Depending on how you are travelling... I'm a big fan of Bologna - but it may be too hard to get to in the window of time you are looking at. It's a college town with amazing food. I want to go back and explore some more. Trying to talk my kids into doing graduate work there when they get out of their undergrad schooling.
Another choice would be Bari, in Puglia. We went to Puglia in 2019 for the first time. Really beautiful and a great place to relax. We had a vrbo 'villa' (house) outside Ostuni. But that would absolutely require a car. Bari has an airport with direct flights from Palermo and Catania. It is on the water with a beautiful harbor and nearby beaches. If you go to Bari - Be sure to check out Alberobello as a day trip. And if you have time we did an e-bike tour from Martina Franca to Alberobello and back through the Valle d'Itria (trulli's everywhere) that was the highlight of my vacation.
Here's an amusing
Bari story: Decades ago, I arrived in Bari via ferry from Greece with my bike and with 3 other cyclists. We went to a pizza restaurant for our first dinner in Italy. We sat in a pretty outdoor courtyard, and a young boy about 8 years old and perhaps the son of the owner, watched us intently during our dinner. We ordered several pizzas and a carafe of wine. All of my cycling friends only spoke English. While I don't really speak Italian, I knew a lot of Italian words including numbers, question words, and food words. I speak French and I had learned on a previous trip in Italy that if I said a French word but pronounced it as though it were an Italian word, I could make myself understood. I had to do all of the communication for the 4 of us.
When the bill came, it was seriously inflated, including an expensive appetizer we hadn't ordered, and our cheap carafe of wine had been replaced with an expensive bottle of wine on the bill. We paid at a register indoors, where I attempted to argue in my broken Italian with the owner, who stubbornly refused to admit the bill was false. When it came to the wine, I pointed to the bill and said,
"no bottiglia, una caraffa," The man shook his head. Then the young boy who had followed us inside, suddenly yelled: "Si, una caraffa!". The man raised his arm as though he wanted to hit the boy, who quickly ran out of the room. My friends & I started to laugh. We calculated the amount of money we thought the bill should be, put it on the counter, and left.
And here's a
Bologna story, which is widely considered the culinary capital of Italy: When I went to a restaurant in Bologna, I asked
"Parli inglese o francese?" (Do you speak English or French?). A waitress spoke French. Everyone in the restaurant apparently assumed I was French (I also had arrived by bicycle, which may have further convinced them I'm French). Of course, the good people of Bologna knew that France is also famous for great food. The whole staff treated me like a king, and I had a delicious meal.
