Italy- House of Brands or Branded House?

I recently embarked on an amazing 2 week trip around Italy with my husband. We went everywhere. Starting in Rome we then traveled to Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Florence, Verona, Venice, Lake Garda, Milan, Cinque Terre, Pisa then back to Rome. We ate, we explored, we saw history with our own eyes, we went on a freezing boat ride, we ate some more, we saw breath taking churches, we walked A LOT, and did I mention we ate?

I always pictured "Italy" as a place with pizza, pasta, red wine, the Colosseum, gondolas on canals and sunny hillsides filled with grape vines and olive trees. I pictured Italy, a branded house. But what I found was quite different.

With each city came a new culture, a new cuisine, a new architectural style and a new feeling. Italy, to my surprise is a house of brands. Each as unique and spectacular as the last.

A branded house is when a company is a brand itself, and its products or services are subsets of that brand. Think Adobe, they offer Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat, etc. They are all subsets of the larger brand, Adobe. A house of brands is when a company markets their products or services under separate brands. The famous example of this is Proctor & Gamble. P&G is the large brand that owns lots of brands that don't necessarily relate to each other and are not marketed together. Brands like Pampers, Old Spice and Crest.

So, Italy, or the Italy I came to know, was in fact a house of brands. Sorrento represented a slow pace of life, steeped in tradition with excellent limoncello and pizza. Florence was romantic, with renaissance art and history everywhere and quaint little streets with cafes and restaurants. Venice was a beautiful adult Disneyland where the people are there to show you how life once was and the Osterias keep the Ciccetti flowing. Milan was a modern mix of nightlife and history, old and new, fancy cocktails and prosciutto. Rome was a large city adapting to old city infrastructure, innovative cuisine in a 2,000 year old building, an enchanting dream.

I feel like I will never look at Italy again as "Italy," but as a collection of special and magical places. Cities and towns that awed, countrysides that mesmerized and people who captured my heart. I am officially enamoured and can't wait to return to some of the places I found the most amazing!