Italy Food & Wine Travel Guide

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Italy food and wine celebrates culture and heritage through fabulous flavors. By sipping celebrated vines in the north or learning world-renowned recipes in the south, indulging in intricate family favorites found in a small coastal village or basking in bold aromas that rise from vintages produced in medieval hillside towns, you can experience how food and wine in Italy is a transformative experience. Our travel guide gives you better insights into how to customize your trip to uncover ancient dishes or enjoy contemporary wine-productions. When you are ready to book, speak with a local travel specialist who understands how to craft your mouthwatering trip.

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Vineyards in autumn, Langhe, Piedmont
Best Time to Visit Italy for a Wine Tour
Italy’s wines can be enjoyed at any time of year, but if you wish to immerse yourself in a wine-focused tour, the best time to visit is in January and February, after the harvest. Uncover the beauty...
A couple is tasting young wine at one of the wineries in Italy, Umbria region
Top 4 Wine-Tasting Experiences in Italy
From wine tasting in Chianti towns to exploring Sicilian cellars or pairing wines with Venetian delicacies, you can enjoy the top four wine-tasting experiences in Italy as you travel from one region to...
Types of Italian pasta
10 Popular Types of Pasta to Try in Italy on Vacation
Italy is home to thousands of different pastas to try during your personalized trip, each with its own distinct shapes and flavors that stem from the unique regions found across the peninsula. Italian...
Vineyards around Panzano in Tuscany, Italy
4 Best Wine Regions of Italy
Wine in Italy is a culture all its own and the top wine-tasting regions provide the perfect introduction to the preserved traditions and evolving techniques you can discover, sample, and enjoy when on...
Three dishes of various Italian foods
Types of Italian Food by Region
The regional foods of Italy have distinct ingredients, flavors, and cooking techniques, with each destination demonstrating its heritage, and it’s here that you can discover, taste, and indulge during...
Woman holding wine glass showing the legs
Top Tips for Wine-Tasting in Italy
The order in which you taste wine can have a profound impact on the aromas and flavors you find in each glass, proving the first important tip for any wine-tasting experience during your Italy trip....
Coppa di Parma
14 Best Italian Cured Meats to Try on Vacation
Cured meats are a culinary staple across the Italian peninsula and you can enjoy 14 of the best during your travels in Italy. The Italian term for cured meats is salumi and is differentiated from French...
Large selection of cheeses in Italian market
12 Best Italian Cheeses to Try on Vacation
This list of 12 of the best cheeses to try in Italy unveils their diversity, providing an explanation of their particular attributes, from flavor to texture, aroma to common food pairings. The countless...
White Pidemont truffles and glass of wine with castle in the background in Piedmont, Italy
6 Truffle Festivals to Visit in Italy on Vacation
The Italian truffle season takes place every fall, a brilliant time to visit the country if you wish to take in the array of dazzling truffle festivals that pop up across the Italian peninsula between...
Best Sicilian Cheese and Street Food to Try on Vacation

Sicily is a melting pot of gastronomic heritage, found in the best Sicilian cheese and street food that you can sample during your Italy vacation.

The exceptional cuisine of Sicily uses local ingredients to create flavors for a culinary adventure featured in surprising spices or indulgent textures. Whether enjoying authentic Sicilian cheese with wine or sampling street food at stalls in popular marketplaces, the cuisine represents the island’s eclectic heritage.

The following list focuses on the best cheese and street food you will discover as you wander the streets of Sicily to find cannoli, arancini, capers, ricotta cheese, and more.

5 Best Cities in Which to Explore Southern Italian Food

Southern Italian food features the delicious Mediterranean flavors many visitors associate with the country’s traditional cuisine that you can discover in the fives best cities for southern Italian food.

Cooking is a way in which northern, central, and southern Italian regions showcase their diversity. The food of southern Italy is often referred to as Cucina Povera, with frugal cooks relying on the sea’s bounty or the hard-fought harvest from tenacious farmers.

The warm Mediterranean climate supports a history of trade and conquest, revealing distinctive characteristics of unforgettable gastronomy, from Bari to Campobasso.

3 Best Cities in Which to Explore the Food of Campania

The characteristics of Campania’s terrain provide sensational ingredients you can discover in the region’s top three culinary cities during your trip to Italy.

The region’s gastronomic history acts as a crossroads of civilizations along the Mediterranean Sea, its diverse landscape bringing life to vibrant produce found in nutrient-rich volcanic soil. The greater region of Campania has a variety of provinces that enjoy different types of cuisine.

You can celebrate the cucina povera as you uncover how the cuisine provides ultimate flavor with minimal ingredients.

3 Best Cities in Which to Explore the Food of Lazio

The three best culinary cities in Lazio demonstrate distinct elements of the local cuisine, and you can savor the regional flavors on your next trip to Italy.

The diverse landscapes spread from the seaside in the west to the eastern mountains, with the region’s rich culinary history embodied in traditions that were at the heart of Etruscan settlements, the Roman Empire, the cradle of Christianity, and the Baroque movement. The mountain slopes and plains allow farmers to cultivate unique ingredients, bringing culturally significant flavors to life.

