You are listening to the Untold Italy travel podcast and this is episode number 140.

Ciao at all and benvenuti to Untold Italy, the travel podcast where you go to the towns and villages, mountains and lakes, hills and coastlines of Bella Italia.

Each week your host, Katie Clark, takes you on a journey in search of magical landscapes, history, culture, wine, gelato, and of course, a whole lot of pasta.

If you're dreaming of Italy and planning future adventures there,

you've come to the right place.

Ciao friends, welcome to all our listeners. Those who have been with us for a very long time,

you know who you are, especially our podcast Amici, our special friends and supporters of the podcast,

and of course those of you who are starting your journey with us and joining in on all the fun

of exploring Italy, from its majestic and iconic cities to its less

known regions. I'm so happy that you're all here with us today and I can't wait to share

all the magic people and places of this incredible country with you. I'm recording this

episode for you today in the month of September. But in fact, the topic of this episode is all

about October and I'll tell you why.

September is a very busy month in Italy for visitors, perhaps the busiest, especially to everyone's

favourite destinations, Rome, Florence, Venice, Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast and Cinque Terre.

And I think that's because the travel industry has done a very

good job of convincing people that August is too hot and crowded with European tourists.

So what happens is English-speaking visitors like ourselves might prefer the cooler climes of

September. And they've done a really good job of selling this. So what's happened,

especially since COVID, is that September, and particularly the first two weeks of September,

is now extremely busy, probably busier than June, which was record-breaking in terms of visitor

numbers this year. And we're hearing this from our partners, tour guides, accommodation providers,

...