10 TV Shows About Italy To Watch Before Your Trip

I don’t know about your home country but in the UK, every minor celebrity seems to have their own travel TV shows about Italy. Inevitably, at least one episode features this B-list personality strolling down cobbled streets in a straw hat slurping pasta and sipping chianti. And who could blame them?!

There aren’t just lots of travel shows about Italy focusing on food or culture either. Some of the best Italian shows on Netflix, for example, are dramas set amongst the crowds of Florence or vineyards outside Venice.

If you’re visiting Italy soon, you will no doubt want to seek out as many awesome films and shows about Italy as you can!

Check out these blog posts for recommendations of movies set in Venice, Rome, Sicily, and the rest of Italy.

But if you are specifically looking for a mix of travel shows and TV shows set in Italy, you’re in the right place! Here are some of the best options. There’s a slight UK bias but you should be able to source most of these recommendations wherever you are.

List of TV Shows About Italy: Travel Shows and More

1. Travel Man: 48 Hours In…

English | 11 Seasons (so far) | 30-60m | Watch on Channel 4

• Season 2, Episode 6: Venice with Jo Brand
• Season 3, Episode 4: Naples with Jack Dee
• Season 3, Episode 5: Florence with Rebel Wilson
• Season 5, Episode 1: Rome with Matt Lucas
• Season 7, Episode 4: Milan with Morgana Robinson

Let’s start with not just one of the best Italy travel shows, but one of my favourite travel shows of all time. Presented by Richard Ayoade since 2015 with Joe Lycett taking over in 2021, Travel Man usually focuses on easy weekend city break destinations from the UK.

The presenter goes on a weekend break with a famous guest, usually a comedian/comic actor, and they have a lovely time.

So far, the show has covered many major Italian cities with direct flights from the UK. They still have Palermo, Catania, Turin, Verona, Genoa, Palermo, Bari, and Bologna plus some others yet to cover so we don’t have to rule out more Italian content in the future!

All episodes are free to watch on Channel 4 in the UK and some of the series are on Netflix for international audiences.

2. From Scratch 

English, Italian | 8 Episodes | 60m | Watch on Netflix 

Although it didn’t get the love it deserved when first released at the end of 2022, this limited series is one of the best Italian shows on Netflix. 

From Scratch is a show based on the memoir by Tembi Locke (also incredible). She’s an American who studies abroad for a year in Florence where she meets her future husband, who is a chef from Sicily. However, once they return to the US to live together, illness and family tensions seek to tear them apart.

I must warn you that the last few episodes are unbelievably sad (you’ll be ugly crying throughout). But it displays incredible scenery from both Tuscany and Sicily as well as lots of Italian cooking!

3. Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy

English, Italian | 2 Seasons (so far) | 60m | Watch on BBC iPlayer

Hands down, this is one of the most popular Italian TV shows if not the most popular Italy travel show of all time.

Tucci, who speaks Italian and has Italian heritage on both sides of his family, is on a quest to explore all 20 regions in Italy. He’s deep diving into the dishes, flavours, wines, and heart of everywhere from Bolzano to Basilicata.

So far, he’s covered: Campania, Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardia, Tuscany, Sicily, Veneto, Piedmont, Calabria, Sardinia, Puglia, and Liguria. Unfortunately, CNN cancelled the show after two seasons in 2022 but Tucci has promised to continue without them. Watch this space!

4. The White Lotus

English | 2 Seasons (so far) | 60m | Watch on Amazon Prime

The White Lotus was a HUGE hit when HBO released season one in 2021. It’s a drama set in a hotel of the same name in Maui where one of the characters ends up dead. Since it’s an anthology show, season two was transplanted to another White Lotus hotel with an almost entirely new cast in Taormina, Sicily. 

It’s absolutely one of the most popular TV shows set in Italy in recent years. And the best part is, you don’t really need to watch the first season to understand this one! Although you really should, they’re both incredible television shows.

Season two will make you want to stay in a five-star hotel, until you look at the room rates, of course. Luckily, there are tons of gorgeous agriturismos and villas in Sicily you can book instead.

5. Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

English | 12 Seasons | 60m | Watch on Amazon Prime

• Season 2, Episode 6: Sicily
• Season 8, Episode 10: Rome
• Season 10, Episode 8: Southern Italy

Anthony Bourdain was the master of food and travel TV shows. I always end up watching at least one episode from one of his shows before travelling anywhere, because he seems to have travelled everywhere.

You can’t help but learn something you didn’t expect from Anthony Bourdain. In his landmark series Parts Unknown he shows Italy, and all of the places he travels to, in a different light than 99.9% of travel TV series in Italy.

It’s a real shame he didn’t shoot more episodes in Italy but it’s understandable that he didn’t since this country is well-traversed terrain. The show is called Parts Unknown, after all!

