Danielle Oteri Italy

07/29/2025

Unpopular opinion: Most people shouldn’t bother visiting Florence.

Not unless they’re willing to look past the wine windows and TikTok sandwiches.

Florence isn’t a checklist city or some place to go just because people say it’s clean or safe or pretty. It’s the birthplace of the Renaissance, a city that offers an unparalleled opportunity to put your nose right up to the original artworks of many of the greatest creative geniuses who ever lived.

But most people today miss it completely.

I’m hosting the Florence Deep Dive on July 31 at 8pm ET to help travelers experience the magic that Florence has cast on travelers since the 14th century.

This session is for those who want:
🖼️ Art with meaning
🏛️ History that lives and breathes
🗺️ An itinerary for Florence that avoids all the tourist traps

📍Join me via Zoom — access is included with a paid Substack subscription.
🔗 Go to danielleoteri.com to become a paid subscriber

07/16/2025

🇮🇹 Got questions about Italy? I’ve got answers.

Our next Ask Me Anything session is happening on Wednesday, July 24 at 8PM ET, exclusively for paid subscribers of my Substack.

Whether you’re planning a trip, got one planned and need restaurant recommendations, need help choosing destinations, or just want to be talked out of overpacking —bring your questions. This is your chance to get real, thoughtful, unsponsored advice.

📬 Not a subscriber yet? It’s $8/month or $80/year and gives you access to:
✔️ Monthly AMA calls
✔️ Destination Deep Dives
✔️ Replays, resources, and curated guides

👉 Join us at danielleoteri.com

06/27/2025

Are you subscribed to my podcast yet? Episode 22 just dropped this morning. 🇮🇹

05/20/2025

Selling Cilento has never been easy. Unlike the nearby Amalfi Coast—with its endless reels and perfectly posed spritzes —deciding to go to Cilento requires trust that your experience will be more deeply felt than can be captured in a photograph. I’ve been bringing guests here for over 10 years and so many of them have said: “This place changed me.”

The most powerful testament to why this place is special —not just beautiful or interesting—is the nearly 3000 year-old temples in the town of Paestum. They are the most well intact Greek temples in the world and larger than the ones you’ll find in Sicily. The Greeks carefully chose the locations of their temples with the goal to honor the deity in a place where the divine presence could be most strongly felt, seen, and experienced. I have visited the archaeological park around the temples, no less than 100 times and it never fails to give me chills.

Many of my guests have returned multiple times. Others have written me during the pandemic to say their memories of Cilento kept them going. This place stays with you because it asks nothing of you but to be present.

I’m proud to have spent a decade doing the slow, patient work of helping people discover it and very grateful to those who have trusted me to travel to a place they never heard of before, and give themselves over to the experience.

05/20/2025

05/19/2025

With summer approaching, you may start seeing more about Cilento — the region just south of the Amalfi Coast that’s still undiscovered by mass tourism. (Thank goodness.)

Let me tell you what it really is. The two things it’s most famous for are the ancient Greek temples at Paestum and the best buffalo mozzarella in Italy. It’s also the official birthplace of the Mediterranean Diet.

It’s also where my grandmother came from and longed for after she emigrated to New York. Where my great-grandfather built a statue on the road up to her town called Capaccio — a thank-you to the Madonna of the Granato, who he believed saved his life.

That same statue still stands today, and if you follow the road past it, you’ll arrive at Borgo La Pietraia — the resort run by my family, and the place I bring all my guests who want to experience the Cilento that I love. My first small group tour there was in 2015 as you will see from this vintage Hipstamatic photo of me.

With panoramic views of both the Amalfi and Cilento coasts, and nestled at the edge of the Cilento National Park, it’s the perfect base for exploring this region.

This week I’m going to be telling you much more about Cilento including stories from 10 years of bringing guests here. Stories of people who fell in love with a place they never even knew existed.

05/10/2025

Naples, 2001. Before iPhones. Before social media. The trip all my professors in Florence told me not to take because Napoli was supposedly dangerous. I fell in love with the city immediately, and it has only grown deeper since.

05/07/2025

There may be no place on earth more beautiful than Venice. Streets made of water, luminous color wrapped in light—it’s all a dream.

