Alex Polizzi's Secret Italy | Venice & The North | Full Episode | S1EP01

my grand tour starts in the north on a trip that will take me from the completely historic to the unmistakably modern from the exquisite beauty of venice to the bustle of sheik milan venice in my eyes one of the wonders of the world it's a perfect place to start my italian odyssey whenever i come here i always think it's such a miracle that venice is still inhabited it's achingly achingly beautiful and it's like a mirage it doesn't seem real [Music] it's a city i know well my grandmother who i called nonna was venetian i must have been here at least 40 times in my life and it can be smelly and it can be busy and my goodness it's expensive but none of that matters you just feel like you're treading in the steps of some of the great painters and architects and great thinkers who've ever walked this earth it's no secret venice is a popular destination an estimated 20 million people visit each year but there is one way you can have this city almost to yourself if you can drag yourself out of bed you'll be rewarded [Music] the very heart of venice almost impossible to visit these days because of the crowds the only way to do it is very early in the morning or very late at night this is early morning there's very few people around except your average venetian taking his daily run the street sweepers the cafes for the workmen and me finally being able to get up close and personal with some of the beauties that you come to venice to see i think it is very easy at this time of day to feel as if it's all a stage set it is so beautiful [Music] in five hours time this whole street will be a river of humanity very unpleasant there's a crude ship that's about to disgorge 5 000 people into the streets of venice or with a packed lunch and a bottle of water it looks completely wrong i mean look it's as tall as the campanile it's just ridiculous right opposite the bridge of size i think this is the first time in years that i haven't had to fight my way through six layers of tourists with cameras people come here with a list of things to see and tick them off and rush off and never ever get a chance to soak in the true beauty [Music] saint mark's square is one of the most iconic sites in venice and one of the priciest too you can get the most expensive coffee in the world here we had two orange juices a bottle of water four coffees and two cappuccinos and i think the whole lot came to 200 euros in the old days there was a little old lady here who used to sell bird seed and you'd have all these pigeons on you i've got so many photos like that at home of us younger covered in these flying mats nowadays feeding the pigeons is enormously discouraged because they've worked out how bad they are [Music] it's amazing to think that under this very solid seeming square lies fathoms and fathoms of water it's quite easy to completely forget that this is a city in the middle of the sea it's places like venice that marks us out as a civilized world and it makes me sad because i don't think that we're creating anything these days that is as impressive and this is miraculous on so many levels it's the triumph of faith and hope determination and tenacity feast your eyes on this square as empty as it is because this is the last time today it's going to look like this venice is romantic and magical on any budget [Music] but it can be dazzling if you have money to burn open your wallet wide and you can find suites fit for hollywood film stars this is the playground of the rich and famous [Music] there are 12 five-star hotels in the city i think one of the finest is the hotel bauer owned by francesca bertolotto a venetian through and through so francesca i feel like i have a connection with venice because of my mom and every time i arrive i feel tearful at the beauty of it i mean it takes my breath away still now and i've come at least once a year every year of my life for me it has the same effect and the whole world comes to venice so you know every day you you wake up and you look at this and you know why you're so privileged francesca has agreed to give me an exclusive glimpse of their most exclusive suite here we go darling wow that's what you wanted to see this is amazing i don't know what to look at first i think it's one of the most dramatic room of venice and charles and camilla they were here by the way and they loved this room but they considered this very close to home this room is aptly called the royal suite and it comes at a royal price 15 000 euros a night it's the most stunning stunning room the church of la salud is what i consider maybe the most iconic view of venice the opulent suite is decorated in traditional venetian style with silk fabrics period furnishings and original murano glass chandeliers every touch of luxury is obsessed about even down to the handmade bathroom products like a lot in the royal suite it's locally sourced made in a small but high-tech cosmetics lab in the city the lab produces soaps and lotions for the city's best hotels using fragrances grown in its own garden [Music] what's surprising is that this garden is in a female penitentiary and the people making the soaps are inmates and here it is this is the first time i've ever set foot in a prison francesca is one of the founders of the project very delicate it's very delicate and of course they are more expensive than average amenities in the hotel so it's all natural oh this is very good i love this currently there are three inmates working in the cosmetics lab a con artist a romanian caught up in drug trafficking and a young north african girl involved in a theft [Music] another five inmates tend the garden where they also grow fruit and veg to sell to local people queue outside the prison on a wednesday morning and you can buy some of the freshest fruit and vegetables in the city people who work in the laboratory get paid don't they of course then not only they get paid but then they get a certificate when they leave the jail that they have been working and so when they get out they can be more suitable to find another job once you have a difficulty in your life and for good or bad and not too criticizing but then you do you're doing something beautiful it makes you feel better and if you've done something not so beautiful this is a way to straighten up in some way what your past is being [Music] venice is certainly a city of surprises and there are more to