Speaker 1: Italy beckons us with history, food, art and of course
Speaker 1: its beautiful landscapes. And it is the landscapes of Italy
Speaker 1: that we turn to today. From the breathtaking coastlines, fiery volcanoes,
Speaker 1: beautiful lakes and spectacular mountains, Italy really does have an
Speaker 1: unfair advantage when it comes to natural beauty. In this episode,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by author Ed Cutler to learn how Italy
Speaker 1: is the biodiversity powerhouse of Europe and why you should
Speaker 1: get out into nature to experience Italy at its finest.
Speaker 2: Ciao a tutti and benvenuti to Untold Italy, the travel
Speaker 2: podcast where you go to the towns and villages, mountains
Speaker 2: and lakes, hills and coastlines of bella Italia.
Speaker 3: Each week your.
Speaker 2: Host, Katie Clark, takes you on a journey in search
Speaker 2: of magical landscapes, history, culture, wine, gelato, and of course,
Speaker 2: a whole lot of pasta. If you're dreaming of Italy
Speaker 2: and planning future adventures there, you've come to the right place.
Speaker 3: Buongiorno, benvenuti friends.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Untold Italy podcast, where we help travellers
Speaker 1: move beyond the checklist so they really feel part of Italy.
Speaker 1: This is the Untold Italy way. I'm your host, Katie Clark,
Speaker 1: and on today's episode, we are getting a history and
Speaker 1: geography lesson about how Italy was formed over millions of
Speaker 1: years and why it is unique in Europe and around
Speaker 1: the world for its incredible diversity. I'm delighted to introduce
Speaker 1: you to the author of a new book about Italy's
Speaker 1: natural landscapes and how they shaped its civilization and culture.
Speaker 3: I'll ask Ed.
Speaker 1: To introduce himself to you in his own words in
Speaker 1: a minute, but I'll preface that part of the conversation
Speaker 1: by saying that, like many of us, he fell in
Speaker 1: love with the country as a child or young adult,
Speaker 1: and his passion for Italy has grown much deeper over
Speaker 1: the years. Ed shares some of his favourite places and yes,
Speaker 1: they are very untold. So listen on if you are
Speaker 1: inspired by nature and Italy, of course.
Speaker 4: Benvenuto, Ed.
Speaker 3: Welcome on to the Untold Italy podcast.
Speaker 4: It's great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's wonderful to have you here and to talk
Speaker 1: about your new book that's both in English and Italian.
Speaker 3: Amazing. And it's called This Beautiful Country.
Speaker 1: Ed, would you mind sharing with our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself and what inspired you to write the book?
Speaker 4: Sure, sure. Well, I'm British. I grew up in England and.
Speaker 5: Studied in Scotland all my life.
Speaker 4: I studied art history at university in Edinburgh.
Speaker 5: And I've had a sort of a love affair with
Speaker 5: Italy since quite young, since being brought to Venice when
Speaker 5: I was about eight, when my dad was in a
Speaker 5: conference there. And I've been slightly kind of obsessed with
Speaker 5: Italy ever since. And I lived in Venice for a
Speaker 5: year after university and then went back to London and
Speaker 5: then I met my wife there.
Speaker 4: She's Italian, from Rome.
Speaker 5: And we moved to Rome in 2009 when she was
Speaker 5: pregnant with our first son, thinking that it would just
Speaker 5: be a good place to be. I was offered a
Speaker 5: job in a gallery in Rome and stuff. And then
Speaker 5: we ended up living in Milan for four years and
Speaker 5: then moved back to Rome. And then I bought my
Speaker 5: little farm where I am here in Maremma in southern Tuscany.
Speaker 4: About 12 years ago. And....
Speaker 5: I have worked in the art world, I have worked
Speaker 5: in green technologies, and I've been sort of moving towards
Speaker 5: more environmental work in recent years. And then the book
Speaker 5: came about, really was a sort of a realization of
Speaker 5: an awakening when during COVID, we were here, all the
Speaker 5: family on the farm for those months of lockdown. And
Speaker 5: my son and I had this incredible moment We were
Speaker 5: exploring the woods and walking everywhere.
Speaker 4: We were very lucky in lockdown. We were lucky to
Speaker 4: be here.
Speaker 5: And I appreciate that many people were less fortunate.
Speaker 4: But for us, it was amazing.
Speaker 5: And one day in early April, we were down by
Speaker 5: this little river, sort of seasonal river that runs the
Speaker 5: bottom of the valley that divides our farm from the village.
Speaker 5: And we were poking around in there and We never
Speaker 5: really found much down there in the past, but that
Speaker 5: day my son spotted something in the water. It was
Speaker 5: like a kind of a dark shadow shape and it
Speaker 5: looked kind of reptilian. And we managed to get it
Speaker 5: into a glass jar and identified it as this salamander.
Speaker 5: It's called the spectacled salamander. And it is, it's a
Speaker 5: wonderful creature. It's completely endemic to Italy. It's found nowhere else.
Speaker 5: There's actually two versions of it, one in the north,
Speaker 5: one in the south, but only on.
Speaker 4: The Apennine chain.
Speaker 5: And in those days of lockdown, we had so much
Speaker 5: time to sort of wander and read and go down
Speaker 5: rabbit holes.
Speaker 4: And that was the starting point.
Speaker 5: It was the fact that it was endemic that really
Speaker 5: caught my interest, that it was only found here in Italy.
Speaker 5: And that just started me on a process of finding
Speaker 5: out how many other creatures are endemic to Italy.
Speaker 4: And it was really shocking.
Speaker 5: It was just totally, you know, I felt like I
Speaker 5: knew the country, like so many of us feel that
Speaker 5: they know Italy from one way or another. But really,
Speaker 5: it suddenly felt like I actually didn't know anything about
Speaker 5: the country at all. And I didn't know why these
Speaker 5: species only found here. There was, you know, nearly 5,000
Speaker 5: endemic faunal species in Italy. I mean, to put that
Speaker 5: into perspective, in Britain, we've only got, I think you
Speaker 5: can count them on one or two hands maximum, you know,
Speaker 5: species that are genuinely endemic.
Speaker 4: So that started this period of research and writing. And yeah,
Speaker 4: we were originally, we were going to turn it into
Speaker 4: a TV series.