There’s also no way to escape the fact that it is a tourist city. And it can feel like a theme park, if you overlook the rich history that made the city so beautiful. If you’re visiting, skip the selfie line at the Rialto Bridge and lose yourself in the quiet Gallerie dell’Accademia. Seek out Vittore Carpaccio’s paintings to see Venice in its most powerful era. Look extra closely at his Dream of Saint Ursula. Notice the light in her room as a heavenly message arrives, then see how it falls on her face. That’s the moment you will understand Venice.

05/06/2025

La Reggia, of the Royal Palace of Caserta is Italy’s Versailles. Built in the 18th century for the Bourbon kings of Naples, it’s actually bigger than Versailles and that’s on purpose. It was the seat of power for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, once one of the wealthiest and most important states in Europe.

With over 1,200 rooms, grand fountains with their own aqueduct and sweeping gardens, Caserta is like its own universe.

Until Italy’s unification in 1861, southern Italy was its own kingdom—rich, cosmopolitan, and influential. The punitive taxation that followed the kingdom in southern Italy led to massive emigration. Most descendants of the Italian diaspora today are completely unaware of this royal heritage.

Today, Caserta remains surprisingly under the radar, even though it’s just 30 minutes from Naples by train. You may never have heard of it, but you’ve certainly seen it in the movies. Films including Star Wars, Mission: Impossible III, The Young Pope, and Conclave were shot here.

05/05/2025

She’s on nobody’s Florence bucket list — but she should be.

She is not a vision of smoothness and serenity like the Virgin Mary. (Smooth, emotionless faces are the ideal of beauty once again.) This is Mary Magdalene, after years alone in the wilderness in deep meditation following the death and resurrection of Christ.

Her clothes have rotted away. Her hair has grown long enough to cover her body. But her hands and feet are still elegant, though her arms are strong.

Spend time looking at her face, especially her eyes and how they gaze inward. She is a fully grown woman who knows what she cares about — and it’s not what anyone thinks of her but God.

Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene, early 1450s. On view at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

05/04/2025

It may seem like strange advice to travel to the middle-of-nowhere-southern Italy to see a staircase

Why not stay in Rome and see the Spanish steps? Especially since there’s nothing else on social media about this staircase and only one guidebook mentions the place: Certosa di Padula—largest Carthusian monastery in the world, built in 1306.

Ok fine, who cares?

But you should go.

The peace and quiet settles over you as you approach the entrance and your shoulders slowly drop. Then you start walking and the scale of the place starts to inspire awe. A cloister that is 12,000 meters — the size of two football fields and the hilltop village of Padula visible from inside, like a crown.

Then there’s the kitchen, bigger than the kitchen of a giant hotel because it fed the hundreds of monks who once lived here, all in a constant state of meditation. That peaceful energy still permeates, even though the monks are long gone.

And then—that staircase, floating in space, a place where you could sketch if you have pen and paper with you, or just marvel at it.

I tried to capture it for Instagram but failed miserably because this place wasn’t made to be photographed. It was made to be felt. It’s an experience, not a souvenir.

And so there are few tourists. No crowds. Just beauty that inspires awe and wonder and softens your heart a little bit even if you can’t explain why.

That’s why places like this are the focus of my newsletter and podcast. Not just pasta and spritzes and stereotypes that the algorithms prioritize. I am dedicated to being the place on the Internet for you to find inspiration and information you can use to plan a trip to Italy that is meaningful. That helps you avoid the theme-park-Italy that diminishes Florence and Venice and other ultra-photogenic places.

If you’re planning a trip, you can feel free to skip the obvious because every corner of Italy has something like that staircase. This is where you can find them.

03/20/2024

The most common question we hear is what to pack for a 10 day trip to Italy. Here's our guide with links to specific clothing items for your Italy capsule wardrobe.

Once you’ve chosen your destinations in Italy and booked your hotels and tours, you will no doubt begin to stress about what to pack. A quick internet search will send you down a rabbit hole with advice on the necessary Italian travel essentials, from the best shoes to buy or pickpocket-safe bags ...