Alex Polizzi's Secret Italy | Le Marche & Rome | Full Episode | S1EP02

i've left behind the cities and lakes of the north and traveled three hours south into central italy where i'll be exploring the little known le marche region before crossing the country to reminisce in rome and finally into the hills for a family [Music] reunion [Music] uncharted territory for millions of tourists who visit italy each year to me it's lush landscapes sparsely populated with medieval villages invite you to discover the region at the most leisurely pace le marche is embraced by more than 100 magnificent miles of italy's eastern coastline and the most magical way to explore it is just as morning breaks it was just stunning this very very very hillside and this wonderful blue sea white beach it's a great combination this is tranquil porto novo a tiny retreat hidden away on the corner or riviera in the center of the region few visitors know it exists but for a cluster of artisanal fishermen this is their place of work the crystal waters lapping these shores are some of the cleanest around and apparently they conceal one of the region's culinary riches mussels get a very bad press but largely they're farmed this is the last place their fish from the wild if you're going to eat mussels this is where you should do it for decades local trattoria have celebrated these little delicacies but fishing for them is considered such a physically tough practice that it's now sadly in decline eduardo is part of the marshally fishing cooperative a team of just four boats that remain in this protected area alex ciao it usually takes two strong cups of coffee to wake me up this early but eduardo seems to be doing the trick each morning at the crack of dawn that crew head out to a reef called prave it's one of the biggest natural breeding farms for mussels in the world and it stretches for 700 meters underwater you can see the line of the reef coming down the mountain it's all the way out there so it's a it's an amazing natural phenomenon the divers spend hours scraping off the mussels that have grown on this reef eduardo and his father feel a sense of responsibility towards their fellow fishermen again so he says this is incredibly dangerous for shipping even though it's very clearly marked and so him and his dad put the madonna out there there's a point a reference point not just for the fisherman but to bring good luck in the scene [Music] [Applause] this is a sustainable yet grueling way to fish which is why the numbers willing to do it are falling massimo is now the crew's youngest diver and he's 52. [Applause] veda vista it's a hard bloody life i tell you that [Applause] look at this granddaddy muscle very very much it's enormous not that [Applause] [Music] okay they're only throwing him back into the sea because he's a baby have another few happy years [Music] a lifetime of fishing in these waters comes with its perks eduardo knows just where this coastline can be glimpsed at its best look how beautiful this is this is his favorite spot because it's the amazing combination of greens the green from the hillside and the green of the sea look at this [Applause] [Music] it's lovely to be with someone who's so knowledgeable about his area and he's so passionate about it i mean he is a part of a long long tradition that goes back all the way to the 30s this definitely does feel like one of those special places you'd rather let not too many people find out about it mussels have never really been my favorite dish but since i've been given the opportunity to sample this morning's cat i'd be mad to resist i'm told the only way to savor their delicate flavor is to cook them on their own and these men have been doing it long enough to know best senses [Applause] it's delicious my goodness why didn't this expect is that they are so sweet [Laughter] you said that's what making love tastes like [Music] they all say that you can't do this job unless you're mad in love with the scene and look at how at home this is where they live they basically live on this beach in each other's company i feel very privileged i feel very privileged i may not have been a fan of mussels but this rustic style of cooking in such a stunning setting is a winning combination and le marche region still has a few more secrets to give up yet [Music] for the visiting traveller le marche holds a few surprises and the biggest one of all it produces some of the best shoes in the world from prada gucci if you've ever wondered where some of fashion's most coveted designs are crafted it's here but one exclusive brand can boast that its business was born in le marche and i'm about to unleash the credit card i can feel a buying spree coming on in fact [Music] just a short drive inland from the coast you'll find the headquarters of lori blue here you can walk in the shoes of the well-heeled since the 70s i mean these are works of art look at this if you're feeling frivolous for some of the designs here you can expect to pay up to a thousand pounds [Music] this is my idea of heaven when i die i want heaven to be just like this i have got to try those on the public face and one half of the couple behind this lavish brand is a former school teacher and ex-policewoman it's a feast for the eyes to see such an array of designs under one roof and they're all dreamt up right here so that brides shine even more on their big day unlike some of the italian traditions i've explored on my travels shoemaking is still as vibrant as ever there is a 250 strong workforce here alone producing up to 1 500 pairs every day [Music] sure them to get the most out of every skin a pretty vital skill when some of the exotic materials used here cost up to five hundred euros a meter estrella look how long this python is almost four meters long mamma mia look how enormous it is this is formed python obviously just to make it clear the fake one you can feel is completely smooth going in one direction the real python is slightly raised as you run your hand along it's not completely smooth look at that it's so exciting that's what every chic lady will be wearing this autumn i'm reliably told from a skin the production of a shoe it's really impressive to discover a global brand with 26 boutiques in cities from dubai to london in this little known region is a complete