I had been looking forward to the train from Florence to Verona for weeks. The ride into Florence earlier that summer had undone me in the best way. Fields of sunflowers. Small farmhouses scattered across Tuscan hills like someone had placed them there by hand. That train felt like a promise. I wanted to see what the other side of it looked like.

There was also Venice waiting in between. A weekend I had once considered a lifetime trip. I moved through it with awe and disorientation and saved the processing for later. Verona was different. Verona felt like the place I had been moving toward all along.

The moment I stepped off the train, something in my body registered. It was subtle but immediate. A tightening in my chest that did not feel like anxiety. A quickening. A recognition. I did not wander through the streets to my Airbnb. I moved with purpose. I felt pulled. As if the city had a hand at my back guiding me forward. I remember hurrying to unpack, to grocery shop, to settle in. It felt urgent. As though I could not afford to waste a single day of it.

The apartment was almost comical in its perfection. A top-floor one-bedroom that felt newly restored and waiting for someone who would notice the details. Direct elevator access into the unit. A double oven. Skylights that flooded the living room with white afternoon light. Two air conditioning units. After months of adapting to less-than-ideal circumstances, it felt indulgent. Safe. Designed.

I worshipped it.

Once the bags were unpacked and the fridge was stocked, I did what I always do. I walked into town to get my bearings. I need to understand where I am geographically before I can understand how I feel emotionally. I look for the place that will become my place. The evening destination. The anchor.

For years now, I have ended my days the same way. A long walk toward a fixed point where I can rest, read, and people-watch. In Philadelphia it was Washington Square. In other cities it has been a church step, a harbor bench, a quiet park. In Verona it became the southeast side of Ponte Garibaldi, or sometimes the stone steps near the visitors center beside the Arena. The bridge was technically too close to the apartment, so I would extend the walk. An hour or more through narrow streets, past wine bars and couples and tourists clinking glasses, until I felt ready to land.

Verona does not feel real at first. It feels like a set. The stone. The arches. The way the light hits the river at dusk. I had never fully connected the city to Romeo and Juliet, but much of the world had. The line into the courtyard beneath Juliet’s balcony stretched endlessly most days. I remember standing off to the side, looking at the bronze statue, watching people wait for their turn to touch it. I Googled it on the spot. Were they real? No. Shakespeare had never even been there. It did not matter. The myth was enough.

I skipped it. Even when friends came to visit from Philadelphia and wanted to see it, I stayed outside the courtyard and let them have their moment. Verona offered me something quieter. Something less crowded.

My days felt normal there. That might sound small, but it was not. After months of movement and uncertainty, Verona allowed me to drop into routine. Morning yoga. Real yoga, on a proper mat for the first time since leaving the States nearly six months earlier. Grocery shopping at the same market. Coffee. Writing. Client work in the afternoons. Dinner. The long evening walk. Reading before bed. It was the first place in Italy where my nervous system softened.

I had a serendipitous visit from friends during that month. We had met shortly before I left Philadelphia and somehow our timelines overlapped again in Italy. They came up from Florence for the day. We wandered through the streets without agenda. Ate lunch slowly. Shopped for handmade jewelry. Laughed in that full-bodied way that only happens when you feel known. There is something about being seen in a foreign place by people who understand your origin story. It steadies you.

But Verona was also the launch point for something much larger.

I booked it partly because of its proximity to the Dolomites. A friend of mine had always dreamed of seeing that mountain range. I carried a quiet hope that she would meet me there. She did not. That weekend became mine alone.

It began with inconvenience. Europcar oversold their fleet and my reservation was canceled. A full day lost to rerouting. The replacement vehicle was an electric crossover. Northern Italy is not built for efficient EV road trips through mountain terrain. Charging stops doubled the travel time. Then Google Maps led me directly through the center of a town along Lake Garda. Diners moved their chairs. Pedestrians pressed themselves against storefronts as I crept through narrow streets, mortified. Later, in Brixen, I scraped the entire side of the nearly new vehicle trying to squeeze into a compact parking space. It had less than nine hundred kilometers on it when I picked it up. I stood there staring at the damage in disbelief, I’d be bringing it back with 900 scratches. Thank God for full coverage insurance.

