Love, Taylor | TS

One

There's something incredibly charming about spending a week in an old Italian city entirely on your own. Perhaps it's the smell of salt in the air coming from the sea or the music that seems to be playing on a constant loop, always muffled, always a little far, and always joyful. Maybe it's the glasses of chilled Prosecco that keep you in a state of being perfectly buzzed every day or the scoops of fruity gelato from the little shop downtown.

It's all the comments you're anticipating on your little personal travel blog where you document every single one of the new places you visit and all the readers praising your recommendations when they actually take them. There's a sort of rush that comes with recommending a certain activity or restaurant to someone and they come back to let you know how right you were.

Or maybe it's the fact that you're finally doing this for yourself. After years of travelling around only because when you return you'll get paid for the little article that you'll write, it's nice for a change to make it all the way across the Atlantic and then some for your own pleasure.

For once, I don't have to worry about documenting every single touristy place I visit, calling every good restaurant with more locals than tourists a "hidden gem." I don't have to worry about embellishing the beaches and the streets and the markets. I don't have to go off-book and create a backstory for the old man who handed me that ice cream cone in that little shop on the corner of the old cobblestone road down some street with mismatched buildings well beyond their prime.

I still plan on taking some notes, though. I have my little notebook in my bag, the one with the wrinkled spine and grooves along the front from accidentally folding the corners one too many times. Maybe I'll write a page for my personal blog, but mostly, I plan on using every little detail for the new novel I have been trying to write but have been putting off for so long. Up until my deadline started creeping up on me. Yes. The protagonist would definitely meet the love of her life right here, at the Hotel Dei Fiori. It's perfect.

When the taxi driver who picked me up from the train station seemingly has trouble hitting the break pedal like a normal and sane person, I still make my way up the hotel steps with a pep in my walk, despite my slight headache. When the concierge informs me apologetically that the elevator is down for the next few days so I'll have to walk up four flights of stairs to my room every single time, I still smile and thank him without much of a complaint. Even when I get to my room and realise I have forgotten my phone charger on the plane or the train or some other place along the way, I simply make a note to buy a new one in town and start to unpack my bathing suit.

Because nothing could ruin the next week. I plan on having a well-needed vacation and I am going to do so tipsy as hell on chilled Italian white wine while walking along the shore of a sandy Italian beach. It can't get any better than that. It is perfect.