surprise and the reclusive man behind it all isn't what you'd expect either graziano kukul prefers to hide in his office upstairs where there's not a computer in site [Music] enormous drive a trait that i recognize in my own family and this charming region certainly provides enough inspiration [Music] whilst le marche is at the forefront of fashion it is also steeped in history and if you journey south you'll find one of my favorite ancient cities of all ascoli is the little-known highlight of the southern market affectionately named the city of travertine [Music] i was last in ascori about 11 years ago and honestly it gives me shivers to be back i love this city [Music] all this white stone it gives it a wonderful calm unified look that frankly is a balm to the soul whenever i talk about how much i love ascoli people look at me quizzically they don't really know what i'm talking about i think this is one of the regions that has yet to be discovered by mass tourism although i'm sure it's not far away ascoli is like rome's long-lost cousin it's perfect piazza's heave with history but unlike the capital this is a city on a much more compact scale with an altogether more sedate pace making a wonder around here a pleasure this is just astonishingly lovely i came to ascoli with my boyfriend of the time and i became completely enchanted by it it's amazing because the memories have come absolutely flooding back i can virtually remember every meal i ate and the music i was listening to i don't know many places that happens on me stefano tully is a born and bred resident of ascoli ciao alex polizzi what a great place to meet welcome to my hometown it's beautiful and i love seeing in the mountains in the distance the beautiful thing about oscar is that it has always maintained its own beautiful essence of a small typical italian small town well what it seemed to me when i was here last was it it's it's a city on a very nice scale yeah it feels very livable i don't know if you feel that too absolutely yes absolutely yes and that's why that's why i decided to come back here to live you know from milan from busy city that's here is the place where i can live a better life to me ascoli has some of the prettiest architecture i've ever seen but i never realized it was the local families who created the trend of building all of its towers why did they build these towers demonstrate their power you know local family used to be their wealth their wealth yeah their wealth and their power so the higher the better they're richer and then they were some of them were destroyed but the most important ones are still there and so that's why oscar is still cold it's still famous as the 100 tower city stefano's own family history still maintains a strong presence in the city we're going to one of the best places in nascar this is cafete a mainstay of ascoli's social scene when i was last here i noticed that the drink all the locals had in their hand was moletti this aniseed liquor has been the city's most celebrated treasure for over a century and stefano's grandfathers invented it the great thing about it is that the local lining set is made in a place which is very close to oscar so it's again it's a logo thing you know it's like homemade stuff so it's it's very very typical of our city is it very strong yeah it's 34 degrees so it's pretty strong do you like it very fresh like it lip smacking good mmm delicious it's very strong very amazing yeah you wouldn't want to drink it if you didn't like aniseed thank you you usually drink it with or after coffee after lunch or after dinner or after you know a night it's it's very typical you know it's a lot it's like a local thing very local thing you know for the visiting tourist a glass of melati might seem like an acquired taste but it's a part of the culture here and i'm about to indulge in another of this great country's passions italians have been enjoying the theater since roman times in this region alone you can find over 100 atmospheric venues i love the intimate ascoli theater with its neoclassical style and i couldn't come to this city without losing myself here all over again gosh isn't it pretty in my late twenties i had a lovely boyfriend luca and he took a spectacular piece of theater around italy and this was one of the theaters he brought me to i always sat in there what would be the king's box i was sat right in the middle and he was amazed luca because i used to see this piece night after night after night and he's a brilliant actor still is and i used to cry every night because it was so beautiful it only seats about 800 people it's very classic of the genre it's like a little chocolate box it's amazing how vivid those memories are to me i really enjoyed that time in my life [Music] this is just the beginning of a nostalgic time for me and as the capital beckons it won't be my only brush with my past love lucca [Music] from the tranquility of the le marche region my journey continues to the epicenter of italian life rome rome is probably the city that i know best off to london i lived here for three years and i love it madly my father who died when i was nine was roman and his family lived here and you still live here actually i have cousins here i have my aunts and uncles here you know it feels like home they say all roads lead to this eternal city it was so called because the romans have always believed that the city was indestructible well it's still going strong after 3 000 years it's a very strange contradiction of cities it's a kind of modern one overlaid over many many ancient cities it's almost impossible to live then it is quite chaotic one of the things i'm proudest of in my life is the fact that i learned to drive around this city which nobody except natives ever dared to do and yet i mean who could fail but be completely taunted by the fabric of where one lives here it's a place too that has a lot of these beautiful buildings the fountains the history and yet some of the nicest things are in the back streets the things that aren't quite so obvious to the casual tourist some of my favorite vistas of this city are off the beaten track and not necessarily where you'd expect to find them the grand entrance the priory of the knights of malta on the aventine hill contains a keyhole that invites you in on