Externally, it was chaos. Internally, something else was happening.

In Brixen, after the scrape and the charging stop, I sat for a late lunch and a coffee to regulate myself. That was when I noticed the couple standing in the middle of the walkway. An older man with bandages across his face and a cast on his arm. His wife beside him, steady and attentive. Then came the sound of cheering and clicking from what sounded like hundreds of freehubs. Dozens of bikers rode into the square, circling them with affection and pride. I learned that the man had started the riding group years earlier. He met his wife through it. The annual summer meetup brought friends from across Europe. He had fallen off of his bike the day before and been injured badly enough that, at his age, meant he would likely never ride again.

He held back tears as he said it. I did not.

I left that square and sobbed in the car. Not for him alone. For something larger. For the fragility of identity. For the way we anchor ourselves to the roles we play. For the inevitability of change.

The drive into the mountains shifted after that. The chaos fell away. The scrapes on my car seemed to disappear. The trees grew denser. The peaks more dramatic. The air thinner and cleaner. I arrived in Cortina d’Ampezzo at dusk and checked into Hotel Serena Cortina. A small mountain hotel with floral window boxes and preserved architecture that felt deliberate. This was my first true European mountain town experience. I walked through it in awe. The care. The respect for place. The sense of continuity.

I had planned a hike for the following day. I did not make it. The lost time, the car issues, the late arrival. I pivoted instead. I made it my mission to return to one of the glacial lakes I had passed on the drive in. It was nearly flush with the road. Opalescent. Still.

I arrived just before eight in the morning. The lake was in shadow. A few cars in the lot. A shared quiet anticipation. We were all waiting for the same thing. The sun was preparing to crest the mountain in front of us. Slowly. Patiently. The parking lot filled. Camper vans opened. Families spilled out with bikes and backpacks. The sound of morning chatter rose around the water. It felt like the first day of school. Reunions. Excitement. Familiarity.

A man parked beside me told me this was their annual family gathering. Switzerland. Germany. France. Italy. They came from everywhere for this long weekend at the end of summer. Biking by day. Eating together by night. He spoke about it with pride. Belonging.

My stomach flipped. Not in jealousy. In clarity.

This is who I want to be, I thought. The one excited to gather. The one prepared for the terrain. The one grounded enough to expand.

I felt a brief wave of self-pity for not having packed better. For not being properly prepared for mountain weather. For missing the hike. Then something steadier replaced it. Gratitude for being there at all. For the shift that had already taken place.

As the sun finally reached the peak and light spilled across the water, I thought about my Gran. It had been weeks since we had spoken directly. The nurses answered the phone. Updates were vague. Family communication was thin. Standing there, watching the light reach the lake, I felt a calm I had not allowed myself in months. Permission. To stop forcing updates. To stop trying to manage what I could not control. To accept that I was where I was meant to be. That she knew I loved her. That the outcome was inevitable whether I hovered or not.

I drove back to Verona with a stillness that surprised me. The city received me differently then. Not as a backdrop for routine, but as a container. I walked the bridge that night with tears on my face. Verona did not ask anything of me. It simply held me.

The morning after my return, Gran died.

Most of my time in Italy had felt circumstantial. Ninety-day visa limits. Apartments falling through. Deadlines dictating geography. Verona was the only city I chose without urgency. I placed it last on purpose. Something in me believed that if Turin or Florence failed to give me what I needed, Verona would.

It did.

I left feeling grateful and fractured. Italy had shifted me. Losing Gran would shift everything else. Her funeral was two weeks away. My life felt both fully activated and suspended in midair. Verona became the place where those two realities overlapped. Where grief and routine coexisted. Where I felt most like myself while preparing to become someone new.

That is what this place did to me.

It steadied me before the ground moved.

Browse the Gallery

If You Find Yourself Here

If you ever find yourself in Verona, and only if you want to, these are a few doors I would open again.

