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The elderly man sitting in front of me at the dinner table squeezes his eyes a little as he looks at me. We have been chatting for some hours already while enjoying the most delicious pasta and for the last couple of minutes I realise that he is trying to fathom me, the seemingly so …
The time has come again! This week I will pack up my things and close another door behind me. I have lost count of how many times I have done this over the past few years and the fact that I lived in no less than three places in Naples during last year’s summer has …
It’s Sunday morning, just after seven. It’s raining cats and dogs in Rome, a typical summer shower after months of drought. Nothing better than waking up like this while I can still feel the sun that seems to have gotten under my skin, and find the grains of sand still in my hair. Could this …
That life in Italy isn’t dolce all the time is something I knew already of course, because the truth is that no matter where in the world you are, there will always be things that are less pleasant. However, the slightly traumatic experience of two weeks ago I hadn’t seen coming at all. While my cousin Tahnee, …
Rome is empty. Under the burning sun, the Italian capital feels quiet and deserted, the streets abandoned. When I took my cousin – who had been here in Rome with me for a few days to have a taste of la dolce vita – to the train station last Friday around five o’clock in the afternoon, this …
Last Wednesday I was out with two Italian friends. After a very nice dinner we went to Hotel Butterfly, which with its trees full of thousands of lights seemed to come straight out of a fairy tale. Around two o’clock – when this placed under the stars shut down – we got in the car to go home. At least that’s …
I’ve been back in Rome for almost three weeks now. Three weeks in which temperatures kept rising, I visited the beaches near Rome, I saw old friends again (some after months and some even after four years!) and I also got to meet new people. Three weeks in which a special day happened to take …
Last week, it was Friday the seventeenth, the Italian equivalent of our Friday the thirteenth. That’s right, in Italy the unlucky number is seventeen instead of thirteen. When flying with Alitalia you’ll notice there is no row seventeen and in most hospitals rooms with the number seventeen don’t exists. But what is it with that number that …
When Lucas, one of my best friends and my regular travel buddy, suggested a couple of weeks ago to seize the unique opportunity to see Venice without the hordes of tourists, I got enthusiastic immediately. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Because what was it really like in Venice, where the crowds of …
