of people like to drive a lot of my family they like to drive everybody’s got their thing my favorite is trains I think what I love about the train is that if you want to go from Florence to Rome or uh Milan to Rome which is like top and bottom it’s only a couple hours so 2 hours on the train to me it’s it’s lovely plus I can get a little espresso sometimes you get a little cornito or a little you know a little Panino and so I can eat I can chill I can nap or I can look out and look at the countryside so to me the train is a glorious way to travel I think the one that’s the most condensed that people love is Florence Florence is really easy to walk it’s not a big giant City you could walk it pretty easily in a day Roman Milan they’re very spread out it’s very busy but they also have great metros so the Metro is always a great way to see different areas within those big cities but if you want a walkable City that’s really easy Florence is your best B I’ll tell you that my aunt rafy’s favorite restaurant isia camoo she likes to go there on the regular when she’s in Florence like when I say on the regular I mean for every meal my favorite restaurant is quat Leon they have a gorgona and pear ravioli that is just extraordinary out of the swirl delicious and it’s in a cute little Courtyard and across the way from the restaurant is a galatia that has unbelievable gelati so it’s like a really fun evening and then if you stop and get wine on the way before or after dinner in the little wine Windows cuz they have 160 of these wine Windows All Over Florence and there’s my glass of wine you just get one of those and you enjoy a glass of wine and then you go to dinner and have some gelato I mean what’s better than that right for a night in Florence in Italy we eat dinner very late it is true um I think that’s something that’s really hard for a lot of uh Americans who go there cuz we’re so used to eating early here it’s not odd to eat dinner at 9: 9:30 sometimes 10:00 7:38 is really early for a lot of Italians so bedtime I mean 1: in the morning and then you sleep in and and don’t forget Italians take a lunch break a 2our break in the middle of the day where they go home and have lunch and they take a cat nap there’s a lot of resting involved so that’s why you can stay out late for that exact reason different culture we we see our meals and our um sleep you know Cycles totally different we like to sleep breakfast is known as col that’s the word for breakfast in um Italian breakfast is usually around like 9 10:00 in the morning and it usually consists of either a quick espresso at the Espresso Bar and maybe a Coro but it’s usually on the go we don’t usually sit down to a breakfast we just don’t it’s at the bar espresso corneto boom done first time we sit down a meal is lunch Pano so my two favorite places to eat um in Milan are bich b i c e and Jackal so those are the my two faves and both of them have a version of the Roto laan a yellow risotto because they use saffron but I’m telling you it is the best risoto you will ever have so have risoto in risoto mil in Milan because nobody else anywhere else in Italy makes it quite like the Manan do it’s fabulous beich probably has one of the best I’ve ever had jakamo has one but it is more of a rato risoto and Salto so you take leftover risoto and you fry it up in a pan it’s kind of crispy it’s fabulous also two different versions of the same dish um the other thing I would say that you could get at either restaurant is the calete de Milan it’s a ve pounded super thin and pan fried and it is again out of this world and usually it’s giant so if you’re into taking Instagram pictures or Tik toks you will love that and guys I’m going to be in Milan which I am super excited going to be doing some really cool things and meeting up with some of my friends and I think it’s going to be a really fabulous trip so if you want to follow along check out my full travel experience on ji.com I’m super excited I’ll see you there well one of my favorite small towns in Italy that I discovered like 3 years ago or something maybe three maybe four years ago is down in Pula I love Pula and it has become more popular but not as popular as the North and I feel like it needs a little more love so Le l e CC is one of my favorite towns it’s got so much history and it has art galleries and it’s just totally cool and hip and unbelievable you know hotels that are more like Pion where people used to live they were people’s homes and so beautiful gardens and just so peaceful and Serene and not far from the water and Pula has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world so if you’re ever in the South give Pula a shot if you’re going to the Amalfi Coast for 5 days I think home base should probably be somewhere in Positano that would be my choice anyway because pyan is very walkable and walk to dinner in many different areas and then you can take a car you can rent a Cho chano if you want and you can take the highway all the way up the Amalfi Coast there’s so many different uh towns there’s Rell up in the mountains where you can drink wine I mean there’s beach towns there’s everything you can down go down to Sorento there’s so many places to visit all along that beach but posy Tano I feel like sort of in the epicenter so you can go up and then you can go down and then you can visit all of those areas you could also eventually take the fairy over to Capri for a few hours um but I think Positano is a great home base when it comes to wineries um it kind of depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for and are you a wine connoisseur because if you’re a highend wine connoisseur you’re going to want to stay up in the north that’s some of the best red wine in the world is up north in the Tuscany region but if you’re looking for more table wine and uh family run Vineyards then I would go south Julia has some really great wine Sicily is known for some really fabulous white wines so they’re not giant Vineyards but they are really like homegrown and and they do produce some fantastic wines they’re just a lot lighter there’s a lot of like lemon and citrus in the wine and in the grapes because of where they’re located especially um on the Amalfi Coast they’re crisp but they’re light that you would eat with Fish And in the north I find that a lot more people who are wine collectors wine connoisseurs want real depth they go up North for the Tuscan wines the big bold ones do you think you can go wrong