Alex Polizzi is a third generation hotelier of the internationally-renowned Forte family dynasty.  Best known for Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector and BBC Two’s Alex Polizzi: The Fixer, Alex set out to embrace her lifelong love of Italy with Alex Polizzi’s Secret Italy, providing Channel 5 viewers with a personal and revealing guide to this beautiful Mediterranean country.  Travelling the nation from north to south, Alex’s secret guide will interweave the stories of her family heritage with visits to the places that mean most to her – from the childhood holidays she spent in the foothills of Rome to the places she worked in during her twenties.  Alex Polizzi’s Secret Italy will show a whole new side to one of the Mediterranean’s most loved countries. 

The Luxury Travel Guide spoke with Alex ahead of the premiere of her new series to discuss her hidden highlights of Italy, her family connections and revisiting the destinations from her past. 

You’re best known for your expertise in the hotel industry and particularly The Hotel Inspector – what was the inspiration behind Secret Italy?

Well the inspiration was simply that I get bored of shouting at people! I was bored of telling people that they weren’t doing things right, and instead I wanted to celebrate and do something that looked at the wonders of the world.  Italy just seemed like a really good fit, because of my heritage and the fact that I’m such an Italian mongrel.  Italy, although it’s a well-travelled destination, has got so many bits that people don’t know about, so Secret Italy allowed me to film some of my favourite bits of the world.

What is your Italian heritage?

I had four Italian grandparents.  They have all passed away now, unfortunately, but I had a Venetian grandmother, a Sardinian grandmother, a Neapolitan grandfather and my other grandfather was from a village in the hills around Rome.  My father’s side of the family still live in Italy and my mother’s side of the family are all in London now.

Has this had a direct influence on your life?

I was brought up in a very traditional Italian household with the sense that family was always important – my mother is one of six and I am one of 14 grandchildren! Our years were marked by the holidays; we’d get together at Christmas and at Easter every year, and every Sunday I would go to my grandparents for lunch and we’d trot off to mass together, it was a very kind of candid experience really.  All the food that I know how to cook is the food that my mother would always cook and the food that her mother would cook, so I only know how to make Italian food.

With Secret Italy, what are you hoping to share with your viewers?

I am hoping to show more than the obvious.  So many people have been to Italy and for tourists there are the obvious places to go such as Venice or Rome – but even in Venice and Rome there are so many things that people don’t see.  People go with specific things in mind they want to see, almost like a ‘tick the box’ culture, but if you wander around you’ll find so much that people have no idea exists. 

I’m also passionate about family business and I love small inherited businesses or traditions and skills that have been handed down through the generations, so there was a certain amount of seeking that out in my travels.  That, and tracking down recipes that are remembered from my childhood which I don’t cook myself but would like to.  There was quite a lot of “going off the beaten track" and off the obvious tourist trail and showing people some of the other wonders of Italy. 

When you say you went off the beaten track, what route did you take across Italy?

I just went from north to south.  Actually I did not start as far north as I could have; you know, northern Italy is almost Austrian.  Italy was only united around 100 years ago (well, outside living memory!) so the regions still retain very much of their individual flavour – northern Italy and southern Italy are diametrically different in so many ways.
So I started up above Lake Garda and then meandered my way down really through Milan and Venice, and then through the middle bit which I don’t think a lot of English people see quite so much.  I went through Le Marche and all the way down to Apulia and Calabria via Rome and via my grandfather’s little village in the mountains, then I saw a bit of Emilia-Romagna.  It was the most amazing trip!

That sounds absolutely fantastic! How long were you able to stay over there?

I was there six weeks.  I took the kids with me; they are not a part of the show, but I got permission to take my six year old daughter out of school and I did really feel like it was a kind of homage to my grandparents in a way.  For my daughter, the Italian heritage is somewhat diluted because her father is English, and I don’t speak to Italian to her whereas I had Italian spoken to me as a child.  So I wanted to connect her with Italy as much as anything else.

How important was it for you to introduce your children to their family history? Did you go to any specific destinations with them in mind?

Well my grandfather’s village is called Monforte – after my grandfather, actually (located in Lazio and originally called Mortale, the village was re-named in honour of Alex’s grandfather Charles Forte, a successful caterer and hotelier) and it’s this tiny little place in the hills.  We went there for the Festa di Sant Antonio which meant a great deal to my grandfather.  It’s held every year on the 13of July and there’s this massive procession; they take the saint from the church and carry it around the village on the shoulders of the senior members of the village, all praying and singing as we go, and my grandfather was always very proud when he was asked to be the bearer.  It’s a really big deal –Italian’s are big on festas (traditional festivals) and this is the local festa of our village.  My daughter had never been there and I was really excited that I could take her there on that particular day and show her something that I remember as a child and was always so impressed by.

What was it like for you revisiting these destinations from the past?

