Seven years ago I traveled to Rome for the second time.

The first time was a revelation and I fell hard for this crazy city.  It didn’t make sense.  Nobody in my family is Italian and I was not an Italophile by any stretch.

I loved London, Paris, and Amsterdam.  When I was in junior high and high school I just KNEW I would live in Paris or London one day.   I wasn’t thinking about Rome or Italy despite living in a town called Verona .

I thought maybe I had responded to Rome that way because of what was, or wasn’t, going on in my life at that moment.   I had to find out why that one trip had unsettled me so much.

I returned the following year and took a short trip to Florence and Positano.

The view from my terrace.

It was a pain in the butt to get from Rome to Positano.  First the train to Naples (not bad), then the train to Sorrento (an hour on a local train with many stops), and then finally a bus to Positano.

I walked down the steep hill, followed by a million steps, to reach my hotel.  Once I stepped into the room and opened the large French doors, I saw that view.   My heart skipped a beat.  It was so beautiful it felt unreal, like a movie set.

There is a great hiking trail/path way up in the mountains, Sentiero degli Dei/Path of the Gods.  Early one morning, I went up the mountain.

It was quiet. I saw two German tourists hiking and that was it.  For the first time in years, my mind wasn’t racing a mile a minute, overwhelmed by the things I had not accomplished.

That walk changed everything.

I realized I had to make some serious changes in my life for my mental and physical health.  I wasn’t sure how at that time.

Eventually, I figured it out and moved to Italy two years later.

Buon weekend!