Why I keep going back to Italy

This should be an easy one, right?

“Rome”, “History”, “Food”, “Wine”, “Venice” ... just some of the few things that pop in one’s head upon hearing “Italy” for the first time. When you do decide to visit it, say for a few weeks or less; you can easily cover the top Italian destinations like Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome, maybe Sicily and so on. Regardless of the type of traveler or tourist that you are, you would have, by then, tried more varieties of Pasta and Pizza that one can possibly remember or have experienced the mesmerizing artworks of countless maestros like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, … apart from many other things.

Pizza in Bologna

So having experienced so much, in a span of weeks, it could be enough? Right?
In my case, it’s far from being enough.

My Italian experience began when I first moved to Italy, in a city called Bologna, four years back. I didn’t know such a place existed back then (I had moved here because of an internship- one of the best decisions of my life. This was in middle of summer when many Italians are off on a vacation. Bologna felt like a ghost town then.

Not the best first impression some would say.

But then with the onset of autumn, Erasmus hit the city!

Little did I know that this city hosts the oldest running university in the world and attracts close to 5000 students every semester as part of exchange programs. So began my exploration of Italy.

Italian gelato

On a student budget, with countless other students, every weekend we were literally picking another, unexplored point on the Italian map and checking it out. Some 4 and a half months later we had covered at least 17 destinations. In relation, I had already seen more of Italy than of India, my home country!

Portofino, Italy

That was still only 3 and a half years back. And the time for my Italian stay ran out [sadface]. So I moved into the neighboring country of Germany at this point.
But I kept coming back.

Why? Because of the friends that I left behind or the unexplored places. Like, I didn’t manage to see Rome before I left for Germany. And I had memories of countless hours that I spend sitting under the ancient arches and munching on the best of gelatos, so there was always a reason to be back.

Bologna store front

Unlike most of the European nations, Italy has this unique history where it was a collection of various kingdoms between the fall of Rome and the unification in the 19th century. What makes it interesting is that most of these kingdoms were rich and powerful, constantly competing with one another in the realms of politics, military, art and so on. The end result is that when you travel just about a hundred kilometers within Italy, the dialect changes, the food is different, cities and towns have a different style and history, even how they run businesses and politics differs.

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that I have only “just started” exploring this European country.

And hence, that’s why I keep going back ;)