Speaker 5: And so I was in development with a production company
Speaker 5: in Bristol for a couple of years to create a
Speaker 5: kind of, you know, an Attenborough style blue chip nature doc.
Speaker 5: But the finances kind of dried up and I'd done
Speaker 5: so much work.
Speaker 4: And I just thought I've got to, I've got to
Speaker 4: write a book now. So that's how it is, and
Speaker 4: that was a couple of years ago, and now here
Speaker 4: we are.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe the book comes first.
Speaker 4: Beautiful.
Speaker 3: It's been absolutely beautifully designed, actually, that cover.
Speaker 1: I love how you've combined your interests in art, history,
Speaker 1: and nature as well.
Speaker 3: It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1: So this little salamander just sparked a whole journey and
Speaker 1: it's taken you all over Italy, hasn't it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, completely, completely.
Speaker 5: I mean, there are endemic creatures spread all throughout Italy.
Speaker 5: You'll find them from the Alps all the way down
Speaker 5: to Sicily. And actually, it's further south and on the
Speaker 5: islands that you get the really interesting, unique creatures. I'd
Speaker 5: like to add that it was an Australian paleontologist, quite
Speaker 5: a famous guy called Tim Flannery, who really.
Speaker 4: got my interest, built it up even further. He wrote
Speaker 4: a beautiful book.
Speaker 5: Some years ago called Europe, The First Hundred Million Years,
Speaker 5: Tim Flannery. And he's quite well known, I think, in Australia.
Speaker 5: And he covers the salamander in his book and amongst
Speaker 5: many other species and stuff.
Speaker 4: So big shout to him.
Speaker 5: And he's written me a really nice blurb on the
Speaker 5: book as well.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it was wonderful.
Speaker 5: It took me all to lots of places on the
Speaker 5: map that I hadn't yet filled in.
Speaker 4: Calabria being one of the most notable, I would say.
Speaker 5: I was quite well-travelled in Italy already, but this gave
Speaker 5: me an excuse to go to some really, really wild spots. Luckily,
Speaker 5: Italy still has these wilderness areas, these bits which humans
Speaker 5: have touched. I think what's just amazing is the fact
Speaker 5: of having the highest levels of biodiversity in Europe, which
Speaker 5: Italy does. It contains a third of all the faunal
Speaker 5: species that exist in Europe, half of all the plant species.
Speaker 5: This has happened, I mean, it's still got all of that,
Speaker 5: despite centuries, thousands of years of civilisation, of clear-cutting the forests,
Speaker 5: of building roads everywhere and draining the swamps and everything
Speaker 5: that's happened. In spite of that, it's held on to
Speaker 5: this remarkable biodiversity. Levels of biodiversity which, you know, in
Speaker 5: Britain we could only dream of having, which we're now
Speaker 5: having to work really, really hard to bring back, to actively,
Speaker 5: you know, bring back nature. Italy's still got it. And
Speaker 5: that's thanks to its topography, its landscape.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask why you think it is,
Speaker 3: because it has its fair share of industrialisation, right?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one of the biggest industrial countries in the world.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like Italians have a very deep,
Speaker 1: innate sense connection to nature that I didn't really appreciate
Speaker 1: until I started going there more regularly and you know
Speaker 1: I have friends that were like okay well let's go
Speaker 1: up in the mountain let's go for a walk let's
Speaker 1: you know get outside into nature and it was then
Speaker 1: that I started to really appreciate yes they love that
Speaker 1: country and especially their local countryside definitely and maybe you
Speaker 1: It's because of that, that they try to preserve it,
Speaker 1: or they're a bit more, you know, aware of what
Speaker 1: the impact is of large scale industrialisation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 5: I think they do have a deep attachment to the land.
Speaker 5: It's changing, the demographics are changing. And, you know, 75%
Speaker 5: of the population now live in one of the major cities.
Speaker 5: So the rural areas are declining and emptying of people.
Speaker 4: But you don't have to go very far back.
Speaker 5: In Italian's history when far more people were much more
Speaker 5: connected to the land, were working there, were farming. The
Speaker 5: industrialization of Italy happened fairly late and fairly rapidly. And
Speaker 5: because of the landscape itself, because of the topography of Italy,
Speaker 5: there's actually very few places where industrialization can happen, where
Speaker 5: heavy industry can happen, and where intensive agriculture can happen,
Speaker 5: for example. So, I mean, that's really just restricted to
Speaker 5: the Po Valley, of course, and bits of Puglia. And
Speaker 5: now along the coastal areas that.
Speaker 4: Have been drained.
Speaker 5: But there's not that much. It all gets concentrated into
Speaker 5: a few areas, I would say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: So it's like really to do with the fact you've
Speaker 1: got that big mountain range going through the middle, right?
Speaker 1: So the Apennines that give you that biodiversity.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And most people never go there, right? And that's
Speaker 3: the crazy thing.
Speaker 4: It's such a shame, really, because there's so much. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 5: For visitors coming from afar, from Australia or America, you know,
Speaker 5: you come to Italy, obviously you've got to see Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples.
Speaker 5: But I don't love mass tourism, I've got to admit.
Speaker 5: And I think a lot of places, and I've lived
Speaker 5: in Rome now for 12 years off and on, and
Speaker 5: the centre of Rome becomes quite difficult, becomes really quite choked.
Speaker 4: And I understand the pressures, why people want to be there.
Speaker 4: But I would urge... people to discover the interior.
Speaker 5: The entire Apennine chain is just filled with remarkable places
Speaker 5: and towns and landscapes and villages. And you'll find a
Speaker 5: kind of a hospitality and a tourism needs to be
Speaker 5: spread out. At the moment, it's sort of heavily concentrated
Speaker 5: in a few areas and people are suffering in those areas,
Speaker 5: let's say from the pressures.
Speaker 4: On infrastructure and stuff.
Speaker 5: And It would be so much better if we could
Speaker 5: somehow kind of spread the load a bit and get
Speaker 5: people to think, well, this time, you know, I want
Speaker 5: to go and see.
Speaker 4: Mantua, Padova. I want to go and see Reggio. I
Speaker 4: want to go and see Gubbio.
Speaker 5: And all of these remarkable places that you can visit
Speaker 5: and have a different vision of Italy.
