It hits me every year.

I own a Bed and Breakfast in the  premier European vacation country in Europe.  People come to Italy with all sorts of ideas and expectations.  Some come here knowing that they want to see David in Florence, the Pantheon in Rome and The Last supper in Milan.  Others simply want to eat and drink in the country whose existence centers around those two things. At some point in the season I find myself taking care of a guest who has committed the most common, easiest mistake of all:  Italian Holiday Overload.

When you’re on the Internet and planning your holiday and realize that Italy has over 40% of the world’s cultural treasures in a space that’s not much bigger than the state of Florida, it’s easy to think that you can have it all in two weeks’ time.  You can visit the posh yacht harbor of Portofino, make a brief stop in the Eternal City, then tool around the winding roads of Amalfi.  A quick jaunt over to Pompeii and then the train up to Tuscany.  Relax in the vineyards for a few days or so then on to a gondola ride in Venice.  Sounds amazing, right?

It’s deadly.

This might just be one of the most intense countries on the planet.  There is so much beauty and wonder packed into such a small place.  The first time I flew into Italy I landed in Florence. I remember seeing the red tiles roofs against the black green of the cyprus trees from the plane and thinking, this is it.  I’ve arrived. It took me all of three minutes after getting our rental car to shed my shoes, don my sunglasses and declare myself Italian.   We stopped at one of the notorious AutoGrill rest stops and marveled at the elderly Italian guy who poured himself a glass of red wine on the hood of his car. Italy, I’ll tell you. I’ll creep into your heart fast.

Street signs can be confusing in Italy.

After about four days, I was exhausted.  So many new impressions! Wherever you look, something more beautiful and older and more historically significant and wow.  Does it ever end?  But getting from point A to point B was a nightmare for the uneducated.  Signage was either non existent or seemed to be confusing on purpose.  We drove into one way streets that narrowed to the point that we could not go forward, and had to back out without scraping the sides of the car.  The world famous Vespa motor scooters cut us off at every turn.  Vertical climbs with no guard rails. Hairpin turns that the oncoming busses take generously. By the end of the week I never wanted to drive here again.  And we did that trip with absolutely no agenda at all!  Wo be the Type A person who thinks that they can do it all.  This country will bring you to your knees and spit you back out on the tarmac at your home airport more exhausted and stressed than you were before you took off for the land of La Dolce Vita.

I’ve spent eight years here in the hospitality business. I’ve seen otherwise seemingly intelligent people become exhausted and disoriented to the point of severe pouting, all because they made some crucial errors in judgement while planning their Italian vacation.  And I’ve seen others who have planned their vacations well and have enjoyed, savored, and lived every moment.  The more frustrated ones invariably have spent more money.  The happier ones have spent more carefully.  In the end, it’s a question of simplifying.

Here are some of the best tips for enjoying a 10 day to 2 week holiday in my beautiful adopted country.

1.  Choose one part of the country to visit. I know what you might say. I may never get back to Italy.  I want to see it all. No, you don’t.  You sure can try, but in reality, if you think you can go from north to south to east to west, you will end up spending all of your time and money  in trains and in cars.  You will end up seeing almost everything and absorbing absolutely nothing, as if you were watching it on TV ( in fact, watching it on TV would be preferable and would cost less). You’ll have to refer to your photographs to have any recollection at all of what you might have seen.  Yeah you will be able to say you “did” Florence and Positano. But did you experience them? No. Not at all.

Instead, choose one part of the country and set out to go a little deeper. Do a geographic divide and see what interests you.  For example,  Liguria and Piedmont.  Southern Tuscany and Umbria.   Naples and the Amalfi.  Venice and Veneto.  The Lake District and Milan. LeMarche and the southern part of Emilia Romagna.  Biting of small piece of Italy geographically will mean digesting huge portions of it culturally.  You won’t be rushing through, which means you will be internalizing the things you see and experience.

2. Stay in no more than two places. The worst part of fast travel is trying to keep your stuff together while changing hotels every few days.  Instead, choose two nice places within your price category and stay for at least five nights in one, and the rest in the other.  This will give you many things.  First of all, you will not only see sights, you will get to know your micro neighborhood.  I suggest mixing a hotel stay with a vacation apartment rental.  Italy is full of wonderful holiday apartments and B&Bs.  For example, spend a week at  Casina di Rosa , a beautiful, small vacation home in southern Tuscany and then the rest of your time at Madonna del Piatto near Assisi in Umbria.  Your hosts Gloria Capelli and Letizia Mattiacci will give you all the information you need to make you feel at home in those to very diverse cultural areas of Italy.  Letizia’s  cooking classes have been published in National Geographic and Food and Wine magazine.

3. Prepare to immerse. Take the chance to breathe, eat, and live even for a few short days as Italians do.  If you are staying at a vacation rental, buy food at the local outdoor market and prepare it at home.  Staying in an apartment for part of your vacation is great value for your money.  Then you can splurge a little bit on the second part of your trip and stay at a nice boutique hotel or B&B.  A great place to look for both types of accommodation is the Slow Travel Website. I’ve been active on the forums there for years, as are many other regional Italy experts.  You can get a world of information on destinations all over Europe at Slow Travel, from people with lots of experience with more uncomplicated, less hectic vacations.

4. Choose less “popular” destinations.  They’re usually better. When you start telling your friends you are planning on going to Italy, they will start giving you lots of advice about what you have to see. You have to get to the Vatican, or else there’s no use going to Italy.  If you haven’t beaten the tour busses to San Gimignano, you might have as well stayed home.

I say be brave.  There is such a density of wonderful things to see in Italy, it just doesn’t matter where you go.  It’s all about what makes you happy.  Is it art?  Spend a week (yes, a whole week) in Florence.  Is it gorgeous Mediterranean sunsets?  Rent an apartment in Camogli (one of the most beautiful secrets on the Italian Riviera).   History  your thing?  Rent a place in the hip Roman neighborhoods of Trastevere or Campo dei Fiori.   Want to try the best wine in the country?  Come visit us.  We’ve got four hundred wineries within a half hour. The main thing is, you decide.

Italian police have some of the best dress uniforms ever

5. Once you’ve arrived, go slow. No, it’s not a supreme waste of your vacation time to spend the afternoon on the terrace of your B&B reading your Kindle.  It’s necessary.  You can only absorb so much new information at at time.  It’s your vacation.  Let yourself get over jetlag and relax.  You’re going to be wherever you are for awhile, and none of it is going away.

6. Spend less time taking pictures and more time really looking at things. Absorb beauty in the moment.  Chances are you will have taken enough photos to recall most of it when you get home.  But the main purpose of your vacation is to live it in the moment.

7.  Walk and take public as much as you can. You will see more worthwhile things if you stay as far away from tour busses as you can. If you are in a larger city, go to the tourism office and learn to take public transportation.  It’s so easy, so inexpensive, and you will feel like a local within a day.

8. Eat gelato daily.

ps it’s your last chance to comment on my interview with Holly Becker to be eligible to win a copy of her book.  Winner will be announced tommorrow!