There is a version of Italy that most travelers never see.
It has no lines at the entrance, no audio guides, no gift shop. It lives in the Tuesday market of a small hill town in the Marche region, where the fishmonger knows every grandmother by name. It hides in a crumbling Romanesque church on a road that doesn’t appear on Google Maps. It speaks in dialect, smells of woodsmoke and wild fennel, and refuses to be photographed politely.
This is the Italy I grew up in. The Italy I have worked in for thirty years as a licensed engineer, walking construction sites, farmhouses, industrial buildings, and forgotten palaces from the Adriatic coast to the Apennine foothills. The Italy I still live in today, in Macerata, in the heart of Le Marche — a region that the rest of the world is only beginning to discover.
My name is Mirco Vitellozzi.
I am an Italian engineer, a certified energy expert, a Google Local Guide, and — since long before any of those titles — a deeply curious person with an inconvenient habit of stopping to read every roadside historical marker I pass.
I created Taste and Wonders of Italy for one reason: because the English-language conversation about Italy is dominated by outsiders looking in. Talented writers, thoughtful travelers, passionate expats — but outsiders nonetheless. What has been missing is a voice that knows the inside of a Marchigiano farmhouse not because it visited one on a press trip, but because it has been inside hundreds of them for professional reasons, spoken with the families who live there, and understands what the crack in the east wall means and why the cantina smells the way it does.
That voice is mine.
What you will find here
This blog covers the Italy that rewards patience and curiosity. Regional food that has never appeared on a restaurant menu outside its home village. Art hidden in churches that are locked six days out of seven. Wine made in quantities too small to export. Towns whose medieval centers are more intact than Siena’s but receive fewer visitors in a year than Siena receives in an afternoon.
You will also find history — including stories from my own family. My grandfather, Mario Vitellozzi, sheltered Allied prisoners of war in the hills of the Fermo province during the German occupation of 1943–1944. That story, and the landscape it unfolded in, are part of what this blog is made of.
A word about authenticity
I am not a travel writer who visits Italy. I am an Italian who lives here, works here, and has spent three decades accumulating the kind of knowledge that doesn’t fit in a guidebook. When I write about a dish, I have eaten it at someone’s kitchen table. When I describe a church, I have likely assessed its structural condition for a client. When I recommend a road, I have driven it in all four seasons.
This is not a blog about the idea of Italy. It is a blog about the actual place.
Stay in touch
If you are planning a trip to central Italy — particularly Le Marche, Umbria, or Abruzzo — and want guidance beyond the standard itineraries, I am available for online consultations. I am also always interested in hearing from readers who share a passion for the less-traveled corners of this country.
You can reach me at: mirco.vitellozzi@gmail.com