Speaker 4: And go to Abruzzo. Go to Abruzzo.
Speaker 5: Go and see the bears and the wolves and the chamois.
Speaker 5: You can have one of the best nature holidays ever.
Speaker 4: Ever there.
Speaker 3: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: So one of my favourite memories is from Tuscany when
Speaker 1: we took our kids, they were very small, and my
Speaker 1: husband and I went for a little walk after dinner
Speaker 1: and it was sunset and then.
Speaker 3: All these lights started appearing in the bushes. And I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1: They put fairy lights. Then I realised that they were,
Speaker 1: you know, fireflies. You know, I'd never seen them before
Speaker 1: because we don't have them here in Australia. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, this is incredible, you know. It was
Speaker 1: such a show. I felt like they'd put it on
Speaker 1: just for me.
Speaker 4: They're amazing. I actually, I wrote an article.
Speaker 5: I've got a sub stack and I publish things there
Speaker 5: occasionally about species or landscapes.
Speaker 4: And yeah, and I wrote a.
Speaker 5: Piece about the luchule because this year there was a
Speaker 5: particularly strong showing of them. I think it was after
Speaker 5: a wetter winter. They still had moisture down. I mean,
Speaker 5: the conditions were amazing. We had this light show for weeks.
Speaker 5: But yeah, you know, that's just sort of, It's one
Speaker 5: of those memories of youth. I got a lot of
Speaker 5: comments on the article writing about it, how people remembered
Speaker 5: them from their youth and they haven't seen them for
Speaker 5: years because they live in the city now.
Speaker 4: But yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: If you're just stuck in those cities, you're going to
Speaker 5: miss those spectacular moments and seeing the stars, perhaps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1: Well, one place that shocked me actually was in the
Speaker 1: Dolomites because it's actually quite heavily built up there, like
Speaker 1: in terms of villages and things like that.
Speaker 3: So I was going, oh, we're going in the mountains,
Speaker 3: there's going to be all these stars.
Speaker 1: Because even here in Melbourne where I am, and I
Speaker 1: live right in the city, like, we've got this magical
Speaker 1: arrangement here with this with the southern cross because you
Speaker 1: can still see the stars even in the middle of
Speaker 1: the city yeah not like a massive uh you know
Speaker 1: like a milky way but yeah i'm always searching out
Speaker 1: places where i can go and see the stars so
Speaker 1: where would you think the best place is obviously not
Speaker 1: the dolomites i was.
Speaker 4: A Well, actually, it's quite interesting.
Speaker 5: I've been part of this sort of light pollution discussion
Speaker 5: for a while because it's one of the things that
Speaker 5: really annoys me.
Speaker 4: Italy actually suffers from some.
Speaker 5: Of the worst light pollution in the world per capita.
Speaker 4: It's on a sort of par with South Korea or something.
Speaker 5: So if you look at the night map of Italy,
Speaker 5: you'll see that, I mean, the whole of the north
Speaker 5: of Italy is just lit up like a Christmas tree
Speaker 5: and And actually, there's very few really genuinely dark patches left.
Speaker 5: I'm pleased to say I live in one of them.
Speaker 5: The Comune of Manciano nearby was declared the darkest sky
Speaker 5: in Italy a year or two ago. So we still
Speaker 5: can see them. And north of us, it's sort of
Speaker 5: between Grosseto and Siena is one of the least populated
Speaker 5: parts of Italy and Europe, I think.
Speaker 4: And this is forest. So there's less light pollution there.
Speaker 3: Time for a quick break, shorter than your morning espresso.
Speaker 1: If you've been dreaming of experiencing Italy the way it's
Speaker 1: meant to be lived, slow, unhurried and with locals who
Speaker 1: open their homes and hearts, our Untold Italy tours are
Speaker 1: now open for 2026 and beyond. We handle every detail
Speaker 1: so you can just show up and soak in the magic.
Speaker 1: Spots are limited and many fill months in advance. Check
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes or visit untolditalytours.com for details.
Speaker 5: The issue really is actually something, it's one of these
Speaker 5: modern problems which we could solve quite easily. We've got
Speaker 5: the technology to do it, you know, and especially Italy,
Speaker 5: which has got a very professional lighting industry, lighting design.
Speaker 4: And world leaders in this. it wouldn't be hard.
Speaker 5: And we've even got regional laws saying about light pollution,
Speaker 5: that your lights, your street light, things have to be
Speaker 5: pointing down. We're in the middle of the Perseid meteor
Speaker 5: shower at the moment. And we're going to have an
Speaker 5: eclipse of the sun, I think, in a couple of days.
Speaker 5: So it's an amazing time to be watching the heavens
Speaker 5: if you can. But Italy does have a real lack
Speaker 5: of genuine dark sky. The example is New Zealand. New
Speaker 5: Zealand's aiming to be an entirely dark sky nation, I believe.
Speaker 4: That's the objective, which is incredible.
Speaker 5: The International Dark Sky Association, I've been in touch with them.
Speaker 4: I know everyone here, but we.
Speaker 5: Would love to get a dark sky park initiated here
Speaker 5: if possible.
Speaker 4: But I mean, again, the places you've got to go are.
Speaker 5: The least inhabited ones. So the interior, Abruzzo, Calabria, in
Speaker 5: the middle of Sardinia, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: And here in Marema. So that's the place to see
Speaker 4: the Sardes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And there was one part of your book and you
Speaker 1: talk about this lake trout that's barely changed for millions
Speaker 1: of years and that's in a really interesting part of
Speaker 1: Abruzzo too.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 4: There's a few examples of this.
Speaker 5: The one you're thinking of is the Posto Fibreno trout,
Speaker 5: which is actually, it's on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo.
Speaker 4: In this little lake, and it's a salmonid.
Speaker 5: And there was a geological event six million years ago
Speaker 5: or so, the Mycenaean salinity crisis, when the entire Mediterranean dried.
Speaker 4: Up, which is amazing.
Speaker 5: Gibraltar and And Africa fused together. It created a barrier.
Speaker 5: All of the Atlantic waters stopped entering the Mediterranean. And
Speaker 5: over the course of half a million years or so,
Speaker 5: the Mediterranean dried up. So you had the rivers, the
Speaker 5: road and everything like pouring into the Mediterranean basin, huge
Speaker 5: waterfalls and stuff.