Exploring the food of Lazio can be a fantastic lens through which to view Italian culture, whether dining in Rome or enjoying unique delicacies in Frascati.

4 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Lazio

The four best dishes to try during your trip to Lazio reflect the customs created when Rome acted as the heart of the ancient empire. The conquered landscapes of antiquity stretched over the hills and reached the western seas to create impressive ports from which Rome could reach the hidden corners of the known world, now embodied in the gastronomic traditions that were left behind. The food of Lazio takes the shape of simple dishes with quick and easy cooking techniques based on the ideas of fresh and readily available ingredients.

The regional cuisine of Lazio is characterized by Cucina Povera, the traditions of poor cooking that embody the tastes of farmers over the centuries who used the entirety of ingredients and ingredients that were easily accessed during the changing seasons. The increased standard of living in Lazio has resulted in home and commercial chefs creating flavors with ingredients that were once unheard of outside of regional cooking. You can sample the following dishes during your next trip to Lazio.

3 Best Cities in Which to Explore the Food of Umbria

The cuisine of Umbria is all about simple yet delicious seasonal ingredients you can find during your Italian food tour.

Olive groves and flocks of sheep overtake the hills of Italy’s only region that does not border the sea or another country. The mountainous heart of Umbria abounds with medieval towns and castles that have been untouched by time and burst with gastronomic traditions. Recipes have been handed down through generations and pay homage to the region’s heritage.

From Perugia to Assisi and Orvieto, here are the best cities in Umbria for an Italian food tour highlighting the region’s signature dishes.

4 Best Cities in Which to Explore the Food of Italy's Islands

The best cities in which to explore the food of Italy’s islands reveal the embodiment of cultural and culinary traditions in Sicily and Sardinia.

The traditions of Sicilian and Sardinian kitchens include ingredients from the land and sea, unveiling ancient pastoral customs and the simple appreciation of good food. The islands have absorbed the various customs of the variety of cultures which have settled there over the past two millennia, including Greek, Spanish, French, and Arab influences.

The mixture of Mediterranean heritages on the Italian islands enriches the cuisines with a range of cooking techniques and flavors you can learn about on your tours of Italy’s islands.

3 Best Dishes to Try While on Vacation in Modena

Modena’s unique position in the Po Valley influences the soil amid the rugged foothills of the Apennine Mountains, responsible for the diversity of meats, hams, salumi, pasta, cheeses, and treasured balsamic vinegar that you can taste during your trip to Italy. Seasonal ingredients define the flavors of the Modenese cooking tradition, from growing produce to the presence of game and fish. Many of the traditional recipes popular in the province have emerged from a heritage of the peasant kitchen or small landowners that incorporates the flavor of a wealthier lifestyle that influences contemporary life.

4 Dishes to Try on Your Trip to Parma

The four meals and dishes you can try in Parma on your Italy trip are less about satiation and more about taking pleasure in a dish, an ingredient, and a local delicacy.

Small villages in the Bronze Age gave way to Celtic and Etruscan settlements, before the ancient Roman road connected the peninsula. The city became famous throughout Medieval Europe as a center for great art, science, and philosophy, resulting in an influx of nobility whose tastes for a good meal refined local palates.

By focusing on regional and seasonal ingredients, home and professional chefs develop bolder, more nuanced flavors, and these are four dishes that highlight those efforts.

5 Best Delicacies from Veneto to Enjoy on an Italy Vacation

You can discover and embrace the five best dishes of Veneto as you explore the culinary landscape that encompasses mountains and lagoons, the customary richness of the Venetian Empire and the open-minded cultural influence of kingdoms from across the Mediterranean.

The region of Veneto thrives with distinguished gastronomy changing from villages in the Dolomites to towns along the coast of Lake Garda, prestigious villas looking over the Brenta Canal to the renowned banquets filling the palaces of Venice.

A wealth of culinary influences and cultural inspiration, from techniques to flavor profiles, have helped develop these 5 transformational delicacies that are unique to Veneto.

How to Plan Your Zicasso Trip in 4 Easy Steps

Explore the world with Zicasso by working with top travel specialists who will bring your dream vacation to life.

Our primary goal is to make the planning, booking, and traveling process easy and enjoyable as you create the vacation experience you want most. No matter where you go and what you do, Zicasso can help you experience the best of travel without the stress.

Working with our destination experts, you can plan a trip to anywhere in the world and suit your travel style. Using insider knowledge of your chosen destination, itinerary ideas, and planning strategies, your Zicasso travel specialist can guide you through the following four steps.

How to Plan Your Zicasso Trip Budget in 3 Easy Steps

Knowing your budget is an essential component of any trip-planning process. Whether the sky's the limit or you have specific parameters, Zicasso is here to help you set your priorities to maximize your investment.

Your interests and preferences on a couple’s trip will differ from a family-friendly vacation, while a highlights tour will result in wildly different experiences than one designed to take you off the beaten path.

There are three steps in considering the costs of your trip, as a vacation that has been customized for you allows maximum flexibility with your spending.

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