rome's best kept secret nobody knows if this perfectly positioned peephole was intentional or just an incredible coincidence so nice to be back i don't know why i've stayed away so long i don't want it to be so long again i tell you that for nothing everybody knows rome's most famous landmarks from piazza navona to the colosseum but i'm returning to the rome i remember fondly starting with the family business the place where i came to work 15 years ago and cut my teeth as a restaurant manager hotel de roosie in the height of summer this place is a secret oasis of calm it's very special as far as i know it's the only garden in a hotel in the hall of fame here nearly 3 000 square meters of leafy green gardens are open to the public waiting to be discovered sitting here now recalls memories of decadent dining as well as a few foreign faux pas witnessed when i was here i'm having my morning cappuccino morning is the only time in italy you should have cappuccino really it is virtually illegal to have one after 11 o'clock i'm always amazed in england when people order a latte or cappuccino after their lunch here the food police would be after you on one memorable occasion i watch someone pour the glass of water they traditionally give you with your espresso to wash it down with pour it into their espresso cup to lengthen the coffee and on another occasion i witnessed some witchless englishman asked for parmesan to sprinkle on his pizza if you want to seem italian it doesn't matter the trousers you wear it's how you drink your pocket [Music] the romans have always taken this early 19th century building to their hearts but for me the gardens are one of the city's most special secrets picasso once treated this serene space like his own roman living room but i'm a little biased as my mother had a hand in the garden's creation especially in this heat it's so nice to have the shade of the garden it really is you know sit up here and even now which is a very hot day you feel quite cool so there's a sort of a practical story of picasso leaning out of the window and picking a an orange from one of the trees and we've we've planted orange trees again and cocktail said this is paradise [Applause] i love all the little nooks and crannies i know you can come and sit up here i never have but one should with a book yes oleander which is a typical italian plant that grows anywhere even on motorways and this is a sort of jasmine jasmine rosemary i always love seeing rosemary i planted everywhere actually but here it's really apt i agree an hour or two spent here and you almost forget that the hot tempered city rages on all around you [Music] it is lovely it is lovely i never say no to coming to rome when there's a job to be done here i rush over fast it is lovely [Music] you could easily spend days taking in rome's rich culture but in the three years that i spent here i got to know life as a local this square sits firmly in my favorite part of rome we are here in piazza mate which is known as the square with the fountain of the turtles this is where i live and i lived in rome it's a great place to live in it doesn't seem to change that much [Music] this is the jewish ghetto it's home to the oldest thriving community in the city and it's now one of the trendiest neighborhoods to be michaela has lived in rome all her life and was born from a family that traces its roots here back over two thousand years here on your left you trastevere can put the fjord in front of us this is really one of the hearts of the of the city and where the city started its amazing developing during throughout the centuries and the jews of rome have always been here between the bank of the river and this other side of the river on this side they've been forced to leave for about 330 years and and today it's our place not as an obligation anymore but we come here if you can afford it to live here forget it it's impossible imagine that 15 years ago when this was still not cheap but affordable reasonable i told my parents let's go back to the gates i feel a connection it's our place and my mother said me living with those schleppers which is dish for poor ones and i said and so she didn't want to listen to me and now yeah between 10 and 15 000 euros per square meter living here of course it's like london progresses yeah yeah but it's unique i lived here for three years and i loved it i love the fact that it's got a very neighborhood feeling so there's a wonderful fruit and veg shop there's fantastic bread there's a newsstand there's obviously all the restaurants you know you can get all your needs yes as well as the best ice cream in rome i think right here yes um and so that's a very attractive it's like a little village in the city no neighborhood would be complete without a bakery but the one here has earned quite a reputation for itself borchorne run by three formidable sisters is so famous it doesn't even need a name above the door this shop when i lived here i went in here almost every day and they every time it was like the first time they'd ever seen me never smile so many people and and it's it's their personality it's like it's their characters yeah they have to behave like that because all the world know the way that they are and so they cannot ah i see they lose their yeah they lose their head exactly god forbid that they should smile and the facade would crumble i'm going to risk life and limb and go in and buy cake let's go this family business has been going strong for nearly 200 years people come from all over the world to try their famous sweet treats and experience the infamous customer service the famous cinnamon biscotti with almonds yeah this is called geneto but getting the grumpy sisters to crack a smile is still as difficult as ever do you need anything else besides of the cake no or is [Music] is [Music] [Music] they might be grumpy but it is the most delicious cake my memories of rome are entwined with the hours i spent at a local's haunt in the heart of the jewish ghetto this is cafe bleve back in my 20s the owners anna cleto and tina treated me like their own and today the welcome is still as warm um see um but part of the reason the cafe is so dear to me is because it's where i whiled away many an evening with my old boyfriend luca his acting career has taken him all around