come many centuries ago the republic of venice was known as la serenissima which translates as the most serene but you wouldn't think it when you see its crowded canals today venice is a city literally built on water everything you have to do in an ordinary city you have to do here on a boat [Music] my grandmother who only died five years ago who was venetian said to me that the realtor used to be a hive of industry venice has been a city of merchants that's why it exists it was a staging post between the east and the west it for all the spices that were so in demand the modern merchants of venice fight through the waterways and canals with the city's gondoliers for centuries the iconic gondolas were the chief means of transportation in the city these days they are mainly very expensive water taxis costing 80 euros for a 40 minute ride it is estimated that there were eight to ten thousand gondolas during the 17th and 18th century now only 425 remain [Music] a gondola is made up of eight different kinds of wood for a gondolier the most vital part is the fodcola the lock the oar is held in it enables the gondolier to change the speed and the direction of his boat every forkola is a unique piece bespoke and handcrafted to the needs of each individual gondolier it's a dying art only four orlok producers remain in the whole of venice at 30 years of age piero drie is the youngest how long have you been doing this it's about eight years what did you do before before i studied astronomy how many hours does it take you to make an all lock 30 35 when you start from the piece of tree i look at it and i say oh no it's very difficult piero has offered to let me in on a local secret venice lies on an archipelago made up of 118 islands it's separated by 177 canals and linked by 409 bridges and it's clearly best seen from the water as a venetian born and bred piero has offered to take me off the beaten track and give me a local's guide to some of its most beautiful canals this is amazing because your workshop is about 100 meters away from the rialto bridge but it's a world away it feels like a different city yeah yeah and then is divided in six big areas you know we are drifting through the canary the northernmost of the six historic districts here you can almost forget the hustle and bustle of the tourists and really admire this beautiful place so there's some areas where the gondoliers tend to congregate yeah and then other waterways come esta that you never see it you don't see anybody in the in the most part of venice we live only with tourism you can find real shops that human need in a city for for his life now the iron monkey the supermarket school pickup time if there's only 48 000 people who live here what who lives in the other apartments i mean is there a lot of empty houses yeah yeah many are empty because our second second properties are american people or whatever and the problem is that they come here one one time every year or yeah you know venice will only continue to exist if real people live here the problem is rather like london that venetians are priced out of the city and so there's less and less vita del popo or everyday life here it's become almost like a disneyland sorry if you want to escape the theme park venice there are other islands worth a visit burrano is a real surprise it's a small island a short boat ride from venice every house is painted a blindingly bright and cheerful color legends say it was to help drunken fishermen find their home after a hard day's drinking [Music] whilst nearby murano is famous for glass production burano is all about lace it's been a desirable product since the 16th century and it's still made here by hand today across burano an army of local ladies painstakingly hand-stitched the lace from their own homes each one of them specializes in a different kind of stitching it's incredibly intricate detailed work requiring great skill a tablecloth can take up to two years to make there are very few lace makers left capable of producing needle lace like this it's another great venetian tradition with an uncertain future one local tradition that is still going strong is a love of food my venetian grandmother always cooked local dishes for me as a child and i remember them to this day delicious venetian tradition of food is fantastic uh a few highlights are liver and baby octopus anything from the sea in fact but also they have a very sweet two phoenicians and all these indulgences that quite often come out just for carnival none of them look very good for the figure but they're delicious on the lips monica cesarato is a food writer and venice's best-known gastronomic guide why is there such an amazing and varied cooking tradition in venice because venice was a port so there is the influence of all the countries to which it was disposed so you have a bakala from northern europe you have all the spices from the middle east you have all the fruits and vegetables from africa and as well as the produce venice was important also over different recipes for me no trip to venice is complete without eating my favorite venetian recipe the fritole or sweet cake chef adacato is a venetian treasure who makes fritole the way that my grandmother used to hey ciao so my nonna used to make these for us but she only made them in the winter better to have a high calories in winter than in some yeah you know benny's fritella used to be called anything that would be fried now we got to the point where really identified as fritella the sweet cakes for carnival and fritelli is one of the oldest recipes for cakes he actually goes back to the roman times and then in the 1700s it was declared the national cake of venice the dough is simple enough to make water sugar butter and plain flour and then you add eggs she's going to check if temperature is ready just by putting the equivalent so when you stick in a wooden spoon the bubbles rise to the surface that moment the oil is ready yeah it's exactly at the right temperature once the oil is hot ada simply spoons in the fritoli mix and cooks until they puff up into golden brown balls turning regularly every city in italy has their speciality yes but in venice they have it seems that venetians have a very sweet tooth yes because venice discovered the use of sugar in culinary use rather than pharmaceutical use and that's why we got so many cakes and then with the spices they combine the sugar with all the spices from from the middle eastern