Arena di Verona

Piazza Bra, 1

There is something about sitting inside the Arena at night that collapses time. I attended Viva Vivaldi. The Four Seasons Immersive Concert performed by Giovanni Andrea Zanon. The projections were beautiful, but the true experience was the stone itself. The scale. The fact that people have been gathering here for centuries. Go in the evening if you can. Let the music carry you. Let the architecture remind you how small and how connected you are.

Pasticceria Flego

Corso Porta Borsari, 9

This is the place you go when you want to feel a little undone by sugar and craftsmanship. The pastries are precise without being sterile. Beautiful without trying too hard. It fits best in the late morning. Order something you cannot pronounce. Sit with it. Notice how much care went into it.

Elk Bakery – The Garden

Via Cappello, 39

Tucked behind the main cafe is a garden that feels slightly outside of Italy in the best way. The menu blends Mediterranean, Asian, and American influences without apology. It was the only place in town where I found proper iced coffee. That mattered more than I expected. Go when you want something familiar but still thoughtful. It is a soft landing spot.

Detour (Outdoor Shop)

Via Goffredo Mameli 5

Detour is the kind of shop I look for in every city and rarely find. An outdoor recreation store that feels intentional rather than transactional. Thoughtful brands. Technical pieces without the big-box energy. Staff who actually use the gear they’re selling.

Museo Archeologico al Teatro Romano

Rigaste Redentore, 2

If I could guide anyone to one museum, it would be this one. The walk up is part of the experience. Ancient relics. Terraced views. A cemetery that feels reverent rather than eerie. It holds layers of time without spectacle. Visit when you want to feel the continuity between what was and what remains.

Osteria al Duca

Via Arche Scaligere, 2

This was my favorite dinner. Roast chicken with vegetables. Pasta arrabbiata on the side. A gin lemon that appeared from somewhere in the back of house as if by magic. It is intimate without being precious. Go hungry. Stay longer than you plan to.

Gelateria La Berta

Lungadige Sammicheli, 25

A few steps from the river. Ideal after an evening walk. The kind of place where you can linger on the edge of the water and let the day settle. I often paired it with a stop at L’Accademia nearby for a drink. The crowd leans young and artistic. It feels local. Unpolished in a way that I trust.

None of these places are secret. None are definitive. They are simply the ones that met me where I was.

Verona is not loud about what it offers. It does not chase you. It waits. If you let it, it will become a place of rhythm. Of routine. Of quiet recalibration.

It was for me.

Florence did not want me at first.

Or maybe it did, and I mistook the resistance for rejection.

The timing matters. Late July through late August. Peak season stacked on peak season. Heat pressing down like a physical thing. Americans everywhere. Loud. Oblivious. Hungry in that particular way we get when we think we’re entitled to wonder. I hadn’t seen so many of us in one place in years. I had forgotten how we move through the world when we travel. Not gently. Not curiously. We scrape. We consume. We take photographs of things we don’t know how to look at.

I arrived already tired. Already defensive. Already convinced that Florence was going to ask something of me I wasn’t sure I had to give.

I was there on deadline. Most of the month was spent applying branding to an international wellness travel group. It gave me an excuse to stay inside. A justification for hiding. I told myself it was the Americans. The crowds. The heat. But really, it was the intensity of being seen. Florence does not let you disappear. Not even when you try.

The apartment was impossibly central. Two blocks from Piazza della Signoria. Down a narrow alley behind Via dei Neri. A stone’s throw from Santa Croce, which is to say, a stone’s throw from the center of the human swirl. The building dated back to the thirteenth century. Towering. Medieval. Dramatic in that way that makes you feel small but also strangely held. Four stories. Twenty-foot ceilings. Doors and staircases built for bodies larger than mine, or perhaps for history itself. The windows were handmade. The glass uneven. Light bent as it came through.

