We took a family trip to Italy in October. It was the first time we had a vacation in almost 7 years. Its not cheap to travel but luckily square has a loan program that really worked for what we needed. Plus a travel credit card. I mention this because I believe in financial transparency especially these days when things are so expensive. We started our trip in Rome. It was a great introduction in how to order food, take public transportation and begin to learn the cultural norms of Italy. We saw most of the tourist places like the coliseum Vatican. We really wanted to eat as much food as we could and do some vintage shopping. And we did. After 5 days we took a train to Lecce in southern Italy. This was my favorite part of the trip. It was a smaller town and incredibly beautiful. We shopped for vintage and ate some more. We learned about the culture in this part of southern Italy and we absolutely fell in love. It was very hard to leave and I day dream of living there someday. We then rented a car and drove to Cosenza Calabria where my husbands family is from. We explored the town ( which was not touristy at all ) and toured a castle and graveyard looking for my husbands family members. We then drove to the almafi coast. It was beyond beautiful and the food was delicious. After a few days we drove to Naples, which was a big switch up from smaller towns to a big bustling city. It took a few days to get adjusted to being there but once we started exploring we feel in love. The art, music, culture and food were amazing. We stayed for 5 days which was enough time to really see everything and learn so much about the city, history and people. We returned our rental car and headed back to Rome by train. We stayed in the outskirts of Rome which was such a new perspective from staying in the center of Rome. We went to a big mall, saw monuments from the Mussolini era. It was 3 weeks of exploring and we were ready to come home completely changed from this experience. It was eye opening to see a country that has healthy food, health care and a culture that supports small business. The markets were bustling and there was an ease that felt different than how we live in the U.S We cant wait to go back and visit. I have a dream that we will go back and live for a few years and if they will have us be able to live out our lives in Italy. Being part of the EU would be an amazing experience for our entire family and would give our daughter a chance to see that there are different ways of live other than the American hustle culture and capitalism on a toxic level. There are problems everywhere but Italy gave us a chance to see there are different ways to live. And bonus we brought back over 200 pieces of the most amazing vintage for our customers. Available in store and online.
CIAO xo