the recipe varies from household to household some people add ricotta to the dough some people fill them with chocolate drops and raisins but my grandmother made hers with zabalioni cream a mixture of eggs sugar and marsala wine [Music] now she's putting the powdered sugar on top like in the old days and that's what gives the extra sweetness just in case you didn't have enough thank you goodbye one flavor of something brings you back a memory it's like oh you're there again it reminds me so much from my granny good i'm pleased [Music] quite honestly i wasn't expecting to feel as emotional as that it really brought a complete wuss of my grandmother back to me and um she was an amazing cook and i'm really sad that i didn't take more advantage at the time you somehow think when you're young that people are going to be there forever and that things are going to continue in that way forever but i tell you something after that example before me i'm going to go home and before i forget i'm going to make sure that i do it at least once coming back here has reminded me just how much this city means to me i think venice is impossible and magical and unique and i think unique is a word that's so overused but this place there is nowhere else like it in the world this is the only venice [Music] [Music] i've traveled two hours west of venice to the majesty of the italian alps home to the great lakes of gada and como but i'm not here for them hidden in the mountains is a gem of a place the remote village of bagolino i'm fascinated by this little village it's at the end of a road there's one road in the same way out and it is incredibly wealthy wealthy enough to have constructed this amazing church bagolino is a prosperous place whose wealth originates from mining today though this small hilltop village is home to one of the most expensive cheeses in all of italy vagos is a salty cheese infused with saffron only 1 500 wheels are produced each year on small family farms dotted around bagolino it doesn't come cheap bagos cheese is sold in rome for 71 pounds a kilo the stanoli family has been producing bagos cheese for centuries and they still make the cheese today using the same techniques their ancestors did hundreds of years ago alex [Music] all of that is gonna make just one cheese so finally growing up he didn't want to do this and he tried to escape it but he realized it was useless this was his destiny it's bloody hard work so he did the sign of the cross before starting because this is an important job he wants it to go well this milk is 48 degrees sometimes even 50. he says his arms are cooked by now in the beginning it was a bit harder for him to bear but he's so used to it now he says he's he's tanned from here downwards look at this thing it's enormous it takes a minimum of 36 months for this to mature then the cheese is ready primor learned his trade from his father incredibly at 82 years of age giuseppe sagnoli is still making vagos cheese every day see wow wow quebel mamma mia queso di cuallo questo [Music] it's quite a strong flavor even at a year old hmm it's quite pungent it's absolutely delicious there's a big history here my course very encouraging he says all the old traditions are dying out and he's desperate to keep them alive at least this one perfect [Laughter] he says really to do this job well you have to learn it as a child in their own way farms like the stagnolis are just as much of an italian treasure as historic cities like venice italy's been mined for years and yet you can still turn the corner and find something like this that you just never knew existed i do think that it is really deep in their blood they love it um and it's obviously something they hold very dear and if it wasn't for families like these all the old traditions would die out one shouldn't over glamorize this life it's very hard it's working 365 days a year come rain come snow you know i'm only third generation removed from a whole load of subsistence farmers in the hills around rome my grandfather's family raised horses the italian cavalry and it was a bloody hard life and that's why they all escaped they all ran away and his family moved to england i mean i admire this lot for holding firm i'm leaving behind the peace and tranquility of the alps and heading to the big city no trip to the north of italy would be complete without a hit of modern milan i lived in rome in my late 20s and we used to often come to milan to have a taste of modern italian life because of course this is the city you live in if you don't want to live in the historic past the capital of the north and italy's second largest city milan is brash bold and fun even the hotels are achingly cool it's got a very high opinion of itself milan and one that's probably justified it's easy to drop an enormous amount of money because the shops are fabulous and everywhere you see the very modern and the ancient juxtaposed and i find that very attractive in the typical way that happens only in milan you have a very modern office block next to this glorious galleria this is a city that's misunderstood tourists think it's just some concrete jungle but actually there's so much here there's beautiful churches there's beautiful historic monuments i've become more and more fond of this city as i've got to know it better and i think there's plenty to discover and to enjoy here milan may have the reputation of being italy's most modern and forward-thinking city but it also has a lot of history and tradition too but to sample some of milan's finest history it's not a church you need to hunt out it's a cafe i don't think there's an italian alive who doesn't love panettone i like it toasted with butter and almost every time of the year my grandmother used to serve it from christmas until easter and it was a highlight of our weekends if we're going to eat pina cola this is the place to come cafe cookie is the local's favorite and lays a claim to serving the best panettone in the world they've been baking the classic italian cake since 1936. king of panettone at the cafe is the rather aptly named head baker tony he's been mastering his art for over 20 years most of us think of panettone as an italian christmas cake in tony's kitchen they bake it all year round it's not just a seasonal treat here how many pentatonics do you make from this more or less 35 30 for one kilo or less we had flour so how long does the whole process take to make a panadonna for the