Journal entries from solo traveling Italy
Sharing some notes I wrote two summers ago
I like to bring a notebook with me when I travel. To doodle, scribble down ideas and think about life.
I shared in the last post my experience solo traveling and why I’m all for it. I found one of my travel notebooks while organizing and thought I’d share these moment in time.
Below are two entries from my first time in Milan and then Florence two summers ago. I lived in Rome as a kid and haven’t been back since. Which might be why it all felt so familiar yet foreign.
Summer 2023
“First time traveling fully solo for a long duration of time. Coming back to Italy after almost two decades feels like reconciling with a distant memory. A memory that has become a core part of who you are yet blurry and fragmented.
The moment I stepped out the plane I realize I could understand some of the announcement, words I cannot recall by myself but could comprehend. People greeting each other at the tables, mom yelling at children, signs indicating direction. I wonder what it’d be like if I went back to Rome instead of a city I’ve never been — Milan.
I walked around the Duomo Cathedral, taking in what I now know about Gothic style architecture and what I knew from studying at a catholic school back in Rome. Felt like two worlds coming together — one of the old and one of the new, 20 years apart.
Italian food seems to be everything I love. Thin crust pizza, mozzarella, salami, panini, arugula, gelato, Nutella, cafe latte. Food I have naturally gravitated towards in the past 20 years all started here.
Funny enough, I met a French girl at the hostel, right after 3 weeks in Paris. She’s becoming an elementary school teacher next month and this was also her first big solo trip. We went around the city and ate pizza with Prosecco.
We talked about travels, living abroad, jobs, probably only half understanding each other most of the time but we laughed and joked and enjoyed each others’ company never the less.
And this was the life I have pictured myself living. Traveling solo, seeing the world and meeting people along the way.”
“Walking around Florence the past two days has motivated me to become RICH! To collect vintage items, hand-made leather bags, pottery clocks. Never seen so many beautiful things of such quality.
I picture myself in my mid-30s with a house and bringing a big suitcase to collect everything I like and bring it back home. Kind of like a raccoon or some king of squirrel that collects things and stock it at home. I’d like to think next time I come back I’d have the freedom to do that. And maybe get a vintage bike, collect vintage jerseys.”
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I laughed and wiped my tears while reading your article. I can fully understand the emotions described in your words. The three years we lived in Rome were indeed engraved on our soul.