I found it really emotional, much more than I expected it too.  I lived in Italy for about three or four years in my late 20s; I had a lovely boyfriend out there and I was working in Rome.  My grandmother, the one who lived in Rome, died five years ago and I hadn’t been back to the city since and it was amazing how much it actually made me remember her. 
You mentioned that a lot of your family still live in Italy; were you able to reconnect them during the trip?

There were an awful lot of Forte’s up at the festa!  The Forte’s are spread far and wide; quite a lot of them are in the catering trade and some immigrated to Scotland, some went to Ireland, they went literally everywhere – but they all make a big effort to come back for the festa every year.  So, I saw quite a few faces that I haven’t seen for ages.  And then when I was in Rome I saw lots of my family – all of my cousins, my aunts and uncles and my godson.  I have very strong connections in Italy, so it was nice to have an excuse to go there.

What was it like for your daughter to meet all of these vast family connections and experience the differences in culture, particularly with the Italian emphasis on family?

My daughter is a very able little six year and she loved it! It wasn’t quite so much fun for my son; he’s only one and half.  There was an enormous amount of travelling and I felt like I was dragging him from post to post and spending hours in the car.  But I made my daughter keep a diary so that she’d remember it and we’ve read it several times since and it’s astonishing how much she remembers.  At six, they’ve usually got memories like goldfish but it did really have an impression on her.  It was really hard work because there was lots of travelling but I did feel like the luxury of having six weeks with my daughter like that, and sharing something so intensively with her was part of the joy. 

What were your personal highlights of the trip?

There’s a place down south called Matera and I’d taken my husband there on our honeymoon.  It’s a city that had been cleared out by the UN in the 1950s because people were living there with no money, no water and no electricity.  It was called “the shame of Italy” and for 30 years, it was completely empty; it’s amazing how the Italian government basically owned the whole of this city that is carved out of the white rock (the historic centre of Matera is literally a collection of cave dwellings carved out of the rocks.) People are now being encouraged to set up business and restaurants, and it’s amazing to see how it is flourishing now. 

What do you miss most about Italy when you are in the UK?

I miss speaking Italian so much.  I think differently when I think in Italian, and speaking in Italian for six weeks was wonderful.  I’m fluent and I have never lost my Italian but I don’t get that much opportunity to speak it so somehow.  Oh, and the food, obviously...  In the UK we are all so used to eating vegetables all year round, but in Italy it always depends on what is in season.  They don’t have the same kind of supermarkets as we do in the mountains! But food over there tastes completely different.  Try a tomato in Italy – you will never taste a tomato like that here.

So, what were the hidden gems of Italy that you wanted to share with the viewers?

I love all the towns of Le Marche, and the reason why is because it’s in the middle of Italy.  So it’s not very touristy, relatively speaking, and my favourite town is Ascoli Piceno.  It’s just amazing! It’s really beautiful –but it’s beautiful not like Rome or Naples, it’s very kind of human size.  You can walk all around the old town and get to know it quite quickly.  I think people tend to go to Italy to go to the big cities or the sea and I’m not entirely sure that those are the best bits to tell you truth.  I think that little bit, there in the middle, is wonderful!

I know what you mean; I’ve been to Rome but next time I definitely want to see more of the countryside.

Visit Emilia Romagna – my goodness darling, it’s just so much better! The food there is just astonishing.  I got to visit some mussel fishermen; actually, the people there do things the way that they’ve been done for a hundred years, and I think that’s quite hard to find in this country anymore.  There are people hand making lobster pots and shrimp nets out of different kinds of wood and people making musical instruments and only selling three a year. 

How different would you say that Secret Italy is from your other shows, such asThe Hotel Inspector?

Well it’s pretty different – I don’t have to get cross with anyone and I don’t have to point out to anyone the error of their ways! I’m not being asked for advice; I think I’m there as a participant and so I think the tone of it is quite different. 

Do you have any plans for a similar show in the future?

I would hope so; this is a programme that I was so happy to make and I didn’t quite expect to feel the way as strongly as I did at the end of it.  I would very much love to do another one as there’s lots of Italy that I haven’t touched yet– I mean you’d think that I’d know Italy by now but I really didn’t.  There was so much more to discover.

Do you already have any destinations in mind?

Well I didn’t go to Sicily and I didn’t go to Sardinia, so there’s lots of Italy that’s still there to be mooned over.

Finally, do you have any travel advice for our readers?

I said this to my in-laws the other day! I always travel with one complete change of outfit in my hand luggage and that is because if you have ever had bags lost (and especially if you’re travelling with children) the horror of arriving somewhere hot and only having your jeans to wear is a nightmare! So each of us always has a complete change of weather appropriate wear, nicely stowed away in the hand luggage so that even worst come the worst, we’ve got a day’s worth of clothes with us!

Alex Polizzi’s Secret Italy starts at 9pm, Friday 24 October on Channel 5.

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