Anthony Bourdain has two other travel food shows, No Reservations and The Layover, with episodes set in Italy. These shows and Parts Unknown often appear on Netflix, so watch out for them the next time you are searching for Netflix Italian TV shows.

6. Somebody Feed Phil (+ I’ll Have What Phil’s Having)

English | 6 Seasons/Limited Series | 45-60m | Watch on Netflix | Watch on Amazon Prime

• Season 2, Episode 1: Venice
• (Season 1, Episode 2: Italy)

The Anti-Bourdain (in a good way!), Phil Rosenthal is an affable presenter who will inspire you to eat all of the things and travel to all of the places. While making lighthearted ‘my wife’ jokes, feeding the crew, and making his loved ones back in the US jealous of his treats, of course.

Somebody Feed Phil is one of the best TV shows in Venice I’ve ever watched. During my trip to Venice in April 2023, I visited almost all the places suggested during his episode! As a Netflix Original, it’s one of the top Italian TV shows on Netflix too.

If you weren’t aware, Somebody Feed Phil started out as a PBS show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having. You used to be able to watch every episode for free on YouTube but sadly, it’s been taken down.

I’m still mentioning it as the Italy episode was perfect and you can still access it through Amazon Prime in some countries.

7. Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe

English, Italian | 4 Episodes | 60m | Watch Free on YouTube

One of the more random entries on this list, I literally searched ‘Italy’ in BBC iPlayer before my trip to Rome in June 2018 and found this travel show from 2006. Francesco da Mosto is a Venetian architect who drives his Alpha Romeo Spider across Italy, from the north to the south. 

This TV show is super helpful if you’re planning a trip but you’re not sure where to go in Italy. It covers the entire country!

Just some of the things I learned about from watching this Italy TV programme were more about the Fiat car, the British Aristocracy’s history in Tuscany, and the poverty of Sicily. British actress Dame Maggie Smith even makes an appearance!

Even though it’s no longer on BBC iPlayer, you can play all four episodes for free on YouTube.

8. The Trip to Italy

English | 6 Episodes | 30m | Watch on Amazon Prime

I still don’t understand the The Trip… format. There have been four seasons so far (2010’s The Trip set in the Lake District, 2014’s The Trip to Italy, 2017’s The Trip to Spain and 2020’s The Trip to Greece). 

But then these series are re-released as films? Plus, the premise is that comedic British actors Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan visit restaurants in these places to ‘review’ them for a newspaper column, which is fake.

They even play fictionalised versions of themselves featuring kids they don’t have in real life. Is this what Made in Chelsea is like?!

Regardless, it’s still a fun TV series set in Italy. They follow in the footsteps of the British romantic poets and visit lots of places from Capri to Piedmont.

Although you can watch it through Amazon Prime, this is another show that often hits Netflix.

Read next: 27 Best Movies About Greece (& Ancient Greece): A Big Fat List

9. Everybody Loves Raymond

English | 9 Seasons | 30m | Watch on Channel 4

• Season 5, Episodes 1&2: Italy

Yes, I’m including the two episodes of the US sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond that were set in Italy on this list! It’s my list, I can do what I like.

Coincidentally, Phil Rosenthal of Somebody Feeds Phil was the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond so it all ties together. Ray Romano plays Ray Barone, a family man with three kids living in Long Island, NY with his parents living across the street.

I remember watching Everybody Loves Raymond on Channel 4 every morning before school. I used to look forward to the Italy episodes in Rome at the start of season five as they would always make me dream of visiting Italy one day.

In the UK, you can watch every episode for free on Channel 4 but I’m sure you can stream them in other places worldwide.

10. Master of None

English, Italian | 3 Seasons | 30m | Watch on Netflix

• Season 2, Episode 1: The Thief
• Season 2, Episode 2: Le Nozze

Raise your hand, who wants to take a break from your life to be a pasta-making apprentice for three months? Oh, and you also get to live in the gorgeous city of Modena, Italy? Me too, my friend. Me too…

Master of None is mostly set in New York but the first two episodes of season two are in Italy. There are homages to Italian neorealist film The Bicycle Thief and it’s so wanderlust-inducing that it has to be one of the top Italian Netflix shows.

Other TV Shows About Italy: A Taste of Italy (2021), Alex Polizzi’s Secret Italy (2014), Alex Polizzi’s Italian Islands (2016), We Are Who We Are (2020), Luna Nera (2020), My Brilliant Friend, Hotel Portofino (2022)

TV Shows About Italy: That’s a Wrap!

Have you watched any of these TV shows set in Italy? Do you have any more recommendations for TV shows about Italy? Let me know in the comments below! 

Read next:

22 Amazing Films set in Italy to Inspire you to Visit