Speaker 4: Pretty amazing event.
Speaker 5: But this had a big impact on Italy's freshwater fish.
Speaker 5: It isolated a lot of the areas and fish got
Speaker 5: stuck in one area and then never joined up again
Speaker 5: with uh to rivers and things so that particular trout
Speaker 5: was they did some tests on it i think in
Speaker 5: the 90s and discovered that it was this part of
Speaker 5: this ancient lineage of salmonids that was just completely unique
Speaker 5: and it's lucky it's in a very beautiful place it's
Speaker 5: fed by some cast springs from the apennines uh.
Speaker 4: Beautiful crystal clear cold water all all.
Speaker 5: Summer it's probably a good place to be right now
Speaker 5: actually But there's lots of other examples of freshwater fish
Speaker 5: in Italy's rivers that have remained isolated for extended periods
Speaker 5: of time and evolved in their own way.
Speaker 3: So interesting.
Speaker 1: And in that area, I know you mentioned, I think
Speaker 1: it's the Torino River, which is like the cleanest in Europe.
Speaker 1: I was putting that on a little list of places
Speaker 1: that I wanted to go.
Speaker 5: Oh, the Torino, you must go. I mean, that is magical.
Speaker 5: You can't quite believe.
Speaker 4: what.
Speaker 5: You're seeing really just these sort of these beautiful crystalline mortars.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's all sort of blues and greens and
Speaker 5: you can see right the way down to the bottom.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's, it's remarkable. You can canoe down it.
Speaker 5: I did that with my kids some years ago and yeah, it's,
Speaker 5: it's just remarkable again, fed by these waters, uh, these
Speaker 5: cast waters, these travel underground for, for years and then
Speaker 5: emerge there. And it's very short bit of river, uh,
Speaker 5: absolutely to do. If you combine that with the Rocca
Speaker 5: di Calascio, the beautiful castle at the top that was
Speaker 5: used in The Name of the Rose, and then there's
Speaker 5: a village called Sextantio, and this incredible Albergo di Fuso.
Speaker 4: So it's in a remarkable area.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, the story of the Torino ends badly, and that's
Speaker 5: why I use it as this sort of contrast, because
Speaker 5: at the end of the Torino, then you have this
Speaker 5: notorious industrial site that that in the early 20th century
Speaker 5: was being used to produce sort of arsenic and chemical weapons,
Speaker 5: mustard gas and stuff for use in the First World War.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was called the Mount Edison plant.
Speaker 5: And unfortunately, yeah, the environmental controls and things were not
Speaker 5: really in place in the early days of the heavy industry.
Speaker 5: In the early 2000s, it was declared Europe's largest toxic
Speaker 5: illegal dumping ground. And so, unfortunately, the waters of the
Speaker 5: Torino end at this disaster and where then the pollution
Speaker 5: goes on into the eternal Pescara River. It's one of
Speaker 5: Europe's cleanest rivers. It is said to be the cleanest
Speaker 5: river least polluted river in Europe, ends at one of
Speaker 5: Europe's worst. So it's really sad. But that's just a
Speaker 5: sort of story of Italy in many ways.
Speaker 1: So everyone, Ed's book goes through a series of chapters
Speaker 1: and it's really like the elements, the chapters of the elements.
Speaker 1: And so I guess one of my favourite ones, because
Speaker 1: I do love a volcano, is around fire. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: it's never difficult to be impressed by the force of
Speaker 1: nature that is a volcano. But, like, in Italy they
Speaker 1: do have this sense of what nature– destroys, it also
Speaker 1: gives back. And so can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the volcanoes of Italy and why they're so important
Speaker 1: to the landscapes?
Speaker 5: I mean, they are crucial for understanding Italy because as
Speaker 5: a sort of a geological element, I mean, they have
Speaker 5: created so much of the landscape. And I would argue
Speaker 5: they gave the Romans, for example, everything they needed to
Speaker 5: build their civilization, the building materials, literally the stones.
Speaker 4: Their sources of drinking water, their hot springs.
Speaker 5: They fed their legends and their myths and the fertility
Speaker 5: of the land, of course.
Speaker 4: I'll give a quick run through of why there are
Speaker 4: volcanoes in Italy.
Speaker 5: The creation of the Apennines is a fairly young mountain chain.
Speaker 5: They sprung up around 30 million years ago or started
Speaker 5: being pushed up when Corsica and Sardinia snapped off France
Speaker 5: and swung around into position and squashed up against the
Speaker 5: African plate and then the Apennines were created. But they
Speaker 5: were pushed up on one side, and then on the
Speaker 5: Tyrrhenian side, where I am, they stretched open. So that
Speaker 5: stretched the mantle, and that created the weak spots where
Speaker 5: lava was able to emerge and rise to the top.
Speaker 5: It was a process that started, let's say, about 10
Speaker 5: million years ago, when the first ones appeared. The earlier
Speaker 5: ones up here in the Tuscan archipelago, Capraia and others.
Speaker 5: I live behind in the shadow of one called Monte Amiata.
Speaker 5: That's literally our big mountain around us. That fell silent
Speaker 5: about 600,000 years ago. Most of these volcanoes were really
Speaker 5: active during the Ice Age in the last two million
Speaker 5: years or so. And so if you'd been able to
Speaker 5: visit this place during the Ice Age, it would have been,
Speaker 5: I guess, like Lord of the Rings kind of landscape.
Speaker 4: Fire and ice and kind of amazing.
Speaker 5: So this chain of volcanoes starting from where I am,
Speaker 5: going all the way down to Rome, down to Naples,
Speaker 5: and continuing all the way along.
Speaker 4: You have volcanoes all the way along there.
Speaker 5: And the ones around Rome, you had three to the
Speaker 5: north of it and one, the Colli Albani, just to
Speaker 5: the south of it, that just completely remodeled that entire
Speaker 5: landscape over a million years.
Speaker 4: I would say here, I mean, obviously.
Speaker 5: Etna gets all the, gets all the press because it's
Speaker 5: always active and there's lava flows.
Speaker 4: And it is amazing.
Speaker 5: And it really, in terms of, I had the pleasure
Speaker 5: of meeting and talking to some fantastic volcanologists during the
Speaker 5: writing of it. I really didn't, didn't have the knowledge.
