It's always interesting to see which posts are the most popular with readers, so here are the posts that got the most traffic over the past 12 months. Only one of these was actually written in 2011 as I didn't write many blog posts this year (it was a good year for business but I also spent a month in India and organized a 2,000-mile move from Chicago to California). But more and more people visit this website every month for which I am very thankful!

Number Seven: Five Impressive Trompe L'Oeil

It's easy to include these on itineraries and I often do, especially when there are kids around.

Number Six: A Traveler's Guide to Strikes

This post was born after a conversation with my mother, and has done well since I first published it.

Number Five: Day trips from Milan

This is a list of all the places you can go from Milan, how long it takes to get to each one, and how much time you need to spend there. This is basically a list of the favorite places I went during the years I lived in Milan.

Number Four: the Dolomites

I love the Dolomites and I think it shows in these articles - on hiking and biking trails, where to ski, driving tips, and more. 

Number Three: Italy Driving Tips

I'm glad this post does well, because driving in Italy can be incredibly stressful if you arrive unprepared. When I work with clients who want to rent a car, I usually send them this article as a starting point for our discussion.

Number Two: Scala dei Turchi, Sicily

The Sicily section in general gets a lot of visitors, but this post - and amazing photo which I've included above - gets the most attention. I've had more than one client contact me wanting to incorporate Scala dei Turchi into a Sicily itinerary because of this post. 

Number One: The Best Outlet Malls in Italy

It's a little surprising to me that post gets the most visitors, but it probably has something to do with this SEO thing I keep hearing about. This list of outlet malls is not exhaustive, but these are my favorites. 

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The highlights below are from an 8-day trip I created for a Jewish family. They were foodies and loved history - and the art and architecture that went with it. Since they had already been to Rome, Florence and Venice, this time Emilia Romagna - the foodie capital of Italy - was a perfect fit. The region has many Jewish sites, which we prioritized to create an itinerary with fantastic food and a balance of Roman, medieval, Renaissance, and Jewish history.

A Very Short History Jewish settlement began in Emilia Romagna in the 13th century, and flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1555 Pope Paul IV decreed that Jewish people live in closed quarters, which began the age of the ghettos. In 1860 Jews in Italy were finally emancipated with full civic and religious rights. Today out of 4 million inhabitants in Emilia Romagna, there are only 400 Jewish people, however there are many Jewish sites to visit.

Bologna Perfect as a home base (especially if you want to eat well!) for doing day trips to the other cities listed below, allow half a day at the very minimum to visit Bologna's main tourist sights. The city has a Jewish quarter, a Jewish museum, and a synagogue. If you need to prioritize, just walk around the Jewish quarter.

Modena See the balsamic vinegar-making process or spend half a day at the nearby Ferrari factory / museum, and definitely allow a couple hours to walk around this pretty city. For Jewish sights, visit Ghetto square (piazza Mazzini) and the synagogue (photo above), which isn't open all the time but you can call to schedule a visit.

Ferrara Prioritize the Jewish Museum, which has a synagogue, and walk through the Jewish Ghetto, a nice pedestrian area which includes via Mazzini, Via Vignataglia, and Via Vittoria. Check museum opening hours and contact them in advance if you need to schedule a visit. If you have time, consider visiting the Addizione Erculea Jewish cemetery. Ferrara has many fabulous tourist sights so allow at least half a day to walk around and visit the cathedral, the Estense Castle (photo above) or the art museum. If you like cycling, Ferrara is your town.

Other nearby Jewish sights Carpi and Fossoli were the largest sites in Italy for deportation camps. Visit Carpi's Pio Castle or Fossoli's public park and national museum, commemorating victims of concentration camps. If you're visiting castles in the area, you won't want to miss Soragna's famous Meli-Lupi castle, across from which sits a synagogue, which today is a museum with a synagogue room.

Add a visit to a kosher winery; taste some kosher parmigiano reggiano cheese; explore the incredible art and castles of the region; spend some time in the city of Parma; and maybe hop on a bike for some easy cycling, and you've got yourself a great trip!

