There are some Italian traditions you can understand by reading about them. Others need to be tasted, heard and experienced.

The moment you open its wrapping, a delicate fragrance fills the air: butter, vanilla, citrus notes and the unmistakable aroma of a naturally leavened Italian cake. Before the first slice is even cut, the experience has already begun.

There are places you visit, and then there are places you slowly begin to feel part of. Moniga del Garda, on the western shore of Lake Garda, belongs to the second kind.

There is something special about discovering a fruit that seems to belong to another time.

There is a particular moment in Veneto when summer begins to soften. The light becomes warmer, the vineyards grow quieter, and among country gardens and old farmhouses, Venetian figs reach their perfect ripeness.

Sometimes the most memorable journeys begin in places you weren’t expecting to find.

There are places you visit, and places you remember by the way they made you feel.

There are some places in Italy that you remember for their monuments, others for their landscapes. And then there are places you remember for a taste.

There are places you visit for the sights, and then there are places that slowly change the way you feel.

There are places you visit because they are famous, and then there are places you discover almost by accident and remember for much longer.