Speaker 5: So I had to go and ask people. And yeah,
Speaker 5: Etna is the one that, I mean, they all just
Speaker 5: sort of cloud over and just sort of, ah, They
Speaker 5: get very kind of emotional talking about it in many
Speaker 5: ways because it is just a remarkable volcano by all standards.
Speaker 5: But I would argue that, again, coming back to your
Speaker 5: question about places to visit in Italy, then the extinct
Speaker 5: ones are just as fascinating in my mind. Monte Amialta
Speaker 5: up here behind me is just amazing.
Speaker 4: The villages around it produces the.
Speaker 5: Best chestnuts in the world from the forest there. There's
Speaker 5: one called Rocca Monfina, which I went to as a research,
Speaker 5: which is between Rome and Naples.
Speaker 4: It was a huge volcano.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was massive, probably the largest of all
Speaker 5: of Italy's mainland volcanoes.
Speaker 4: And that fell silent, I think, about 100,000 years ago.
Speaker 4: I sometimes get those dates wrong, but it's amazing.
Speaker 5: And then it preserves this incredible fossil site, which is unique, really.
Speaker 5: Most volcanoes destroy all evidence of the part. But this one,
Speaker 5: it records these tracks made by ancient humans, 300,000 year
Speaker 5: old footprints preserved in this lava rock. It's really startling.
Speaker 5: I didn't believe, I don't know why, I just didn't
Speaker 5: believe that it could be true. And I went there
Speaker 5: and saw it for myself. And it really is footprints,
Speaker 5: like boot prints in fresh snow. They were the oldest
Speaker 5: footprints in the world until some ones in South Africa
Speaker 5: were discovered a few years ago.
Speaker 4: But that's a great site. No one goes there.
Speaker 5: Torre Piccili is the name of the village, and it's
Speaker 5: really worth a visit.
Speaker 4: It kind of makes the hairs stand up on the
Speaker 4: back of your neck.
Speaker 5: The volcano story is endless, really, for Italy.
Speaker 4: It's so important for understanding the nature.
Speaker 5: I mean, a bit further south of Rocca Monfina, Montevultore
Speaker 5: is the other one I loved in Basilicata.
Speaker 4: Absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 5: The lakes of Monticchio, it preserves one of the rarest moths.
Speaker 4: In the entire world there.
Speaker 5: And also one of the great wines of Italy comes
Speaker 5: from there, the Alianico del Vultore, the Barolo of the South.
Speaker 5: It's just a fantastic, beautiful place to visit. And there's
Speaker 5: a natural history museum in this monastery on the side
Speaker 5: of the crater.
Speaker 4: Lakes that is astounding. It's really, really beautiful. So the
Speaker 4: volcanoes in so many ways are Italy's story.
Speaker 5: Part of its modern story, the creation of Italy.
Speaker 4: Without them, we wouldn't have.
Speaker 5: All of these incredible benefits that we still get today,
Speaker 5: the water, the fertility, the energy. And that's, of course,
Speaker 5: a portion of our energy comes from heat sources deep
Speaker 5: down close to where I am in the Tuscan magmatic province.
Speaker 5: We've got Ladurello, which was the world's first geothermal power station.
Speaker 4: Very cool.
Speaker 5: Remained the only one for about 40 years. Yeah, it's
Speaker 5: very cool. So there's a book just about Italy's volcanoes.
Speaker 4: To be honest. I could have kept on writing about
Speaker 4: them and what they give us. But it is amazing.
Speaker 4: And Etna, yeah, go to Etna at least.
Speaker 5: And Stromboli and Vulcano and the Aeolian Islands.
Speaker 4: They're amazing.
Speaker 3: They really are.
Speaker 1: And I think the really great thing about volcanoes is that,
Speaker 1: you know, as you mentioned, they've got the fertile land.
Speaker 1: They've made the land so fertile that whatever you grow
Speaker 1: there is going to be.
Speaker 3: Like, extra delicious.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But some of the things, and I guess there's always
Speaker 1: a strong connection to food wherever you are initially. You
Speaker 1: can't get away from it in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. And I think that's why a lot
Speaker 1: of people like to go. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I really love and I'm a little bit obsessed
Speaker 1: with actually is the bitter greens. Yeah, I just love
Speaker 1: that and I'm always seeking them out. If they're on
Speaker 1: the menu, I'm having, I'll have two, like give me
Speaker 1: the chicoria now. And is there something around those particular
Speaker 1: vegetables or.
Speaker 3: They're not vegetables really, they're officially weeds.
Speaker 5: Aren't they? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 5: I think it's actually the flavour of amarro, of bitterness.
Speaker 5: which is a really interesting subject because apparently throughout the world,
Speaker 5: bitterness has been bred out of vegetables, has been taken
Speaker 5: off the menu in most cases. But Italy preserves that
Speaker 5: culture of bitterness on the palate. And it is something
Speaker 5: that you have to train your palate to like. It's
Speaker 5: not something that children love automatically.
Speaker 4: It comes with time.
Speaker 5: And actually, I think our brain is sort of wired
Speaker 5: to reject things that taste bitter because it's sort of
Speaker 5: associates it with being poisonous.
Speaker 4: But in Italy, I think there's a combination.
Speaker 5: I think when times weren't as plentiful as today and
Speaker 5: hunger and starvation did really sort of stalk the land
Speaker 5: for many, many years, people had to make use of
Speaker 5: everything that grew here.
Speaker 4: So really, if you go into.
Speaker 5: Even our olive grove in the spring, you know, when
Speaker 5: everything's shooting up, there are so many foods there which
Speaker 5: we just completely overlook. And I think that those flavors
Speaker 5: go back a long, long time. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: you can go back to the monasteries. I'm sure the
Speaker 5: Romans were foraging and eating most things. I'm sure they
Speaker 5: had a deep knowledge of them and thought some were
Speaker 5: better for you than others. I think it goes back.
Speaker 5: I think the culture of that business goes back a
Speaker 5: long way. And certainly with the distillation of the Amaro bitters,
Speaker 5: the things like Fernet Branca and the whole galaxy of Amaros,
Speaker 5: which I love.
Speaker 4: That goes back to the sort of time of the monasteries.
