I don't believe in rushing through Italy. Too often, people move from Rome to the Amalfi Coast, two days later they're in Tuscany for three days, then off to Venice for a day and a half before they catch a flight home — trying to see it all, and in the process, seeing and experiencing very little.

Italy was never meant to be rushed. It's meant to be lived. To wake up looking at the rolling hills every morning , in the same place. To recognize the streets. To return to a café where they remember you. To understand not just what you're seeing — but how it feels to be there.

I know this because I've lived it. I've been going to Italy for over 37 years. I spent nearly a year there and have gone back about 30 times. Over those years I've been fortunate enough to make friends who have become family — and in some cases, actually are. About 25 years ago I found family in Italy with my own surname. Close relatives. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I've been to their weddings in the hills of Venice — So Beautiful, magnificent food, breathtaking views, a restaurant so beautiful and bespoke it feels like it belongs in New York City, set right next to a farm pasture.Truly one of the most cultured and intimate weddings I have ever attended. I've watched cousins grow from little children into grown men and young women who now come visit me in Boston. Friends I met when I was 24 and they were 19 and 21 — sisters — who now have children in their late teens and early twenties who come to stay.I have been to Christenings and Communions. I have sat around their dinner tables ables, gone to the places they love, lived the life they live. I am deeply blessed.

This is the Italy I want to show you , The real Italy the way Italians live it..

Every single trip, I find myself drawn away from the crowds — to the remote, the quiet, the breathtaking places most people drive right past. I've never been to Capri. Thirty times in Italy and not once. I was in Naples once, ready to board the ferry, when I noticed another boat docked right beside ours. I asked the steward where it was going. Ischia. I'd never heard of it. He said, "It's more beautiful than Capri." I asked why then is everyone was on this boat.? He said, "Because they don't know any better." I looked at my friend. We walked away from the Capri ferry and got on the other boat instead. It was one of the most extraordinary days of my life.

Those little choices are what matter. They are the choices I try to make every time. Florence is beautiful at night. less crowded, Venice I'll take even with a million people — but only at dawn or late afternoon when the light is everything.do I really see it and feel it. The Abbey of Monte Cassino will stop you cold and there's almost always no one there. The small towns, the unmarked roads — I've rented a car, driven with no hotel booked, and simply found my way by the end of the day. But Never ever in August. (More on that here.)

Back in Boston, I've built a life I genuinely love. I've been a real estate broker for 36 years — I got my license the year after I came back from Italy. Right before that I I got a job working for the airlines. Which meant I could fly back whenever I wanted, though I hated going standby. You never really know if you're going. I have a good business, a good life, freedom and people I love here. I truly have the best of both worlds. But when I'm in Boston, I don't have Italy. I don't have the other half of my heart.

Thats why I have built Solo Per Noi, I've never seen Italian trips done the way they should be done. I am not a travel agency. Not a tour company in the traditional sense. Something that brings both worlds together — the life I've built here and the life I've always felt most fully myself living there. That's what Solo Per Noi is. Just for us. For the people who want the real Italy , The one that Italians experience everyday — not the one on the itinerary.

"When you stop trying to see all of Italy, that's when you start to feel it."