Why Northeast Italy is the perfect destination for your next slow trip

For all the years Cesare and I spent living abroad, we always had our happy place, somewhere we'd try to spend a few quiet days every time we came back to Italy: a little family house in Roana, one of the Sette Comuni on the Altopiano di Asiago, a mountain plateau in the province of Vicenza, once a fashionable holiday destination, now decidedly quieter.

Life on the altopiano is slow, the old way. Pastures and cows as far as the eye can see, malghe where they make fresh cheese in the morning, stone-and-wood houses overlooking silent meadows, smoke curling out of chimneys, elderly men who greet you and speak to you in dialect when you walk into the village shop for fresh bread or the mythical torta alla ricotta. Coming from our hectic lives, it was paradise. No need to say more.

It was during one of those walks in Roana, on an autumn morning, that we found ourselves chatting about how beautiful, authentic, well-preserved and often under-explored some areas of Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia still are. That's where it all began. We decided our new adventure would be to make all of this easily accessible to travellers curious about the nature and culture of the most genuine Italy.

Just as we'd spent years travelling the world with backpacks on, following our own slow-travel philosophy of slow rhythms, nature, real contact with local communities, train and car journeys, far from resorts and hordes of selfie-tourists, now we'd turn that passion into work: helping other travellers discover the real Italy, the one that doesn't show up in a feed.

So here we are, writing our first article on why you should plan a trip to Northeast Italy, the corner of the country we love most. This is a collection of general thoughts and ideas. On the blog you'll find more specific and updated articles, and of course you can always write to us with any question 🙂

In short: what makes the Northeast so right for slow travel

In a few lines: Northeast Italy works beautifully for slow travel because it packs Dolomites, lagoon, sea and art cities into ridiculously short distances, has some of the best public transport in the country, and keeps alive traditions, regional cuisines and grape varieties most travellers never meet.

In a bit more detail:

• Four different landscapes within an hour by train. Dolomites, Venetian lagoon, Trieste's Carso, Adriatic, no constant repacking.
• Excellent transport. Five airports, high-speed rail, capillary regional network. A week-long trip rarely requires a rental car.
• World-famous highlights and unknown corners, side by side. Yes, Venice and the famous Dolomites, but also valleys, islands and villages most foreign travellers don't know exist.
• Exceptional food and wine. Over twenty native grape varieties in Friuli alone, three distinct regional cuisines, rhythms still tied to the seasons.
• Built for a slow pace. Short distances, real seasons, living local culture. You don't need to rush to find something genuine.

Short distances, different landscapes

Reaching Veneto, the Dolomites and Friuli Venezia Giulia is incredibly easy, no matter where you're coming from. There are several airports well-served by national and international flights: Venice Marco Polo (the main hub, with intercontinental flights), Treviso Canova (low-cost, perfect for Ryanair and Wizz Air), Verona Villafranca (low-cost and charter), and Trieste–Ronchi dei Legionari for those heading straight to Friuli. Bologna G. Marconi, about an hour from the Veneto plain, is often a great alternative too.

Driving in is easy as well: you'll find some of the newest, best-kept roads in Italy. The A4 is the main artery, crossing the entire plain from Turin to Trieste; the A22 del Brennero is the most direct way into Trentino, Alto Adige and the Dolomites; the A27 takes you straight up to Belluno and the Cadore.

Few corners of Italy compress like this. Morning on the lagoon at Pellestrina, evening at a malga above Cortina. The Cansiglio forest one day, the bacari of Cannaregio the next. You don't have to choose between sea and mountains, between cities and silence. In a slow week you can touch four different landscapes.

When it comes to trains and public transport, these areas are excellently served, both by high-speed (Frecciarossa and Italo connect Venice to Milan and Rome in a few hours) and by a capillary regional network that lets you reach even small villages without renting a car. It's easy both to arrive from abroad and to move around the region once you're there.

And there's more: you're also very close to other parts of Italy worth visiting if you have more time, like Emilia Romagna with Bologna (think: tortellini), Lombardy with Milan, Como and Lake Garda. You can also be in Slovenia, Croatia or Austria in no time. So: Northeast Italy lets you plan a great trip, if you have access to the right information, which is often only in Italian, on websites that are "not very updated", to put it gently. That's exactly where we come in.

And let's not forget the bike routes, through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in Europe. The Alpe-Adria Cycle Path (Salzburg to Grado, around 410 km) is considered one of the most scenic on the continent; the Lunga Via delle Dolomiti (Dobbiaco to Calalzo) runs along an old railway line, perfect for families too; the Valsugana cycle path links Trento to Bassano along the Brenta river; and then there are the trails through the Po Delta and the lagoons and pine forests of the upper Adriatic.

