A summer evening on the beach in Gallipoli
From our editorial team
How do you get back to Italy when everyday life has long since returned on time after your holiday? Sometimes all it takes is a little change of perspective.
It's not about clichés, but about lived habits. Often all it takes is a detail - a smell, a sound, a rhythm - and the familiar scenes are back: the heat on a piazza in the late afternoon, the babble of voices in a street café, the slow roll of a Vespa through narrow alleyways. Our seven best tips:
1. Italy live on the radio
Not a curated Spotify mix, but the real radio world with traffic reports from the "Tangenziale", the ring road, adverts for furniture stores in Bari and presenters who parrot at a pace that you can barely understand. It is precisely this imperfect listening that creates an atmosphere that no playlist can replace. Can be listened to via website (most have a live button) or app - "solo musica italiana".
The most beautiful webcams on Italy's beaches
Italian moments that bring back the summer
Wow! Sunset on the endless beach of Rimini 
One dive in the bay of Polignano a Mare The village of the trulli: Unesco World Heritage Site Alberobello in Apulia One antipasto in Campania 
The endless beaches on the Adriatic coast, here in Rimini What a sunset on the beach at Gallipoli Out and about in Naples in the evening Evening atmosphere at the ristorante in Policastro in Campania Traffic in Naples in Italy
2nd passeggiata in the neighbourhood
The evening stroll without a destination, which is a matter of course in Italy. Anyone who tries it out in the German quarter quickly realises how unusual it is to simply stroll. No pedometer, no destination, no shopping. Just see who is out and about, maybe a quick greeting to a neighbour. This lack of purpose seems strange at first - and yet it is a slice of the dolce vita.
Your holiday in Italy starts at the car grill
3. fragrances instead of scented candles
A pot of basil in the kitchen, two pots of rosemary by the window - sometimes you don't need much more. And if you rub the leaves briefly between your fingers, the lively markets of Liguria or the rustic trattoria in Tuscany come flooding back. It's these scents, not the souvenirs, that hold on to memories.
4. espresso while standing
Two sips, concentrated, at the worktop, without conversation, without a to-go cup. This little ritual is almost a resistance to German coffee culture. It takes three minutes - and still changes the day. Just give it a try.
How Italy drinks coffee - and why it tastes different everywhere
Looks like the Caribbean - in Italy!
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More Information5. the time machine of the senses
Sometimes it's very simple impressions that take you back. Put on sun cream one day, dark glasses on your nose - and suddenly you're no longer sitting in the grey courtyard outside your office, but in a piazza in Rome. Smells are time machines, and they work reliably.
Made for Italy: More bella vita for everyone
6th Sunday as a family day
While in this country, errands and the stress of leisure time set the tone, Sunday in Italy remains a family day. Table, food, a babble of voices - it's a different understanding of time. If you invite your family round on a Sunday, you can consciously try it out for yourself.
7. read the newspaper like in Italy
Not your own, but an Italian one. Leafing through "Repubblica" or "La Stampa" (online) in the morning during your breakfast break, even if you hardly understand anything. Italy comes across with every line.
Italy doesn't start at the border - it starts in your head when you shift your everyday life a little.