Speaker 5: That really goes back to the monks in wild mountainous
Speaker 5: places distilling the mountain herbs and coming up with these liqueurs,
Speaker 5: which were obviously beneficial for the health and still are.
Speaker 5: I think it's a really interesting subject, that, and that
Speaker 5: food culture. And if you're, next time you're in Rome,
Speaker 5: the best restaurant in Rome, the only restaurant in Rome,
Speaker 5: in my opinion, is called Piatto Romano.
Speaker 4: It's in Testaccio, the sort of southern bit of the city.
Speaker 5: And there you can have the most, I think, the
Speaker 5: best food in Rome now. And they do the foraged herbs,
Speaker 5: the side dishes, the contorno.
Speaker 4: It will blow your mind.
Speaker 3: Back in a flash right after these messages.
Speaker 1: For daily travel tips and behind-the-scenes content from our tours,
Speaker 1: make sure to follow us on Instagram at Untold Italy Tours.
Speaker 3: I'll see you there. I go there often. That's where
Speaker 3: I go for my chikuwari.
Speaker 5: You know, gratakuli and things like that, which means ass scratchers.
Speaker 5: I think they're the flowers of something else, dandelions or
Speaker 5: something like that.
Speaker 4: But I love them. I'm trying to learn more about
Speaker 4: where I am.
Speaker 5: I've started eating and picking and foraging and doing little
Speaker 5: kind of veg salads and things with what I find here.
Speaker 4: But there's so much more.
Speaker 5: There's so much that we overlook that we don't eat
Speaker 5: anymore that would have fed and kept people alive for centuries,
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting as well when you think about
Speaker 1: the concept of cucina povera and you do have that
Speaker 1: cooking for a poor family.
Speaker 3: You know, situation in life.
Speaker 1: They had to really go and grab everything.
Speaker 3: And so it forced people to be really inventive, I guess.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But they also have sweet things in the countryside in Italy.
Speaker 1: And I was so surprised to learn that figs are
Speaker 1: native to Italy because I, for some reason, I thought
Speaker 1: they were from, you know, Persia or, you know, the
Speaker 1: other side of the Mediterranean.
Speaker 4: There is some debate about that.
Speaker 5: I've got it on pretty good authority from someone I
Speaker 5: trust that we can be confident to call figs native.
Speaker 4: I mean, they are native to the Mediterranean.
Speaker 5: It is possible that they traveled, you know, with Phoenicians
Speaker 5: or other settlers or during Neolithic times. But there seems
Speaker 5: to be plenty of evidence that figs have been growing
Speaker 5: here wild for, you know, at least 10,000 years or more.
Speaker 5: So I think it's fair to call them native. They're
Speaker 5: native to the Mediterranean.
Speaker 4: They grow everywhere.
Speaker 5: I've got them now fruiting in my garden. Now's my
Speaker 5: moment of figs. And I just love them. I want
Speaker 5: to grow more of them. But yeah, they've been part
Speaker 5: of the foraged diet for a long time. And obviously
Speaker 5: by the time of the Romans, they'd taken on, even
Speaker 5: the Etruscans kind of held them up as a sort
Speaker 5: of symbolic of health and fertility and everything. So yeah,
Speaker 5: they've been part of the culture for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: Pomegranates do they have the same connection or is that
Speaker 1: something that's been I'm asking because I do love a.
Speaker 5: Pomegranate I love a pomegranate too I have them and
Speaker 5: I love them in uh we're usually eating them sort
Speaker 5: of late September I think.
Speaker 4: I need to be I need to check this I
Speaker 4: would say that's.
Speaker 5: More North African I would say it's Mediterranean but I'm
Speaker 5: gonna have to look I'm going to have to look
Speaker 5: that up.
Speaker 4: I didn't even get to the pomegranates in the book.
Speaker 1: I just put you on the spot. But I just
Speaker 1: love them so much. Like anything with a fig and
Speaker 1: a pomegranate, I'm happy.
Speaker 4: Me too.
Speaker 5: And almonds and pistachios and everything else like that that
Speaker 5: you get.
Speaker 4: I just love those combinations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so good.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, Ed, you know, like most people are
Speaker 1: coming to Italy and they may not think to– go
Speaker 1: and see some nature first. But if you could pick
Speaker 1: a few places where people could go and really experience
Speaker 1: this side of Italy that will maybe inspire them to
Speaker 1: go and explore some more, where would you send them?
Speaker 5: Well, I think quite an easy stop could be somewhere
Speaker 5: like Pescaceroli, which is only about an hour and a
Speaker 5: half from Rome, deep into Abruzzo.
Speaker 4: It's a lovely town.
Speaker 5: It's the sort of heart of the national park of Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise.
Speaker 5: It's really well organized for excursions, for tours, for bear watching,
Speaker 5: for wolf watching, e-bike trips, everything like that.
Speaker 4: So it's a great, I mean, it's so easy to
Speaker 4: get to from Rome.
Speaker 5: And there you'll feel immediately in the sort of the
Speaker 5: heart of the Apennines, the heart of the sort of
Speaker 5: wild Italy.
Speaker 4: So that's a great place to go.
Speaker 5: I would also say that Palabria, I think for me,
Speaker 5: It is so wild and beautiful and rugged and amazing.
Speaker 5: And I think that where Basilicata meets Calabria there, the
Speaker 5: Polino National Park, which is Italy's largest national park, I
Speaker 5: was blown away by that landscape. I think that was,
Speaker 5: I'm dying to go back and explore it some more.
Speaker 5: There you've got some of Europe's oldest trees, the Bosnian pines.
Speaker 4: And a completely wild landscape, but.
Speaker 5: Also one where it hasn't been wrecked by pastoralism or
Speaker 5: anything like that. There's native cattle breeds there. You get
Speaker 5: patchworks of forest and open pasture. So you get life
Speaker 5: in total abundance. So Calabria, absolutely.
Speaker 4: And then I would also argue Sardinia, away from Cala de.
Speaker 5: Volpe and all the kind of the smart bits where
Speaker 5: everyone goes on holiday and stuff, but actually like the
Speaker 5: wild west coast areas of Sardinia is really worth checking out.
Speaker 4: I found that beautiful, and the interior.