By midday, the city was unbearable. Grocery shopping felt like a strategic operation. A peaceful walk was out of the question. You would rather wait. You would rather starve. The sun sat directly on your shoulders and the crowds pressed in from all sides. Florence at noon is a test of patience and surrender. I failed it regularly.

Evenings were different. The tours thinned. The sun softened. The city exhaled. I learned the back ways quickly. Winding alleys that skirted the piazzas. Routes that traded beauty for efficiency and sanity. I chose the grocer farther away because the walk was calmer. Centrality, I was reminded, is often the bane of a carless existence. Access is useful. Proximity is expensive.

I had just gotten back on the dating apps at the tail end of Turin. Thank God. Loneliness dissolves faster when connection is a swipe away. When everyone you meet is quietly aware of the same thing: this has an expiration date. There is a freedom in that. A tenderness. A permission to be honest without needing a future.

I told myself I only wanted friends. That wasn’t true. I wanted love too. Or the shape of it. The movement of it. I love love. I love the way it aligns things inside me. The way it moves through, rearranges, leaves something better behind even when it goes. Especially when it goes.

My days found a rhythm. Morning food shops. Endless coffee. Yoga when I could bear the heat. Work in long stretches. And then evenings walking the piazzas slowly, looking into restaurant windows, watching families and couples and friend groups savor a moment they might never get again. A week. A weekend. A day. I was swimming in something most people only touch briefly.

Every night, without fail, I ended up on the stone wall along the Arno. Kindle in hand. A few feet in either direction from Gelateria Morè, on Lungarno degli Archibusieri. I would sit for hours looking at the Ponte Vecchio, listening to musician after musician sing into the night. The songs blurred together eventually. What stayed were the fragments of conversation from passersby. Laughter. Arguments. Confessions. Florence is the site of many firsts. Honeymoons. Empty nest trips. First passports. It is also home to an alarming amount of conflict.

People bickered constantly. Couples fought through dinners. Sometimes screamed. I was struck by how many people allowed small, provincial suffering to eclipse a once-in-a-lifetime moment. I couldn’t tell who was choosing it and who needed it. Maybe both. Some people don’t know how to accept the manifestation of their dreams.

People loved to tell me how lucky I was. To do this. To work from anywhere. To spend a month in Florence. I always complicated it for them. I talked about the time difference. The deadlines. The strain. Then I’d soften. My clients are great. I couldn’t do this without them. I wasn’t deflecting. I was trying to make the truth livable for both of us.

Another evening home was the stone bench beneath Loggia dei Lanzi. Bronze statues watching from the 1500s. Perseus holding Medusa’s head as if it were an afterthought. Tour groups flooded through during the day and returned at night for aperitivo and emotional reckoning. I spent hours there with gin lemons, wondering why I struggled to accept this version of myself. There was no question that I was doing exactly what I had always wanted to do.

I took my first international trip at twelve. Ireland. Something lodged itself in me then. A restlessness. Ants in my pants that never left. I grew up without much consistency. Ten places to call “home” before ten years old, but all of them family. A community of grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents who took turns raising me and welcoming me in. There were schedules instead of roots, but there was care. There were containers. Florence made something click. This wasn’t chaos. This was familiarity.

I was made for this.

Nomadism didn’t feel brave or novel. It felt practiced. Inherited. The ability to belong quickly. To leave cleanly. To find intimacy without permanence. That recognition landed heavily.

Some moments softened it all. Every Saturday morning, I walked to Piazzale Michelangelo. Twenty-five minutes. Through San Niccolò. Residential. Hilly. Calmer. Tourists who thought they knew better gathered there, which made it paradoxically peaceful. Florence rewards slow starts. Quiet mornings.

One morning, a stranger offered me his bike in Giardino dell’Iris. No agenda. No collateral. “It’s free,” he said, handing me his address. “Bring it back when you’re done.” I almost didn’t take it. Old stories surfaced. Not worthy. Too much. Just pretend you went. Then I chose differently. I rode the fucking bike.