Photos from istockphoto.com

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A recent coaching client exclaimed that she was so relieved to have found my website and services. She'd been searching the internet for good Italy travel advice, didn't know which sites she could trust, and was suffering from information overload. I was a little surprised to hear this; there is a veritable cornucopia of excellent Italy travel advice online. If you're planning your own trip and don't find what you're looking for on this website or on the Italy Beyond the Obvious facebook page, go visit the experts listed below.

Overall Italy Martha's Italy travel guide on about.com has information about practically every town, custom, and festival across Italy as well as lots of useful travel advice. Jessica at WhyGo Italy has lots of well-researched advice about anything you can think of related to Italy travel, including great information on getting from A to B within Italy. Italofile is also a great source of information, and I'd take pretty much any advice Lee Marshall feels like sharing (though I particularly love his recommendations for Sicily and Venice).

Florence & Tuscany Alexandra has a Ph.D in Art History, lives in Florence and writes Arttrav.com about Florence, Tuscany, and art in Italy. The Tuscany tourism website is great.

Rome General Rome advice and sights are actually easy to find. But for Rome restaurant recommendations, listen to Katie Parla at ParlaFood.com and to Elizabeth Minchilli. Going to Rome with kids? Let JM Pasquesi guide you: buy her book or check out suggestions on her blog.

Umbria Take Rebecca's advice on practically any aspect of Umbria: itineraries, food, kids, the outdoors, or aspects of expat life. 

Naples Napoli Unplugged is well-researched and thorough, and after reading what Bonnie has to say, you'll want to double or triple the time you planned to spend in Naples.

Calabria Cherrye at My-BellaVita.com has lots of great information about Calabria and the south. You can also count on anything Michelle recommends on BleedingEspresso.com.

Sicily Go to the Tripadvisor forums and take what ever advice Vagabonda doles out (and leave her a question - she may help you with your specific trip!)

This is nowhere near a comprehensive list, and I know I've left out some great sites (please share in the comments), but I've been following these blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter streams and more for years and have gotten to know several of the authors. They're real people, with real experience, writing about what they know. They're not bots trying to work SEO with the sole goal of appearing at the top of a google search. They care about giving accurate information, and while you should always double check things for your own trip, you could practically do what ever they suggest.

{P.S. I know this post is going to generate emails to me about paid links. There are no paid links on this entire website so please don't bother contacting me about it.}

But if you don't want to do it all yourself, let Italy Beyond the Obvious plan your trip or help you along as a travel consultant. If you like what you read, subscribe to this blog for free.

I was researching Sunday lunch options in Rome for clients recently, looking for a traditional experience (Sunday lunch is big in Rome!), but in a part of town that worked with their itinerary and within their budget. At first, I thought Trattoria Perilli would be a great fit. Just look at the evidence!

• Elizabeth Minchilli a food writer in Rome, puts it on her list of four favorite places for Sunday lunch in Rome and lists it as "her all-time favorite place for Sunday lunch". 
• Fred Plotkin, in his book Italy for the Gourmet Traveler, says Perilli probably has the best pasta alla carbonara in the city. 
• Travel and Leisure magazine, in its October 2011 edition, includes Perilli in its list of 9 recommended Rome restaurants.

Trusting the experts is a good start, but it's just a start. I always cross-check recent reviews, in both Italian and English, from several review sites before making a recommendation. Even if I've personally eaten at the restaurant, I want to make sure nothing has changed (the chef, for example) and that the dining experience is pretty consistent for other travelers (often I showed up as a guide with 25 other people). And I always keep an eye out for evidence of the two things below. So it was during this part of my research that I realized I couldn't recommend Perilli to my clients.

1. Don't eat anywhere foreigners are treated differently than Italians

There's nothing better than being caught up in the all-Italian cacophony of a buzzing restaurant at the height of the dinner hour - in that sense, you definitely want to eat with the locals. But not if the restaurant doesn't appreciate your business. Some restaurants may appear friendly but try to take advantage of the traveler by putting an additional service charge on the English version of their menu. And some don't try to hide it at all, and are just plain rude (if you've eaten in restaurants near Piazza San Marco in Venice in high tourist season, you may have experienced this). 

