Italy illustrated map: From Milano (Milan) to Southern Italy
In 2017, I went on a city-hopping journey to Italy, which gave me the idea to start an illustration blog that chronicled my travel adventures. Once back home, I created this Italy illustrated map, followed by a series of other map and travel illustrations. They were all based on the quick urban sketches I made during that transformative trip. And this is how my Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour blog series was born!
A map depicting the first instalment of the Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour blog series, with foods and landmarks from Southern Italy and the city of Milano (Milan) in the north. Italy map illustration by illustrator and artist Ruba Saqr
Keeping a travel sketchbook: Travel illustrations chronicling real journeys
If travel teaches us anything, it’s how to live in the present moment. It teaches us to appreciate the small things that come with being in a new, unfamiliar place. A delicious cup of coffee in the morning, the pleasantly brisk breeze that salutes you when you open the hotel door, and the discovery of small shops you never knew existed behind your favourite shopping street.
A few years ago, I went on an intense foodie tour to Italy with my husband. We started out in the northern city of Milano (Milan), before boarding a high-speed train that whizzed all the way down to Southern Italy. There, we took a bus tour across several southern regions and cities, including Lecce, Bari and Altamura in Puglia (Apulia).
For the first time in my travels, I carried two sketchbooks to try my hand at urban sketching. As it turns out, I loved it.
Capturing my surroundings (and the meals we had) in my pocket-sized sketchbook proved to be the best way to truly live in the moment. Those quick ink illustrations allowed me to really “see” the details of the Italian culture. They also made me want to learn more about Italy’s rich agri-food scene and lifestyle.
Married to an Italian gastronome also helped a lot in understanding certain details about the culture that only a local would know. Today, my understanding of Italian regional food, local ingredients and the quality-control labels that protect heritage foods is all thanks to the sketchbooks I carried on that trip.
An Italy illustrated map based on urban sketching
Sketching opens one’s eyes to the details around us. It focuses our attention on the motifs and patterns that embellish the street poles, plates, and even old signage on historic Italian trattorias and shops.
When I returned back home, I turned my urban sketches into full-fledged travel illustrations with illustrated maps that celebrated Italian food and culture, such as this one.
Afterwards, I started a series I called Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour to share these map illustrations with the world and to document my travels through illustration.
Interestingly, these maps helped launch my illustration career. They pretty much attracted clients who wanted similar artworks for their food and drink establishments, products, and projects. This goes to show, doing what you love really does go a long way.
Italy map and food illustrations: Analogue art supplies and digital tools
The illustrations in this post contain analogue drawings, coloured digitally in Affinity Photo V2.
Also, I created the hand lettering depicting the names of Italian cities and regions with pen-and-ink on paper. The same goes for the food illustrations, architectural illustrations, transportation illustrations, and food ingredients.
Inspired by Italian tiles and ceramics, the motif inside the main map is made with gouache on paper. In the second square map, the title hand lettering is in alcohol markers and coloured pencils.
Moreover, I illustrated all of the spot illustrations surrounding the maps by hand in my travel sketchbooks. The lettering in the stand-alone spot illustrations are all created digitally in Affinity Photo V2 on the iPad Pro.
About the first map illustration in my Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour blog series
This Italy illustrated map is the first instalment in a series of posts dubbed, Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour.
It includes culinary and architectural illustrations from the 15 cities and towns we had set foot into, for a night, or even a few hours.
These sketches are about the culinary experiences we had in Lombardia (Lombardy) in the north, and Campania, Puglia, and Calabria in the south.
Each region has its own food heritage, traditions, and characteristics. Ultimately, creating a lot of informative sketches about the four Italian regions we’d been to was like building a visual library about Italy.
Milano: Italy’s serene and elegant city
We first landed in Milano, a metropolis in Italy’s northern Lombardia region and a global capital of fashion and design.
There, we dined at several restaurants, such as “Osteria delle Corti,” included in this post’s illustrated map.
Another highlight from the Milan trip is the “Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II,” the architectural building in the top left corner of this Italy map illustration. I plan to talk in more detail about this beautiful structure in a future post.
We then took the Frecciarossa high speed train from Milano to Napoli (Naples), crossing 650 kilometres in just four hours. According to ItaliaRail, Trenitalia’s high-speed Frecciarossa trains are “among the most luxurious you can find anywhere in the world.” I guess I will have to second that.
A fast-paced trip to Southern Italy
Arriving in Napoli, we then took a hyper-rapid bus tour around the beautiful south with other visitors on board. We went to cities including: Lecce, Bari, Casandrino and Salerno.
In Naploi, I was offered a cup of classical Italian Moka (la classica Moka), made with the iconic Bialetti coffee maker. Also in Casandrino, a few miles from Napoli. we had lunch at a small family restaurant, called “La Villetta Pizzeria.” The vintage-looking signage above the pizzeria’s door caught my eye and I had to make a quick sketch of it.
As I said earlier, this is just a quick highlight about our Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour. Next on my calendar is a detailed food trip around Milano and another in Southern Italy as a whole. A third illustrated map will be about our trip to beautiful Puglia in Italy’s “heel.”
I hope you will enjoy your journey with me! I look forward to seeing you in my next post!
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