The city fell away quickly. Toward Baronta. The roads shook beneath me. Less prepared. More honest. Giovanni, my host, had told me the countryside was right there. He wasn’t exaggerating. In fifteen minutes, everything changed. Cypress trees. Open sky. My body caught up to itself. Then I got scared. The heat. The hunger. A man tapped my shoulder and handed me water. He owned a small restaurant nearby. Opened it because his father did. Hoped his son would want it too. He made me breakfast. No menu. Eggs. Spinach. Bread from the night before. A cheese that could be currency.

Life rushed back into me. I rode home the long way through Isolotto.

Over the course of the month, I met architects. Designers. Makers. People who showed me Florence quietly.Antique shops on Via dei Serragli. Opera singers practicing in chapels at night. The place on the Arno where you can sit on a ledge at sundown if you know where to look.

I was in Florence because I had to be. That’s what I thought. A non-refundable Airbnb. Logistics. Momentum. Now I know better. Florence is not about spectacle. It’s about timing. About restraint. About letting yourself take up space without demanding anything back.

I spent weeks looking for the magic in obvious places. Halfway through the month, someone told me Florence would find me when it was ready. It did. On a bike. In an omelet. In bells ringing me home.

Florence is magic. If you stop chasing it. If you wait.

If you let yourself be found.

Where to Find Yourself in Florence

Ristorante Boccadama

Piazza di Santa Croce, 25/26r, 50122 Firenze FI

Early morning. Quiet square. A cappuccino and an apricot croissant that did exactly what it needed to do. Nothing more. Nothing less. This was my version of breakfast in Florence, and I never tried to improve it.

Casa Buonarroti

Via Ghibellina, 70, 50122 Firenze FI

My favorite museum anywhere. Undersold. Intimate. Michelangelo’s work without the crush. His home. His hands. His presence. If you do one cultural thing in Florence, let it be this. Everything else can wait.

I Fratellini

Via dei Cimatori, 38/r, 50122 Firenze FI

Over-marketed. Crowded. Still worth it. I resisted listing it. Then I remembered honesty matters more than credibility. The sandwiches are excellent. Eat standing. Move on.

Serre Torrigiani in Piazzetta

Piazza dei Tre Re, 1, 50123 Firenze FI

An outdoor speakeasy tucked into a pocket of the city. Green. Inclusive. Perfect for a weekday aperitivo when the heat breaks and the city softens.

Trattoria 13 Gobbi

Via del Porcellana, 9R, 50123 Firenze FI

The best dinner I had in Florence. Partly the food. Partly the company. I ordered the Tuscan chicken as a second meal. No regrets. Let yourself linger here.

Honorable Mention: Antico Ristoro di Cambi

Via Sant’Onofrio, 1R, 50124 Firenze FI

If timing or fate had shifted slightly, this would have been the one. Old walls. Loud praise. Food that travels across the room before it reaches your plate.

I didn’t mean to land in Turin.

That feels important to say up front.

I had planned for Rome. I had imagined Rome. I had oriented myself toward Rome in the way you do when you think you know what a chapter of your life is supposed to look like. Then, very close to the moment of departure, Rome fell through. The apartment disappeared. Prices spiked. Summer surged. I was standing in Ireland, already unmoored by bureaucratic delay, staring down the reality that I had to choose something quickly or lose the thread altogether.

A friend I barely knew said, casually, that Turin was cool. Creative. Gritty. Worth experiencing.

So I booked it.

The entire month. Sight unseen.

I didn’t research the city. I didn’t research the apartment. I didn’t even look closely at photos until the weekend before I left. When I finally did, Google Maps served up images taken on what must have been the single worst day of the year. Gray. Wet. Heavy. Rain slicking the stone. Fear set in immediately. I remember thinking, What have I done? Was I about to spend July inside, sweating, lonely, and stuck?

That fear was wrong. Completely wrong.

Turin was bright. Elegant. Lively. It was quieter than Rome, yes, but not asleep. It moved with intention. It felt lived-in. It felt like a place that wasn’t performing itself for visitors. And almost immediately, it asked something of me.

