On our last full day in the Amalfi Coast we ventured on a day trip to the towns of Amalfi and Atrani. While we could have taken another ferry from Positano we decided to travel by bus, another must do experience in the region. There is a network of intercity travel along the coast which makes it easy to get around without a car, provided you are prepared for the trip. Bus drivers in Southern Italy are built differently and are equipped with nerves of steel. If you are scare

Mid trip we arranged to be picked up by car and driven to the historic site of Pompeii, something I had missed on my first swing through the area decades earlier. We couldn't have asked for a better day - the sky was blue, and the air was still. It was neither hot nor cold - a perfect day that lends itself to the thrill of exploration. Pompeii, a UNESCO world heritage site, sits at the base of the almighty Vesuvius volcano, about 20 minutes outside of Naples. This Greco-Ro

I stumbled onto Capri in the 90s in a serendipitous moment during my low budget, university graduation backpacking trip. Those days on the island were an unexpected bolt of lightning, its profound beauty, striking fast and deep. Meanwhile, I blinked, and it was 25 years later. The day Pablo and I set out for Capri I felt nervous at breakfast. Had it really been as beautiful as I remembered, or was it all a figment of my imagination that grew with the decades? We fidgeted aro

Four years ago Pablo and I embarked on our inaugural European vacation together. To compound that even further, it was our first trip since the start of the pandemic. We, like much of the world, had been sitting in our house for a year and half. That alone made it epic. The world suddenly felt huge. Those were strange times. Pablo was jet-lagged on our arrival in Rome and I hadn't felt the wind in his sails on the train to Naples. Would he love Italy the way I do? We emer

Sicily has been on my bucket list since the 90s but for one reason or another, it never happened. When we decided to make a side trip from our recent holiday in Malta, I knew it had to be Sicily. From Malta, Catania is a 30 minute flight - the plane goes up and then comes straight back down. Flying across the Island from the south, it was apparent just how arid this land is, and yet it's a foodie paradise, in part due to the rich volcanic soil from Mount Etna. We flew Ryan

In late January 2020 I booked a trip to Italy, for the month of May. This was going to be my first big trip in years. I don't typically book non-refundable hotels but given that the trip was just around the corner, I figured, what could go wrong? So that didn't work out. By the end of March, it was apparent we would not be going because no one, worldwide, was going anywhere. The airline gave me a travel credit, and I sheepishly reached out to the hotel. Given the global n

My closets will never be more organized than they were partway through the pandemic. I had the joy of coming across my old journal that I...