the Italian Villages - An Intact Treasure to Experience Slowly

Tourist Italy is certainly represented by destinations such as Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and Naples, just to name a few, but there is certainly also a type of tourism, which has been growing strongly in recent years, which, outside of mass tourism, prefers the most real and still on a human scale, Italian Villages. The Borghi are small centres, small villages scattered from North to South, flagships, which preserve within their walls the slow rhythms of centuries of history, culture and traditions and are therefore able to attract Italian and foreign tourists looking for a "slow" Tourism, experiential, relational, on a human scale, which heals and enriches the soul in drops and not in storms. A Tourist, that of the Villages, who favors quality, sensations, human relationships, personal and personalized experiences, who does not seek the optimization of time, typical of mass tourism, but lives it.

A visit to a village presupposes a different mental state, because a village is experienced with all the senses starting from the sense of smell in search of the typical scents, listening to the silence which here is interrupted only by the noise coming from the artisan workshops that still practice ancient crafts . Places to walk around looking with your heart, rather than with your eyes. Places where you can live real experiences on a still human scale, like going to shave in an ancient barbershop for the sole pleasure of stopping to talk to the elderly people of the town.
The Italian Villages are nothing less than a truly widespread, polycentric museum, an ideal destination for a trip out of town, for a weekend in the open air or for a journey among flavors and pleasures.

The attention to the Villages demonstrates attention to sustainable, supportive and inclusive tourism, respectful of the environment, the host communities and their identities. A decidedly green philosophy for conscious, low-impact tourism, made up of enchanting itineraries and riches to prevent abandonment. Yes, because visiting Italy's ancient villages, unknown to many, means supporting and preserving places exposed to the risk of demographic and economic decline.

The villages of interest are an incredible architectural and human heritage; characteristic and picturesque pearls set in every corner of the Bel Paese. In Italy there are more than 300 and sometimes they are tiny communities enclosed within the walls of houses made of stone or tuff, lost on very green slopes or perched on the peaks of impervious mountains from which bell towers, towers and castles of ancient memory stand out. Other times they are seaside villages gathered in small inlets created by the sea or overlooking small ports from which white or very colorful houses shine. All with their folklore, popular festivals, habits and customs that have remained intact century after century. All with a story to tell just waiting to be heard. Among the smallest there is Cornello di Tasso in the Bergamo area and Ostana in the Upper Piedmont Po Valley, which together do not number 100 residents; among the most famous ones we find Capalbio, perched in the Tuscan Maremma, or Bobbio, Dolceacqua Bellano and Luserna villages set in splendid natural contexts. San Gimignano, Norcia, Nocera Umbra and Gesualdo as places rich in art and history, Civita di Bagnoregio unique in its kind, up to those villages such as Positano, Polignano a Mare, La Maddalena, Tropea, Otranto, Cefalù directly overlooking the sea.

In short, traveling through villages is not for everyone, it is a different type of tourism that needs different, respectful tourists who love to live experiences rather than see places or things. Tourists who seek a slow impact, aware of being guests and therefore respectful of places and people and who, in order to impact as little as possible, like to reach these destinations by different means, especially the train, even bringing their own bicycle with them, so as to be a one thing with the nature and history of those places.