Please… Visit… Italy…

Thanks to Shelley of At Home in Rome for the pointer to this video, wherein Francesco Rutelli, then Italy’s Vice Premier and Minister of Cultural Heritage, attempts to lure English-speaking people to his country for a visit. Either that or he’s some kind of robot automaton, and Italians just don’t know it yet. (Rutelli left the government in 2008, so the robot theory was never tested further.)

I love the opener: “Please… visit… the website…, but… please… visit… Italy.” And the closer: “We will welcome you, warmly, and with a better organization.” Good stuff.

My guess is the website he’s trying to hypnotize us all into visiting is the new tourism portal he was launching, with its goofy logo. That portal is still around as italia.it, Italy’s official tourism site. And while I find the video amusing, I’m going to try to not make too many wisecracks about it, since that’s probably how my Italian sounds.

So, why visit Italy now?

Mr. Rutelli’s pitch was mostly “please.” Here are some better reasons, all of them true in 2026:

• The trains got fast. High-speed Frecciarossa and Italo trains now run Milan to Rome in under three hours, Rome to Florence in about an hour and a half, and Rome to Naples in under an hour. Book early and fares start around EUR 15 to 30. Read up on train travel in Italy.
• Nobody has more World Heritage Sites. Italy has 62, more than any other country, and the list keeps growing: the Via Appia went on it in 2024, Sardinia’s prehistoric domus de janas tombs in 2025, and a group of ten historic theatres in central Italy in 2026.
• The food is officially a treasure. In December 2025 UNESCO added Italian cooking itself to its list of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. You probably didn’t need UNESCO to tell you, but now you can say you’re on a cultural pilgrimage when you order a second plate of pasta.
• Old favorites came back. The Via dell’Amore, the cliffside path between Riomaggiore and Manarola in the Cinque Terre, reopened in July 2024 after a rockslide closed it in 2012. You now book a slot and walk it one way.
• Rome is easier to get around. Metro Line C reached the Colosseum in December 2025, and you can tap a contactless bank card or phone at the gates instead of hunting for a ticket.
• Your card works. Since 2022 every shop and restaurant has had to accept card payments, so the old dance of finding an ATM before dinner is mostly over.

A few things take more planning than they used to. The Colosseum, the Last Supper and the Galleria Borghese need a timed booking, the Vatican Museums and the Uffizi are far easier with one, and day-trippers to Venice pay an access fee on busy days in spring and early summer. Book those ahead and Italy will welcome you, warmly, and with a better organization.