Honestly, I was expecting stellar reviews of Perilli, and indeed many of the reviewers described the restaurant as "full of locals" - it certainly seemed to be a place that locals love. So I was surprised when several Perilli Tripadvisor reviewers complained that "they hate foreigners, especially Americans", and others concurred. A Fodor's reviewer said the waiter gave them "the cold shoulder". Every restaurant gets bad reviews sometimes, but when there are multiple reviews on different sites about the same issue, it's a red flag.

But what about the consistent fantastic reviews by the experts? Although the experts who recommend Perilli are not Italian-born, consider that both Minchilli and Plotkin have spent decades in Italy, and the author of the T&L article starts with "Rome and I go way back." To 1974. I'm sure none of these authors is perceived as foreign when they eat out, and would have received the "Italian" treatment at Perilli. 

2. An Italian's criteria for a "great" restaurant may be different than yours

In a nutshell, and to generalize, Italians value food over service and North Americans value service over food. It's not that Italians don't value service, it's just that their expectations are different. And it's not that North Americans don't value food, it's just that most haven't eaten pasta alla carbonara once a week their entire lives - so the carbonara that only scored 7/10 for the Italians may still elicit an over-the-top enthusiastic review from a North American.

When I started reading Italian reviews of Perilli, I noticed consistent complaints about overcooked (scotta) pasta - their famous carbonara no less, what?!; and that the restaurant is too expensive for what it is. I didn't read anything in Italian about bad service, nor did I read anything in English about overcooked pasta, but all in all, even the Italian reviews support the fact that I'm not exactly sure what kind of dining experience my clients can expect. 

I'm not trying to slam Perilli in this post, really. It just happens to be a great example of a place many people seem to love but that I'm not sure I want to recommend to foreign travelers. I should also point out that the majority of the reviews about Perilli are positive - in both Italian and English - and that most of the bad reviews about service (but not pasta) are a year old or more. So I will keep monitoring the reviews and if they are consistently good, I may yet send a client to Perilli, or at least visit the next time I'm in Rome. Meanwhile, there are many, many other great options.

Photo by Alessandraelle

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Driving anywhere in Italy is not straightforward for many travelers, and there are many general things travelers to Italy need to know about driving. But travelers to the Dolomites? That's a separate conversation.

If I were brainstorming descriptive phrases about roads in the Dolomites, I'd include:

• winding
• narrow
• no shoulder
• guardrails optional
• steep drops
• mountain face next to the road
• hairpin bends
• steep
• dark (not lit at night)
• icy

You can avoid driving in the dark or not rent a car in the wintertime. But the rest of those descriptive terms? You'll meet them, so just be prepared. Skip to the video below, or read these common-sense tips:

Rent a small car. Rent what you need, of course, but as small as possible, since the roads are narrower.

Allow more time to get from A to B since you're not going to be driving very fast on those narrow and winding roads.

Use your eyes and ears while driving, meaning look out for mirrors that help with blind curves, and listen for the light "beep beep" of other drivers coming around a blind curve and warning you of their approach.

Trust Italian drivers as they know the roads and can overtake safely (even though it may not seem that way to you). The key is that you drive consistently, without any sudden swerves or changes in speed, and keeping the distance between you and the side of the road the same. Don't go faster than you're comfortable with, and if there's a pullout area and a long line of cars behind you, pull over and let everyone go by. But don't let aggressive Italian drivers stress you out, be safe.

Use taxis. Many people get around the Dolomites with buses and taxis, and if you know it will be dark when you're returning from dinner, leave the car at the hotel and call a taxi. 

Get a good paper map and use it, along with directions you got from your hotel, to get to your destination. I usually sing the praises of having a GPS, but the Dolomites is somewhat of an exception. Your GPS will not have information about road closures, and may try to route you to your destination via a narrow gravel road over a mountain pass (a road that in wintertime is not passable with a car).

Winter driving makes all of the above slightly more complicated. Some roads will require chains, which are not included in a standard car rental so you must ask about them. Some smaller roads close in the winter and become cross-country ski trails. Call your hotel and have a chat about the local roads if you're planning on driving in the Dolomites in the winter.

This video is worth a million words: 

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Photo of winding road by Nordique