What makes Italy such a beautiful place? Many people might think it is due to its artistic beauties and the history; other ones might appreciate it for its seaside landscapes; still other ones for its wonderful mountains. However the reason why everyone loves our country so much, which combines all these things together, is only one: authenticity.

This word contains the essence of the travel experience in Italy: sharing traditions and origins of this land with guests, the so-called Italian lifestyle, which is expressed above all talking about slow tourism.Slow tourism, in fact, allows travellers to appreciate art, nature, history with the eyes of a visitor and not only with the eyes of a classic tourist. This can consent to dedicate the due time in visited sites, considering traveller needs. However, above all, this allows to live a unique experience, rooted in the Italian customs and traditions, enjoying the inimitable attractiveness of territory, an experience will be part of the tourist forever. So focus is on experience: not a material object, a souvenir, but something intangible that will change our life, making the journey unique and unrepeatable. Thus what is the best place where all this can be materialized? Of course the answer is: in the “borghi”(small villages), contextualized in their territory of belonging. These small towns, inserted in rural contexts, guard the sacred fire of the authentic travel experience, immersed in the original Italian lifestyle. The “borghi” are scattered throughout the national territory, especially in central Italy. A few kilometers from Rome, in the Sabina area, there are several small villages, guardians of great little treasures to be explored, Pearls of the Mediterranean, precisely, included in the Med Pearls ENI CBC MED project. Many of these small towns belong to the exclusive club of "I Borghi più belli d’Italia” (The most beautiful villages in Italy), a hallmark for the beauty of the Borgo.

Just to cite a few examples, in Orvinio visitors can prepare cheese with the help of a true cheesemaker, discovering all the steps that lead to the production of a “caciotta” (typical Italian cheese). Everyone can take at home their own made cheese. Instead in Castel di Tora visitors can face many naturalistic walks and discover the evocative abandoned settlement of Monte Antuni. Furthermore in Collalto Sabino area, at Baronial Castle, visitors can discover all the secrets of spontaneous and cultivated aromatic herbs through a storytelling will reveal mythological secrets associated with plants. At the end of this experience, visitors can enjoy a practical transformation laboratory too. Finally, in Palombara Sabina, visitors can prepare homemade pasta with local grandmothers. The beauty of slow tourism is also this: it is not the traveller who adapts himself to a program, but it is the journey that is shaped on the needs of the guest.

Borghi Italia Tour Network, the official tour operator of the Italian Association “I Borghi più belli d’Italia” (The Most Beautiful Villages in Italy), creates travel itineraries, events and experiences in the villages. It offers a portfolio of itineraries, multi-thematic or focused on specific themes (nature, food & wine, etc ..), building tailor made itineraries, based on the customer's requests. It is a tour operator specialized in villages, and it is the only one able to ffer unique and exclusive services, such as the opening of cultural sites normally closed to the public.

Borghi Italia Tour Network is also the only operator to have been awarded the Med Pearls subgrant, for the development of slow tourist itineraries in the Sabina Reatina area, with the project "Hidden destinations, great emotions: when small is better and the journey is an experience". Several multithematic packages will be created, all in this area characterized by a high tourist potential. Then the product will be distributed through all main off and online sale channels and promoted at various events and workshops, and also through the creation of a promotional video.

Finally, DMO Mediterranean Pearls APS (partner representing Italy in the Med Pearls project), in October 2022 in Rome Capital, will organize an International Forum on slow travel, with the best experts in the sector who will talk about the real cases of success on slow territories both in Italy and in Europe. After the Forum, Mediterranean Pearls APS will accompany the project partners, in the first Italian pilot area in Lazio, Sabina- Reatina. It will be a great and evocative opportunity to make know the Italian lifestyle in the villages and rural inland areas, where you travel slowly with the help of "tailor made" holiday proposals.

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