How can we escape the well-worn paths of mass tourism? How can we turn a trip into an opportunity for discovery and wonder? Here is a short guide to carving out a tailor-made travel itinerary.
Let's be honest: the "tough" life of the regular traveller, much like that of the seasonal holidaymaker, is not immune to a considerable dose of performance anxiety. Bombarded as we are by avalanches of advertising and trend-driven stimuli, we find ourselves nagged by a strange, indefinable dread of having missed something, of not having seen or explored enough, of being unable to track down the "right" places, or of having failed to draw anything truly memorable or engaging from our last trip or day out.
How do we acquire the magic touch of seasoned explorers? How do we escape the well-worn paths of mass tourism and become genuine dowsers of enchanting little spots? How do we rediscover the pleasure of those small or great discoveries that happen only when travelling?
If decalogues strike you as a touch too pretentious, here is a shorter, more nimble "pentalogue" to use as a sound holiday guide, helping you carve out an itinerary that is, at last, tailor-made for you.
People who know us well, or who perhaps even share what might be called our "elective affinities", can generally point us more effectively towards destinations or experiences that suit our tastes. For example, if you are wandering around Paris, it may happen that a dear friend you haven't seen in a while suggests meeting up — or heading there on your own — in a little-known corner of the legendary Place de Furstenberg, a genuine architectural gem half-hidden in a labyrinth of alleyways in Saint-Germain des Prés, between rue Jacob and rue de l'Abbaye, in the heart of the 6th arrondissement.
Between the former home of Delacroix (now a museum) and a few gallery and atelier windows, you can spot, perfectly camouflaged within the soft chromatic harmony of the façades, the so-called Maison du Chou. The delicacy mentioned on the sign announces the house speciality: the celebrated French pastries, made by hand to an award-winning recipe and filled to order, right before your eyes, with old-fashioned piping syringes brimming with chocolate, hazelnut praline, chantilly cream, caramel or more.
You can take your haul — the choux — away in special boxes, or savour them on the spot in the charming little wood-panelled dining room. As the most well-read cinephiles will recall, it is on the benches of Place de Furstenberg that the final scene of Scorsese's celebrated film The Age of Innocence was shot, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day Lewis in the respective roles of Countess Olenska and Newland Archer from Edith Warton's novel of the same name. A detail that leads us directly to tip number 2.
It is highly likely that a place will feel evocative if, even before arriving there in person, you have already wandered through it in your imagination, having encountered it in the pages of a novel, the lines of a poem or a song, or indeed the scenes of a film. With that kind of background, visiting a palace, a garden, a shop or an alleyway will not feel like a listless stop on some generic itinerary but will instead become the continuation of an inner narrative, the fulfilment of a genuine curiosity.
If you are in Paris again — for the first or the umpteenth time — and if at some point in your life as a reader or student you encountered and appreciated the so-called "poètes maudits", treat yourself to a visit to the sumptuous and baroque Hôtel de Lauzun on the Île Saint-Louis, once the residence of two icons of French literature, Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier, who held their gatherings there alongside Balzac, Dumas, Victor Hugo and other illustrious "colleagues".
If, on the other hand, you prefer the sea and perhaps an exploration of the magnificent Ligurian landscapes of the Cinque Terre, you can follow the scenic routes of the literary park expressly dedicated to the sublime poet Eugenio Montale, a special inhabitant of those places and Nobel laureate in literature.
The apparent contradiction with what has been suggested so far is just that — apparent — because in every moment of daily life, planning and method must inevitably be combined with the readiness to seize the right moment or opportunity. So, even when travelling or on holiday, it will be essential to keep your eyes, ears and above all your mind open to any promising "detours" from the planned itinerary.
You might find yourself exploring Capri and, while strolling along the Punta Tragara belvedere, catch a glimpse of a path that plunges down to the sea. If you make the small athletic effort of following it to the end, you reach a sign that, in Neapolitan dialect, announces to the wayfarer their well-earned reward for the exertion: the entrance to the delightful restaurant Fontelina.
A true oasis of rock and blue, where you can savour refined local seafood cuisine right in front of the incomparable spectacle of the Faraglioni, with the added bonus of a secluded private beach of sun loungers and parasols, as well as a water taxi or gozzo boat service that can take you directly by sea to Marina Piccola.
The advice is less generic than it may seem: it is not simply a matter of setting off in search of museums, architecture, monuments and so on (a pursuit which, in any case, already tends to yield excellent results on its own), but of scrutinising the clues contained within individual works of art, drawing on the unerring eye of our favourite artists.
If, for example, you have been captivated by Monet's paintings, by his tangled vegetation and his world-famous water lilies, why not set out in search of the originals — that is, the landscapes that inspired them? Simply go to Giverny, in upper Normandy, to the colourful gardens now dedicated to the Impressionist painter who immortalised them, beside the house where he lived.
In this context, the suggestion may strike you as somewhat Cicero pro domo sua, but it actually contains a very solid kernel of common sense: in the toxic contamination of food, air and nature that now afflicts our planet, the experience of flavours, views and landscapes is today more than ever inextricably bound up with the efforts of those who live and work by grounding their professional activities in the principles of eco-sustainability and environmental awareness.
You only need to experience the difference to realise how genuineness and biodiversity have by now become, if not a luxury, certainly a rarity and a gift. So, among the thousand suggestions that could be offered in this regard, there is for example the opportunity of a fresh perspective on the Venice lagoon, among whose most atypical delights must surely be included Ristorante Venissa, in Mazzorbo, on the island of Burano.
Here, in a small enclave sheltered from the cosmopolitan fusion of the Serenissima, you can savour the most rigorous observance of local self-sufficient tradition, not only in terms of typical recipes, but also of raw ingredients, which are sourced specifically from lagoon fishing, the vineyard, the orchards and the vegetable gardens adjacent to the restaurant.