We start today by picking up where we left off last Saturday: in the sunny heart of Südtirol. After a gentle hike and lunch at the Vigilius mountain resort, it was back down to the cosy town of Lana for an afternoon of napping, reading and chatting poolside. Fully restored and ready for an evening on the town, a shuttle whisked colleagues and guests up to the Obermais district of Merano for our summer drinks at The Monocle Shop on Dantestrasse. With Martin Kirchlechner in charge of the focaccia and my colleague Raffi on the drinks, the street started to fill up at 17.30 sharp (see below). Before long, traffic was slowing to check out what all the fun was about. As ever, Monocle readers had travelled from very near (we have a loyal group of locals, which lives within a hundred metres) and quite far (Berlin, Dubai, Miami) for a bit of socialising, shopping and regional intelligence gathering. “Where should we go for lunch tomorrow? Any shopping tips for local linens? Where’s the best place for a swim? Should we go to Venice or Genoa from here?” At about 20.00 the crowd started to thin and we made our way back across the valley to Villa Arnica for an evening of wines from neighbouring villages, beef from the hills above Bolzano and greens from the villa’s garden. The following morning, shortly after my Monocle on Sunday radio check-in, my summer break officially began. A week later, I’m now on the beach in a small Ligurian town, where most of the tourists are Italians from Piemonte, French and Swiss. In between here and Südtirol there was a night at the Villa Feltrinelli, the most refreshing dips in Lake Garda, a little side trip to Nice for a bit of shopping, lunch at Loulou Pirate with my colleague Daphné and a lovely drive along the slow road back to this little stretch of Italy. One question: why aren’t they doing more with Sanremo and its superb, rather faded (some abandoned) grand hotels? Why isn’t this the new stop between St Tropez and Portofino?

Much has been written of late about how Americans have saved the European hospitality economy this summer, boosted room rates, filled aircraft and packed out restaurants. But on this stretch of the Med there’s not a Chicagoan or New Yorker within earshot. I’m wondering why it has been missed by not only Americans but also Brits, Germans, Canadians and the caravan-loving Dutch? Could it be that it’s so Italian that others stay away? Perhaps it’s the lack of recognisable hotel brands and retailers? Or is it just that little bit too far from Nice airport and Malpensa to make it appealing to those who can’t face the drive? This morning I went to local edicola to check whether The New York Times and the FT Weekend were on offer to test how international the crowd is in these parts. I was relieved to discover that it’s a purely Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica and La Stampa corner of the world. I managed to find the FT (the sole copy) in the next town but beyond that it was clear that the only foreign customers were German-speaking Swiss as it was just the NZZ that was on the internazionale shelf, along with a few copies of Gala and Bunte.

It’s increasingly tricky to find ethnically and culturally intact corners of Europe, where the clock and customs work purely for locals and not for Norwegians who want their kids to eat early or Angelenos who want to substitute everything in an insalata nizzarda so it morphs into a chopped-cobb salad that they could eat back home. As many regions fight against mass tourism and chase away visitors, I return to the Monocle mantra that a village, town or city need only stick to its values and rhythms of life to keep the tourism numbers in check. The path to controlled tourism is to not cater for the world but to follow a route that has worked since the start of the “grand tour”. If shutters, cross-breezes and fans functioned in hotels a century ago, then we can go back to more lo-fi ways of staying cool rather than installing AC for Chinese, Gulf and North American visitors. If alcohol and nuts have been present in a restaurant’s dessert recipes for the past three hundred years, why change the recipe? If guests don’t like nonna’s cooking, they can order a gelato or find a corner of the world that offers everything to everyone. In the meantime, you’ll find me stretched out on a lounger, the waves lapping, families laughing and playing cards in the nearby bar, with the smell of sun oil, salt and fig filling the air.