Speaker 5: You're lucky enough to be able to sort of come
Speaker 5: maybe a bit out of season, maybe May or June.
Speaker 5: That's the sort of time to see those places, and Abruzzo,
Speaker 5: I would say, and the flowering, the wildflower meadows in
Speaker 5: the Maiella National Park in Abruzzo again. Those places I
Speaker 5: told you, the Tegino, is 100% worth checking out. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's just to name a few. And then there's plenty
Speaker 5: of bits of the Alps. You've got the entirety of
Speaker 5: the Alps. And rather than the Dolomites, and that's, again,
Speaker 5: that's suffering from over-tourism, particularly in the summer.
Speaker 4: And the Cinque Terre in Liguria is completely out of
Speaker 4: control there.
Speaker 5: There's so many other bits along the Alpine chain where
Speaker 5: you could go. So Fruli, the Slovenian corner at the
Speaker 5: far eastern end of that is just so... The Carnic Alps,
Speaker 5: they're beautiful, much less frequented. Where I was just last week,
Speaker 5: the Bialese Alps, I loved it. There was no one there.
Speaker 5: And then, of course, the Maritime Alps, Necunio.
Speaker 4: You're blessed with so many places you can go, but it.
Speaker 5: Is really worth having a bit of courage to say, no,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to Venice this time. I'm going to
Speaker 5: go to Trieste and then off into the borders of Slovenia,
Speaker 5: and there it's completely wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a very beautiful area. I really love that too.
Speaker 3: And it is so.
Speaker 1: Great, because you can see the whole way that the
Speaker 1: culture overlays with the nature.
Speaker 3: So you're getting everything anyway. Yeah. Everything's inspired by each other.
Speaker 1: And up in that area, like I love going to
Speaker 1: those towns and everyone's got the winged.
Speaker 3: Lion of Venice.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You're still getting a little bit of Venice, but wherever
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 4: And even Sicily as well.
Speaker 5: You know, Sicily, if you can get it out of
Speaker 5: season and go to the Egadi Islands or somewhere like that,
Speaker 5: you know, Pantelleria I found was remarkable.
Speaker 4: I went there in the height of summer, but I'd
Speaker 4: love to return. slightly out of season, somewhere like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now, if our listeners can take one thing from your
Speaker 1: book into their next Italian trip, what would you like
Speaker 1: them to do?
Speaker 3: What do you think they should do?
Speaker 4: So we've mentioned those places. I would say, yeah, Abruzzo.
Speaker 4: I would say.
Speaker 5: You can still live with the seasons here, the seasonal rhythms.
Speaker 5: And so if you find yourself in Italy in the autumn,
Speaker 5: in October time, which I think is one of the
Speaker 5: best months, you know, to visit Rome, definitely October is
Speaker 5: the best month. But it is also the best time
Speaker 5: to come up here, to come up to Monte Amiata.
Speaker 5: And you've got the chestnut season. And go to the
Speaker 5: Garfagnana Valley in Tuscany and see it in its sort
Speaker 5: of autumnal splendor.
Speaker 4: And have the best chestnuts in.
Speaker 5: The world, you know, roasted for you there, rather than
Speaker 5: the kind of cheap imports and the street vendors in Rome.
Speaker 4: Be bold come in the winter, if you like winter
Speaker 4: sports as well.
Speaker 5: But it's also like, for example, I lived in Venice
Speaker 5: for a year. And there was this brief moment between
Speaker 5: New Year and Carnivale, the first weeks of January, when
Speaker 5: suddenly there was no one in Venice. And you could
Speaker 5: walk out at night and it was misty and foggy.
Speaker 5: And suddenly you had the city all to yourself. And
Speaker 5: so you get these moments when you can actually see
Speaker 5: Italy in its sort of true colours and it's stripped
Speaker 5: of people.
Speaker 4: And there are just moments in the year when you
Speaker 4: can really see the true beauty of Italy.
Speaker 5: I know it's hard to do. People have their holidays
Speaker 5: when they have their holidays. But, you know, these months
Speaker 5: of July and August, especially now in the heat wave
Speaker 5: that we're having, it's really put so much stress... on
Speaker 5: the landscape or on an already stressed landscape. So I
Speaker 5: would say be a bit more thoughtful about your timing
Speaker 5: of your trip to Italy because it is beautiful all
Speaker 5: of the year. So don't just think you have to
Speaker 5: come here in the hottest months of the year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. I think spring's amazing too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For some reason the travel is really back-ended into the
Speaker 1: later months of the year and, in fact, I think
Speaker 1: September's now, like.
Speaker 3: Absolute peak season.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I would really encourage people to have a
Speaker 1: look at, you know, spring, March, April.
Speaker 3: April in Sicily is insane. Like it's one of the
Speaker 3: best times to visit.
Speaker 4: Agreed.
Speaker 3: Wildflowers, energy, so good.
Speaker 1: And all the festivals that are going on, some of
Speaker 1: my favourite times actually have been in Sicily in spring.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I completely agree. I've been to Sicily New Year.
Speaker 5: You know, I went skiing down Etna. And then had
Speaker 5: Vongole on the beach in Catania the same day.
Speaker 4: You know, you can do these sorts of things.
Speaker 5: So Sicily, I mean, people go to overwinter in Sicily,
Speaker 5: in Palermo.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful.
Speaker 5: You can swim there in December. So, yeah, that's it, really.
Speaker 5: Italy moves with the seasons completely. And summer now is
Speaker 5: survival mode, really. It's just trying to get through it.
Speaker 3: It's a bit sad, isn't it? What I feel like
Speaker 3: is that nature is so resilient.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, that's what you've shown in
Speaker 1: your book. You know, over many millions and hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of years, somehow the nature is going to survive.
Speaker 1: We might not, but the nature is going to keep going. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: The planet will be okay.
Speaker 5: I think we're just another evolutionary sort of end of
Speaker 5: the road, I think.
Speaker 4: But, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 5: There is some resilience built into the Italian landscape, and
Speaker 5: that is through variety.
Speaker 4: That is the variety of landscapes.