with a wine in Italy I honestly don’t think you can go wrong with a wine in Italy I really don’t and I think table wines they’re delicious and they’re great value in my opinion when you have young children and this is what I did when Jade was young is I stuck to smaller towns start with Florence Florence is a very walkable City you can bring a stroller it’s easy to get around and you can pretty much go everywhere right if you want to go in Tuscany I love mon Ino I think it’s adorable you can get a little apartment in town and you can walk everywhere and you can eat everything and it’s easy to access and get around once you go down south I really like Capri islands like Capri isia prida they’re all very contained Islands so I feel like you stay in a hotel or you rent an Airbnb and I mean most kids pool and Beach and they have both they have Beach Clubs everywhere you can dip in the ocean you can play water games it’s much easier to get around and you kind of get a feeling for the Italian culture and that’s really more of what it’s about because I think when you try to drag kids around in Rome especially it’s overwhelming it’s just over there’s so much coming at you so you have to like plan it where if you have young children stay outside the city or go to an island and that way everything’s contained as your kids get older and they can handle more coming at them then you start to do the historical parts of Italy Rome Milan all of those kind of areas Naples also has unbelievable history but again there’s a lot going on so for little kids that’s overwhelming stick to the smaller towns in the outskirts or coastal towns well I love Ceramics all different Ceramics from all over different parts of Italy Ceramics in Italy are very Regional so they’re different patterns and different thicknesses and different shapes depending on where you go in Italy so Ceramics would be number one in Rome there’s a older man who has a marble shop and he does these small little marble plaques that have Italian sayings on them and I just I love those it’s on VI maruta it’s fabulous so anytime I go to Rome I get those the other thing I look for is spices I like little spice mixes like they have spice mixes to make matri Chana to make um different kinds of rotos like a porini spice mix so I tend to go for those too when it comes to the Italian Ian summer and it can be real hot I think the trick is always cotton cotton and linen those things really breathe really well a lot of women wear you know colorful baggy cotton and linen dresses um not a lot of form fitting things because you want your body to breathe and they wear a lot of accessories jewelry to you know to kind of dress it up a little bit funny enough I mean in my family not me per se but many of my female relatives no bra they just go around unal so when I was a kid and we would go to the beach in Italy if we got wet and we were in a bikini you would change for lunch eat lunch and dry clothes and then you change back into your bathing suit after lunch so there’s a belief in Italy that you know you don’t eat with wet clothes it’s bad for digestion just like you don’t go into the water for at least 2 hours after eating a meal they’re all myths but we’re very superstitious people I wouldn’t avoid any touristy spots I would just be more strategic as to when what time of day I was going so for instance you want to um visit the Vatican I would visit either really early in the morning or really late at night because the thing is is that in the middle of the day it is just so crowded you won’t get anywhere it’ll just you’ll just get frustrated so get up early as the sun is rising or much later in the evening maybe even after dinner take a stroll there’ll be a lot less people around um and it’ll be much more enjoyable same with the Coliseum one of my favorite touristy spots is the Trevy fountains but I say you go under the Trevy Fountain to really get a feel for what life was like back centuries ago and it’s really cool so the same thing that you do at the try F and make a wish I’m going to do it down here a lot of people ask about gluten-free pasta gluten-free in general in Italy there are restaurants that make gluten-free pasta I would say that unless you have celiac disease or some really intense adverse reaction to gluten that you’ll actually be okay in Italy first of all portions are much smaller than they are here that’s number one number two our ingredients our flour Isn’t So refined it’s just easier to digest and so I don’t think you’re going to have the same issues that you have in the states with gluten it’s just cleaner and I will say this too you will walk a lot in Italy and so people don’t gain weight like they do here when they eat a lot of carbs it’s sort of like the body’s processing it differently when you’re there than when you’re here and also you guys it’s a state of mind you’re in the most beautiful romantic just warm place in the world and I think that you feel that love and so your brain kind of computes the food you’re eating in a different level and you’re relaxed and there’s something to be said about eating a smaller portion of pasta or bread when you’re in this beautiful Serene peaceful place when it comes to Pasta in Italy in my book there’s no such thing as too much pasta I love it breakfast lunch and dinner actually I don’t eat it for breakfast but lunch and dinner I do I just love it even if I’m sharing it you know a lot of times I order a pasta or two for the table and then we all share that and then we all get our MS which is a meat or a fish or a vegetable right so it’s a lot about sharing so you don’t end up eating as much it’s just a cultural way of eating you know very family style so when you’re traveling in Italy there’s a few words and phrases that come in really handy the first one I would think of is a which means do you have so if you’re asking for something specifically you say AO do you have parmo J so that’s a really good word to know unlike here in the US when you’re in an Italian restaurant you don’t automatically get a glass of water you have to ask for it so usually what we say is a bottle Aqua oral so do you want sparkling water or natural that’s a really important phrase because otherwise you don’t get any water and then ilto the check please so ilto and Chin Chin cheers cheers you guys hopefully that was helpful if you want uh more key phrases for your Italian adventures then log on to JSI our guides have plenty of them all right