Beautiful Places

5 Places Culinary Tour of Italy. There are 20 regions in Italy, each with its own distinctive  and delicious  culinary traditions. Since the cooking styles are hyper-regional, you could stumble upon very different foodie experiences in towns that are a mere 3 miles apart. To some, trying to taste the most from a region in 5 meals a day may sound daunting. To us, it sounds like an adventurous challenge. Pull up a seat and embark on a culinary tour from Tuscany to Sicily. Piedmont  The appeal of most Italian cuisine is its effortlessness and simplicity. Not so in Piedmont, the northern region surrounded on 3 sides by the Alps and bordering both France and Switzerland. Here, there is often a deliberate attempt to make the richest, most decadent foods in Italy using such ingredients as local white truffles, gorgonzola, butter and world-renowned chocolates, as well as a liberal use of gnocchi and polenta. Piedmont is also the home of fonduta -- a cheese dip similar to f...