Variety of landscapes: there's something for everyone

When we say "Northeast" we're talking about a huge area, definitely not a single thing. Inside it there's an enormous variety of landscapes, nature, cities, culture, traditions. We can't list them all here, but what we want to underline is that when you plan a trip in these regions, there really is something for every taste.

Cultural "melting pot" cities like Trieste and Trento, art cities like Verona and Venice (of course!), but also Padua, a real gem, an excellent base for exploring the Lagoon and the surrounding area.

There's Lake Garda, with Valpolicella, where some of Italy's best wines are made. Its northern end, towards Riva del Garda, draws instead an outdoor and watersports crowd.

The Dolomites, with their unique landscapes of mountains glowing pink at sunset, and beyond the most well-known stretches, jewel valleys still under the radar, like Sauris up in Carnia, where the albergo diffuso concept was actually born. And then there's the quiet beech forest of Cansiglio, a plateau that changes colour with the seasons.

There are the Adriatic seaside towns, where you can still taste what we call "Italian summer", with its traditions and vibes almost unchanged since the '60s: chatting and playing cards with your beach-umbrella neighbours, going to the bagno café in the morning to read the paper and order a granita al caffè, eating watermelon on the beach in the afternoon and a fritto misto for dinner still covered in sand.

Then Trieste, and the Carso plateau, sparsely inhabited, with those unmistakable, almost nostalgic limestone hills falling steep into the sea. A coffee or a spritz bianco in the evening near the port, and a boat trip in the Gulf of Kvarner the next day. Few places in Italy give you these kinds of scene changes within an hour by train.

Services: adventure, yes, but no need to rough it

Services across the Northeast are excellent. This is one of Italy's wealthiest areas and you can feel it in the quality of hospitality. There are plenty of well-equipped campsites, both in the mountains and on the coast, that have hosted devoted German and Northern European visitors for decades.

Then there are the agriturismi, a typically Italian concept: you sleep in a country house that is also a working farm, and you eat what they grow. You'll find plenty in the Prosecco hills, on the Colli Euganei, in the Natisone Valleys, in Carnia.

When it comes to rentals, especially in the mountains you can find incredible houses at very accessible prices: historic stone-and-timber homes, restored baite, hay barns turned into studios overlooking the pastures. And on the coast, beyond big resorts like Lignano Sabbiadoro, Bibione, Caorle and Jesolo, there are still smaller, more local towns like Sottomarina or Marina di Lido, where prices stay reasonable and the seafood is the real thing.

Highlights vs hidden corners, far from the crowds

We've hinted at this, but it's worth stating clearly: this region has incredible highlights (Venice, the Dolomites of Alto Adige, Verona), places among the most visited in the world, and absolutely worth seeing at least once. But the real discovery is the lesser-known areas: just as beautiful, just as well-equipped, and almost entirely overlooked. With Off the Boot, we've decided to build a detailed catalogue of these places, precisely because we know how hard it is for a foreigner to find the right information and put together a solid itinerary alone.

Food and wine. No, you won't get to try everything.

We saved this for last, but it is definitely not the least important: it never could be, in Italy.

The Northeast produces some of Italy's best wines, and the variety here is staggering too. Friuli Venezia Giulia alone has more than twenty native grape varieties that most travellers have never heard of, ending up ordering the same old Sauvignon: Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Vitovska, to name a few.

In Veneto you'll find Glera (the grape behind Prosecco), Corvina (Valpolicella and Amarone), Raboso. In Trentino, the stars are Teroldego and Marzemino (yes, the one from Mozart's Don Giovanni).

Great whites in Friuli, great reds in Veneto, great sparkling in Trentino. Though that's a very rough rule, the truth is you'll find everything in all three regions.

The ideal is to do an aperitivo before dinner, around 6:30 pm, ordering a glass at a local enoteca, maybe up in the hills at sunset (the Colli Euganei below Padua have incredible views), and tasting the wine the host suggests, with olives and chips (the light version) or a selection of cicchetti e polpette (think of them as the Venetian version of tapas).

Cuisine reflects this same regional variety. And somehow, the character of the different areas too.

In Veneto you'll eat a lot of seafood (bigoli in salsa, sarde in saor, baccalà mantecato) and slow-cooked meats.

In Friuli Venezia Giulia the influence of Eastern Europe and Austria is strong: frico, jota, prosciutto di San Daniele, gulasch.

In Trentino-Alto Adige, you'll find speck, canederli, strudel, polenta and game.

The point is: you won't get to try everything. And that's perfectly fine.

What we do

We plan trips in this corner of Italy for people who want this kind of travel and don't want to spend two months researching it online. Where to actually go depends on the time of year, your pace, and what else is in the trip. That's the kind of call we make when we put a custom itinerary together.

If you'd like a hand putting it all together, tell us about your trip. For specific questions, write to info@offtheboot.com.

Grazie mille for reading.

Alice