The road to Bellaugello, where guests are asked to be who they are

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Umbria, the region at the heart of Italy, has that feeling of being a mystic gem silently suspended in space and time. Since the moment I owned a car and to the moment I left my home country about 11 years ago, I regularly road-tripped to Umbria where I would embrace the region’s mentally and spiritually healing power by walking through its narrow medieval alleys and taking in the wide panoramas over silent green hills that tell stories of centuries ago. Bellaugello Guesthouse, where I’m headed, perfectly fits the mould offering its guests the luxury of forgetting about the here and now; as its Scots landlord Alec puts it, “The only thing that is asked to them is to be themselves.” Continue reading

Holding hands along the Seine

I still remember the agitation as well as impatience that was spilling out of every pore of my skin on that day. It was a warm and quite humid June’s Saturday late morning in Paris and while I sat at an outside table of a random bar in Le Marais, sipping from my almost empty glass of Jura (ordering an Italian wine in France sounded somehow wrong), I considered how quickly five years of French classes in high school had suddenly gone down the drain. I was left with nothing but basic notions of the language, which wouldn’t get me much farther than ordering a drink, asking how to get to the city centre, and making sure that I wouldn’t be picking any snail-like food from a menu Continue reading

Learn a Language and Share

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New York, May 2012

I’ve been trying to learn English since I realised that languages were my ticket to the world. It was 2000 when I moved abroad to really live the language; I was 21 and my thirst for learning a new idiom was taking me across the Pond for the first time. I arrived in New York and using my broken English, I made it through passport control, answering all their questions and convincing them that I wasn’t there to do anything naughty. Continue reading

Descent into London and off on a new journey

Versione italiana

Kettering, November 11th, 2015

One October day of 2007 my friend Natalia and I landed at Gatwick on an EasyJet flight. We had our lives compressed in 23 kilos of hold luggage, 15 kilos of cabin luggage and a one-way ticket to Victoria station, London. Same old story that brings together thousands of Europeans every week, not so exotic after all. Four months went by and I found a job with my dream company, although the position was in Rome, so I decided to go back to Italy. After a year and three months, the same company offered me a new position in London. It was 2009 and since then, the British capital has been my second home. Continue reading

Garage sale – everything must go! (me too)

I will be leaving my London flat in North Sheen soon and EVERYTHING in it must go. Below is a list of the main items that are for sale, starting with my red sofa and finishing with my used kettle. Without forgetting my toaster and my Ikea jars, of course. As I said, everything must go.

There are a number of other little things that I’m not even bothering putting a price on: they’re yours if you want them, just pop in and see. If I still have my kettle, I’ll even make you a cup of tea. Continue reading