beginning to prepare the easter 36-40 hours what goes into panettone then obviously yeast flour butter yup that's the yolk yolk yeah and sugar yeah and this is a with vanilla orange peel of orange candied yep [Music] very nice this is the give the taste of the paratorna do you like making panettones yes we like because it's different every time and we have to control the yeast very very well what makes the cookies panettone is so special is their mother yeast it's more than 70 years old refreshed by tony on a daily basis with more water and flour [Music] look at that wow this is called pilatura yes and give off the panettone it's strong it's a real skill no you can't just come off the street and learn how to do this it takes years to learn it well see before the panettones are ready to go in the oven the dough is washed with egg a scattering of flaked almonds and a yummy topping we used to get into terrible trouble as children because we used to pick that bit the topping off the panettone delicious it's all sugary and nutty and we used to leave the cake and just eat the topping which is very foundable believe me in my family mamma mia sugar on sugar my idea of health this is the best lift once the cakes have been baked there's one last secret to their success so this is the trick to punitorna unless they hang it upside down it collapses like a souffle so this is how they make sure it keeps its shape now sweet moment yum yum it's better to to eat after three five days after after the cook all right i'm i'm ready to risk it my goodness i don't think i've ever had a penetronic so fresh and this is my favorite by far it's wonderful thank you thank you thank you the panettone was just for starters the milanese main course is still to come [Music] everyone knows milan is famous for fashion what you might not know is that it's also home to the world's oldest shopping mall this arcade was built in homage to vittorio emanuele ii the king of italy from the milanese built in 1865 it was dubbed in saloto di milano the living room of milan and since then the galleria has become the favored meeting place in the city this has got to be one of the most elegant beautiful shopping arcades in the whole world i love it i love everything about it from the mosaic floor to the unity of all the shop signs being in gold on black there's the most wonderful shops here delicious restaurants this is a hub for milanese life this was built in the turbulent era of italian unification and represented in the mosaics some of the symbols of the biggest cities in italy so there is the lily representing florence and the bull of turin it's considered good luck to step on the bull's genitals and you'll see every milanese person makes a detour just to do that which is why there's such a hole in the mosaic this galleria took years to build and on the very day it opened the architect mengorni fell to his death right at this spot in the typical way of italy this has now become a lucky area and the bull is the center of all that luck the tradition is you're supposed to spin backwards three times but i think that tends to mark you out as a tourist [Music] are these tourists going to step on the bulls balls oh yep and roundy goes but he's going forward someone ought to tell him everybody does it not just tourists though even the milanese this galleria connects two of milan's most famous landmarks the duomo the fifth largest cathedral in the world [Music] and the legendary la scala theatre this theater is a milanese treasure wow every time i walk into la scala i get shivers up my spine this is probably the most famous opera house in the world and it has made and broken more reputations than any other la scala was opened in 1778 and over the past 200 years the greatest stars of opera and ballet have performed on this stage luminaries such as luciano pavarotti rudolf nouriev and maria kallus one of the hidden secrets of this milanese institution is la scala's workshops located in an old steel factory on the outskirts of the city here you can get a unique la scala experience watching the best technicians in italy design and produce sets and costumes for every production ruggero berlini is the general director [Music] [Music] there's one area of the workshop i'm drawn to like a moth to the flame the costume department says [Music] you know all these velvet ribbons i'd like a cupboard like this at home la scala have built up a priceless collection of over 60 000 costumes including outfits worn by pavarotti and maria callas head archivist rita is giving me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with some operatic history [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] italians love opera and i'm no exception maria callas is an idol of mine her life was marked by scandals and ended with sudden death at 53. however in the 10 years she performed she set the world of opera alight her costumes are now kept under lock and key as they are incredibly valuable and need [Music] [Music] i can't imagine singing and wearing that and i'm also pretty impressed by how tiny she was she's a tiny little waist and she's lovely and tall i'm very generous oh wow look at these are some of them look at that italia isn't that fun pretty incredible to be touching this piece of history and this piece of history that has worn so well i mean it's beautiful now just as it must have been then non-since poco jose started the last school trip someone asked if they had an outfit that michael jackson [Music] is that was just amazing i could have spent all day there i think my favorite bit though was obviously the costumes to hold something of maria calluses in my hands was an amazing experience my trip across the north of italy is just the beginning next time my journey takes in one of the most beautiful and undiscovered coastlines and then on towards the hustle and bustle of rome and the hilltop village where it all began 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 [Music] mountains you

Channel: The Hotel Inspector

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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, restore, professional restoration, hotel impossible, worst restaurant reviews, rated restaurants, Confronts owner, confronting owners, confrontation, travel, italy, spain, spectacular spain, secret italy, full episode, italian travel

Id: mQkZKYRNaaQ

Length: 42min 12sec (2532 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020