Quiiky Travel creates tours for LGBTQ+ travelers in Italy, providing local guides to tell the region’s queer history and cultural touchpoints. Founded by a gay couple Alessio Virgili and Andrea Cosimi in 2007, Quiiky was the first LGBTQ+ Italian Tour company. It’s gained praise for its Untold History tours, which share Italy’s queer historical and cultural roots. Take its exploration of Milan and see the works of the city’s favorite (queer) son Leonardo da Vinci. Two of Quiiky Travel’s other popular tours take visitors to the locations of recent LGBTQ+ films.
With this summer tour, travelers recreate scenes from the 2017 coming-of-age gay love story based on the novel by André Aciman. Director Luca Guadagnino moved the setting from Portofino to his hometown of Crema in the Lombardy region.
Walk through Crema’s high-walled streets and sit by the 14th-century cathedral where Elio and Oliver kiss. Move on to the small town Pandino, site of the striking war memorial in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, where Elio first declares his feelings to Oliver. Other stops include the Laghetto dei Riflessi (where Elio takes his friend Marzia after dancing), and the park Fontanile Quarantina (where Elio and Oliver swim after a long ride).
The tour is a romantic queer pilgrimage to the Italian countryside, following in the footsteps of Elio and Oliver, letting you recreate those moments with your own love. Peach not included.
Villa Necchi Campiglio photo by Jacob Anderson-Minshall
The 2021 Ridley Scott movie was filmed in part in Milan, Italy, and that’s where the Quiiky tour starts. In the fim, Villa Necchi Campiglio, a home built in the 1930s by architect Piero Portaluppi, served as Rodolfo Gucci’s (Jeremy Irons) studio. Now a museum, the villa was designed for a wealthy sewing-machine magnate, Angelo Campiglio, his wife, Gigina, and her (unmarried) sister Nedda Necchi.
Much of the villa’s décor, art collection, gardens, and private swimming pool made appearances in House of Gucci. Other scenes were shot close by at Palazzo Bagatti Valsecchi and the restaurant Il Salumaio. The tour visits the Church of Saint Sepulcher, where Maurizio Gucci and Patrizia Reggiani were married, and Via Palestro, the location where the real Maurizio Gucci was killed.
The tour leaves Milan for Como Lake, where the interior of Villa Balbiano was the setting of Maurizio’s birthday celebration. Built by architect Jacques Garcia for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio in the 16th century, the villa is now a private residence with six luxurious suites, a swimming pool, and private dock.