Speaker 5: The incredible topography, and that which has birthed all of
Speaker 5: the amazing foods that we eat, this agrodiversity, having these
Speaker 5: little niches where life can survive. And that's exactly what
Speaker 5: happened during the Ice Age, you know, over two million years,
Speaker 5: while the rest of Europe froze over. Much of the
Speaker 5: faunal life found refuge here in Italy and Spain and
Speaker 5: Croatia and elsewhere, in Greece. So, yeah, I think there
Speaker 5: is resilience built in here. Nature will find a way
Speaker 5: to survive. Yeah, it'd be good.
Speaker 4: If we started... trying to help it a bit.
Speaker 3: 100% agree. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, Ed, where can people find your book if they
Speaker 1: want to explore this a bit further? Because actually I
Speaker 1: highly recommend because it goes into a lot of detail
Speaker 1: and it's not, I don't know, I mean this in
Speaker 1: a very respectful way.
Speaker 3: It's very easy to read.
Speaker 1: It's not really an intellectual book, although it is very
Speaker 1: intellectual and very well researched, but I think it's very
Speaker 1: accessible for anyone if they, you know, want to find
Speaker 1: out more about the Italian landscapes and how they've.
Speaker 3: Really impacted the way Italy's developed over the years.
Speaker 5: Thank you that was the intention I wrote you know
Speaker 5: it's a natural history by an art historian and by
Speaker 5: someone who was learning it all anyway so I've tried
Speaker 5: to do it I've tried to keep that sense and
Speaker 5: I didn't want to write a complicated geological explainer or
Speaker 5: anything so thank you that was the intention. It's available
Speaker 5: for pre-order right now. It's published in English on the
Speaker 5: 1st of September. It's available for pre-order now. The Italian edition,
Speaker 5: Mondadori edition, is coming out on the 29th of September.
Speaker 5: They're still getting together the links and stuff for the pre-orders.
Speaker 5: I'm hoping that's going to be available quite soon. But yeah,
Speaker 5: you can order it on Amazon or wherever you buy
Speaker 5: your books.
Speaker 3: You mentioned you've got a sub stack as well. Do
Speaker 3: you want to let everyone know where you can find
Speaker 3: you on there?
Speaker 4: Yes, I have a sub stack.
Speaker 5: Called endemic notes and edward cutler you should be able
Speaker 5: to find me on there i have a website called edwardcutler.com
Speaker 5: and it's got information about the book and and my
Speaker 5: writings and everything there i'm not very active on social
Speaker 5: media i do have an instagram which i'd shut down
Speaker 5: for years and now i've i've been urged to reopen
Speaker 5: it and start sort of broadcasting stuff but i it's
Speaker 5: not a place i'm comfortable but yeah i am also
Speaker 5: on instagram edward james cutler And so, yeah, you can
Speaker 5: find all my stuff. There will be an audio book
Speaker 5: as well as me reading the book, if you prefer,
Speaker 5: if you prefer that.
Speaker 4: And that's coming out, I think, on publication date as well,
Speaker 4: 1st of September.
Speaker 3: So exciting. I'm really excited for you.
Speaker 1: It's a really great book. And I hope that people really,
Speaker 1: you know, get a lot out of it. And I
Speaker 1: also hope you somehow find a way to do that
Speaker 1: TV show too, because I think it'd be really great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that would feel like completing it now,
Speaker 5: if that's possible. And I think Italy deserves a proper
Speaker 5: TV series or film that covers its wildlife and landscapes
Speaker 5: a bit better. So yeah, I hope people find a
Speaker 5: new side to Italy from that. And another reason to
Speaker 5: love the place. And yeah, I hope they enjoy the book.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to be too facetious, but I
Speaker 1: don't think we need another TV show of some guy
Speaker 1: driving around Italy tasting all the food because I think
Speaker 1: we can branch out from there.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 5: I think combine the food with nature and art and
Speaker 5: everything like that.
Speaker 4: You don't want to limit Italy's wonders to one thing
Speaker 4: or other. They're all connected.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. Oh, grazie mille, Ed.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing your passion for Italy's
Speaker 1: natural wonders with our audience. And we're wishing you all
Speaker 1: the very best with the book. And yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: to see that TV series.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, Katie. That's really kind. And I'd love
Speaker 4: to get to Australia and come and do a book
Speaker 4: tour if possible.
Speaker 5: So if any of your listeners have ways to help
Speaker 5: that happen, then get in touch.
Speaker 3: Will do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Wow, what a fantastic look at the Italy that
Speaker 1: many of us haven't explored yet. And of course, some
Speaker 1: of the classics like magnificent Mount Etna in Sicily. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Ed for opening my eyes to even more possibilities
Speaker 1: across the country. I'm especially interested in taking a swim
Speaker 1: in the Torino River when it is clear and clean.
Speaker 1: What Pet didn't mention is that near the source of
Speaker 1: the river at Lake Kapodakwa, there is a submerged village
Speaker 1: that was abandoned when the lake was repurposed for irrigation.
Speaker 1: He says it is one of the most amazing places
Speaker 1: he has ever dived in. I might just pull out
Speaker 1: my paddy diving license for that one. Ed shares many
Speaker 1: more beautiful and unique places in his book, This Beautiful Country,
Speaker 1: How Italy's Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilization. It is
Speaker 1: available for pre-order and published in early September. We will
Speaker 1: put a link to the book and also Ed's website
Speaker 1: and fledgling Instagram account onto our website show notes at untolditaly.com
Speaker 1: forward slash 340 for episode 340. You'll also find all
Speaker 1: the places that he mentioned today. Thank you, Grazie Miele,
Speaker 1: for joining us today on Untold Italy. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's show. If you did, it would be fantastic
Speaker 1: if you left a rating or review on your favourite
Speaker 1: podcast app. That helps us reach more Italy-loving travellers just
Speaker 1: like you. If you enjoyed this video and are watching
Speaker 1: on YouTube, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss
Speaker 1: an episode.
Speaker 3: We drop a new video each week. That's all for today.
Speaker 1: Next week, I'm sharing some important tips for first-time visitors
Speaker 1: to Italy. But until then, it's ciao for now.
Speaker 3: The Untold Italy podcast is an independent production.
Speaker 1: Podcast editing, audio production and website development by Mark Hatter.
Speaker 3: Production assistance and content writing by the other Katie Clark. Yes,
Speaker 3: there are two of us.
Speaker 1: For more information about Untold Italy, please visit untolditaly.com.