Beyond the big three: where to go on your second trip to Italy

You've done Rome, Florence and Venice. Now for the Italy that doesn't make the postcards — six regions worth building a whole trip around.

By The Pilot

The first trip to Italy almost always follows the same golden path: Rome, Florence, Venice, maybe a day on the Amalfi Coast. It’s a wonderful introduction — and then it quietly spoils you, because the second trip is where Italy really opens up. With the headline cities behind you, you can pick a single region most visitors skip and give it a whole week. Here are six worth building a trip around, each a country unto itself.

Piedmont — for food, wine and quiet grandeur

Tucked under the Alps in the north-west, Piedmont is Italy at its most refined and least crowded. This is the land of Barolo and Barbaresco, of white truffles shaved over egg pasta in autumn, of elegant Turin with its arcaded avenues and café culture. The rolling Langhe vineyards feel like Tuscany before the tour buses found it. Come in autumn for the harvest and the truffle fairs.

Puglia — the sun-baked heel

Down in the far south-east, Puglia is all whitewashed towns, olive groves, and a long coastline of clear water. Its signature sight is Alberobello, a town of trulli — conical stone huts that look like something from a fairy tale — but the real pleasure is slower: seafood on the harbour, the baroque honey-coloured stone of Lecce, and beaches that rival anywhere in the Mediterranean without the price tag. It’s hot, easy and joyful.

Sicily — a whole world on one island

Sicily isn’t a region so much as a crossroads with three thousand years of history layered into it — Greek temples better preserved than any in Greece, Norman cathedrals, Arab-influenced street food, and Mount Etna smoking over it all. The food alone justifies the trip: arancini, cannoli, granita for breakfast, and the freshest fish you’ll eat anywhere. Give it more time than you think you need; it’s bigger and richer than it looks.

The Dolomites — Italy goes vertical

Up in the far north-east, the landscape and even the language change: this is a German-and-Italian-speaking world of jagged pale peaks, alpine meadows and mountain huts serving dumplings and strudel. In summer it’s a hiker’s paradise of cable cars and high trails; in winter it’s world-class skiing. It’s the antidote to hot-city sightseeing — cool, dramatic, and unlike anywhere else in the country.

Basilicata — the road less travelled

If you want the Italy of a generation ago, go to Basilicata. Its star is Matera, a city of ancient cave dwellings (the Sassi) carved into a ravine — once a symbol of southern poverty, now one of the most extraordinary places to stay in Europe. Beyond it lies a wild, empty, mountainous region that sees a fraction of the visitors it deserves. This is deep-south Italy,