Language was the first friction point. Italian was everywhere. French followed closely behind. English was rare, or at least it felt rare to me. I had done six weeks of Duolingo. I had not taken it seriously enough. I felt that acutely. Ordering coffee became an exercise in humility. Grocery store interactions required focus. Small exchanges carried weight. And layered underneath all of it was shame.

I’m in their country. I should speak the language.

That voice was loud. It followed me through the day. It made everything take longer. And yet, slowly, it did something else too. It slowed me down in a way I could not avoid.

The heat enforced this. People warn you about an Italian summer, but you cannot understand it until you step into it. I left Ireland in seventy-degree weather and landed in ninety-degree heat. There was no air conditioning in my apartment. None. At first, it felt impossible. The air was thick. Sleep was light. The days stretched. And then, somehow, my body adjusted.

You really do get used to it.

Rain came often, but it did not cool things off. It only added texture. I used to laugh when it rained because it seemed to bring more people out into the streets, not fewer. Maybe everyone just wanted to confirm that the moisture on their skin was, in fact, rain and not sweat.

The heat dictated everything. My days found a rhythm quickly because they had to. Grocery shopping early. A stop in the park. Coffee. Yoga. Journaling. Work until dusk. And then, as if summoned, the entire city took to the streets.

From six to eleven every night, Turin walked.

Families. Couples. Teenagers. Elders. Everyone. I am not exaggerating when I say the city emptied into itself. I joined them. Night after night. I developed a route without realizing it had become one. From my apartment near Massimo and Pio, up toward the Royal Palace. Zig-zagging back through side streets. Down into Piazza San Carlo. Window shopping along Pietro Micca long after the stores had closed. A stop at Gelateria La Romana. Then home.

The people-watching was unmatched. I felt like a camera in a film. Silent. Observant. Absorbing. I learned how to kill time in Turin because I absolutely had to. There was nowhere to rush to. Nothing to conquer. The city didn’t reward urgency.

This was also where something heavier landed.

I was in Turin when I accepted that I could not save my grandmother.

I had been carrying a kind of false hope with me. A belief that if I stayed organized enough, strategic enough, relentless enough, I could control the outcome. I spent days soliciting doctors. Interviewing lawyers. Mapping scenarios. Building a plan to remove her from an abusive and neglectful living situation and bring her home to Ireland.

But reality does not bend simply because you want it to.

The moment it broke open for me is etched into my memory. I was standing under one of Turin’s porticoes, those massive stone coverings that line the city center, built centuries ago to protect royalty from the elements. It was pouring. I was leaning against the wall, too hesitant to cross the street. One ear filled with the sound of rain slapping pavement. The other pressed to my phone.

The lawyer was being kind. Direct. Unflinching.

“What’s the end goal here?” he asked.

Then, quieter. “We cannot save people.”

I stared at a crack in the cement. A small, triangular break in the stone. I listened.

“You can rescue her from this situation,” he continued. “You can protect her from the harm and neglect she’s been receiving. But the people doing this are not going to stop. It sounds like, to me, ‘four years of this’ you said, they’ve made that clear.”

I didn’t interrupt him.

After a long pause, I asked the only question I had left.

“Okay. What can I do?”

He waited. Then said, simply, “It sounds like you both need to find peace.”

That sentence followed me everywhere after that. Finding peace became the intention of my days in Turin. Not productivity. Not resolution. Peace. First for my nervous system. Then for my spirit.

There is an irony I still think about. One that feels too perfect to ignore. My life has always been shaped by a quiet tug-of-war between my two inheritances. Italian-American on my mother’s side. Irish-American on my father’s. As a child, my mom had primary custody, but my grandmother’s house on my dad’s side was where I always wanted to be. It was where I felt aligned. Accepted. Welcomed. At home.

So I left America to pursue life in Ireland. Thinking, perhaps unconsciously, that I could guarantee that alignment if I just placed myself close enough to it. And then, due to bureaucratic delay, I had to leave Ireland. And I landed in Italy. For a summer that would end, three months later, with the loss of the most steadfast pillar of support I have ever known.