the world but no other city has managed to entice him away from rome permanently [Music] i know here we go like the old days darling so tell me you still live here yes i think it's a very unique place because it's very quiet still no tourist not much tourists because there's so many shops and the tradition of the jewish ghetto i think in the last 10 years got much much better the identity of the place is very it's nice it's more strong you're so international but you still live here and you always come back here no you have the best food the weather is so mellow so sexy it is nice maybe the light you know the light in rome is yellow you notice that we've conquered this light so the old town is very seductive and if you're lucky that you can live once in a while then you want to come back to rome it is brilliant to see again darling it's very brilliant i'm always in love with alice what i'm going to do with that luca always had a way with words which is why the conversation and wine always flowed here rome has unlocked plenty of personal memories for me but my next stop is a place literally steeped in my family's history [Music] in the hills just south of rome is this remote mountain hamlet my grandfather charles forte was born here until recently it was called mortale but the community have honoured his memory by now renaming the place mon forte even though he made a name for himself all over the world he regarded this tiny village relatively untouched by modern life as his home my grandfather came up here every year even when he was incredibly dodgy my grandmother used to bring him up at least twice a year and he used to come here and play butcher with all the other old men and sit and reminisce even when his memory went this was the place that was the most vivid to him he may not be with us any longer but the family home where he grew up still is it's a bit bittersweet being back here actually it's lovely to be here and i really feel their presence my grandparents in this house this is where he came from this is where we all come from and i'm incredibly proud of being the grandchild of someone who made such an enormous success for himself i'd having made that big step from here i want to keep the momentum going i want to make him proud of me and it's something that drives me enormously and i know it's driven my mother and my uncle and you know i don't want to let him down [Music] dad went to england and built what he built you know he had 800 hotels he had 60 000 employees um he never forgot where he came from and he certainly wasn't ashamed of it and he always used to try and do what he could for the village and he did up the church he put madonna at the entrance of the village every year he paid for the festa and then lately he used to come back and and carry um santa antonio yeah it's made me really really miss him and i'm glad there's still this house he loved coming up here and he always used to say this is the perfect size house because he always used to love having us all around everyone it's it's lovely i must make more of an effort to come up [Music] the festa is what's brought me back here today it was an occasion that my grandfather was passionate about every year the locals celebrate the patron saint of the village san antonio and over time it's become something of a reunion for all of the fortes around the world who left to make a living it's amazing how it draws them back i mean fortes went from here far and wide especially in england lots of them went into the catering trade lots of them did ice cream wales ireland scotland they went all over i'm sure quite a few will be returning today i'm here oh yeah for the the first one i'm trying to remember i must have been up before but you know there's so many photos that i'm i'm not quite sure how much is recovered memory and how much is real i remember being very bored up here from months and months as a child that's impossible huh auntie jean sorry auntie alex how are you hello darling it's lovely today it's a long time no see darling you look fab thank you very much [Music] this kind of celebration is a regular sight in towns and villages across the southern mediterranean it's a tradition but it's not every day you have a real connection to one [Music] this part of my journey has not only taken me to the core of italy but to the heart of my heritage too than anything you know i'm italian because of my grandparents because of my full grandparents and this has been an amazing opportunity just to remember how much they meant to me amid the jovial atmosphere it's impossible not to feel humbled by the occasion to see so many generations of fortes coming together to celebrate the family's achievements is just incredible [Music] son of philly alex yes [Music] hi darling it's absolutely wonderful and i'm going to get all the music i'm going to get all emotional there's so much you know there's so many people here it's lovely it's lovely because it's very fast and a lot have come back from relatives they're all 40s i know all the 40s are here today i don't want to be too mushy about this but it is kind of it is very special to be here and i'm i'm very glad that my mum's here with me um [Music] and i kind of feel like this is where it all began for us as a family as in our current form and um and i coming back here it's rather amazing that my grandfather made such a success of himself coming from this little place so high in the mountains the next leg of my italian adventure is one of two extremes the intensity of naples and the immense calm of the amalfi coast anyone with any sensitivity gazing out on this view will feel the hand of the divine you

Channel: The Hotel Inspector

Views: 147,594

Rating: 4.9287181 out of 5

Keywords: The Hotel Inspector, Alex Polizzi, hotelier Alex, Alex Polizzi the hotel inspector, Budget hotel, worst rated, worst rated hotel, worst rated hotel room, worst hotel review, hotel reviews, hotel restoration, professional restoration, hotel impossible, worst restaurant reviews, rated restaurants, Confronts owner, confronting owners, confrontation, travel, italy, spain, spectacular spain, secret italy, le marche, le marche italy, rome italy, rome, le marche region, holidays

Id: alfma3cVkzk

Length: 41min 55sec (2515 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020