Jay Davidson
1 min readJul 17, 2023

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I have been to Italy three times. I have enjoyed myself each of these times. I think that the total amount of time I have spent there has been about ten weeks; the lengths of my visits have been five, two, and three weeks (1989, 2015, 2022).

The first observation I have for you is that you visited FOUR countries in TEN days!!! Your average, then, was 2.5 days per each country. Let's round it up and say you spent three days in Italy. And you visited Milan, Rome, Venice, and Pisa all within those three days! That's more punishment than it is pleasure.

How could anyone expect to have a quality experience when visiting ONLY famous tourist sites, especially when you are constantly rushing to go from one to another?

Speaking from my personal experience, I have always found tremendous enjoyment when walking around urban neighborhoods that are filled with locals, and not tourists.

I have done that in several Italian cities, too. Last year I spent one week each in Milan, Venice, and Bologna. It was a very unhurried way to see these places, including small pockets of Venice where there were mostly locals and not tourists. These places really do exist, but you are not going to find them if you are too busy rushing from one tourist site to another.

It's not for others to help you find a reason to return to Italy - or anywhere else for that matter. That's something that you will need to do for yourself.

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Jay Davidson
Jay Davidson

Written by Jay Davidson

Retired teacher (San Francisco, 1969–2003); Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Mauritania, 2003–2005); public speaker, artist, writer, traveler, world citizen

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