And also, strangely, with the deepest sense of self I’ve ever had.

Turin showed me another side of myself. One that mirrored my mother’s lineage. The way people moved. What they valued. What they did not waste time on. The city was clean. Orderly. Intentional. Trash was taken out daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. You bought only what you needed. Nothing lingered without purpose. It was a culture of lightness that did not feel careless.

When the weight of my grandmother’s situation became too much, I fled for a weekend. I went to Milan to see Taylor Swift. This surprises people. I am a closeted Swiftie. She lives high on my Spotify Wrapped every year. Always in the top one percent of listeners. I needed to be inside something collective. Something loud. Thousands of people singing All Too Well badly and together.

It worked.

Milan felt electric. Fashionable. Connected. I saw the Duomo for the first time. I do not think I will ever see another cathedral like it. The hotel had air conditioning and I luxuriated in it to the point that returning to my apartment in Turin felt like punishment. That part makes me laugh now.

When I left Turin, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude. Moved by the surprise of it. I remember telling my friend Omar how lucky I felt that Rome had fallen through. How lucky I felt to have trusted a stranger. To have trusted myself. To have stayed. To have walked. To have chosen more whenever I could.

Turin was not my introduction to Italy in the way people usually mean. But I am endlessly grateful that it was mine.

Where to Find Yourself in Turin

If you find yourself in Turin, and only if you want to, these are a few doors I would open again.

Sweet Lab
Via Principe Amedeo, 39, 10123 Torino TO, Italy
A small café across from my apartment that saved me more times than I can count. Reliable coffee. A genuinely good breakfast sandwich. Comfort without fuss.

Via Roma
Central Turin
A grand, open-air shopping corridor lined with porticoes. Think American mall scale, but entirely outdoors and woven into daily life. Even after hours, it is worth walking.

Valdo Fusi Skate Park
Via Accademia Albertina, 10123 Torino TO, Italy
A surprisingly grounding place to sit with a book. People of all ages gather here. Skateboarding. Talking. Existing. It felt communal without being performative.

Caffè San Carlo
Piazza San Carlo, 156, 10123 Torino TO, Italy
An ideal afternoon pause. Coffee. Something sweet. A chance to sit still and watch the square breathe.

Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo
Via Palazzo di Città, 6, 10122 Torino TO, Italy
Architecturally striking and quietly powerful. Worth stepping into, especially if you enjoy noticing how light moves through space.

Royal Palace of Turin Art Collections
Piazzetta Reale, 1, 10122 Torino TO, Italy
The collections here are expansive and humbling. They tell a story of accumulation, power, and preservation that feels uniquely intact.

Monumento a Casimiro Teja Area
Behind Piazza delle Erbe
This small corner of the city held my heart. Casa Broglia offers sprawling patio seating and food that encourages lingering. Pizzum next door is a fast-casual fallback when things get busy. The magic is in the cluster. Stay awhile.

Passion Sport
Corso Regina Margherita, 22/f, 10153 Torino TO, Italy
A locally owned specialty retailer for hiking, camping, and outdoor gear. Knowledgeable staff. Thoughtful selection. A reminder that good retail still exists.

Osteria Al Tagliere
Via Corte d’Appello, 6, 10122 Torino TO, Italy
Casual. Cozy. Old-world in the best way. Known for cured meats, cheeses, and Piedmontese specialties. The kind of place where time stretches.

Gelateria La Romana dal 1947
Via Santa Teresa, 6/B, 10121 Torino TO, Italy
This became my go-to not just for the gelato, which is excellent, but for the warmth of the staff. It is the kind of place where service itself feels like a small kindness, and that mattered more than I expected.

The Beach Nightclub
Murazzi del Po Gipo Farassino, 22, 10124 Torino TO, Italy
In summer, this is where the city gathers after dark. Packed. Sweaty. Alive. A DJ worth listening to and a crowd that feels present.

And finally, the independent booksellers.
They line the major streets. You will find them if you walk. I can’t give you an address. That feels right.