Lonesome traveller in Italy

Traveling alone might be something for some, but absolutely not for others. I’m probably somewhere in between.

There’s something interesting about stumbling around in your own solitude. You wake up without any guidelines, get up—maybe sleep in, maybe not—take the elevator down to an ice-cold lobby. Eat a mediocre breakfast consisting mostly of pastries, because you're in Italy. You step outside with no compass. The sliding doors open to a wall of 38+ degrees, because you see that temperature sign that only exists abroad—like a cross above a pharmacy.

You step into a heat that almost feels like a fever. Straight ahead, right, left, back—where am I going? Stumble out, fall in, fall sideways. Tossed around. Take a photo here, another one there. Learn. Pause. Stop. Yet another poorly exposed shot, yet another picture of a building somewhere in Italy that no one will care about, I think. But I care. One of the 36 photos in that Kodak 200 roll will probably turn out good. Damn, film is expensive these days. What am I even doing? But I keep snapping away, totally unfazed. Click click click. The money flies.

It’s hot. I turn right, see the palm tree, see the people. It smells like coffee mixed with hot garbage. Ugh. I see the sea—it’s salty, just like I remember it. I don’t like sand anymore. I appreciate cliffs. Maybe it comes with age. I’m listening to Carl Bildt’s summer talk. Is there hope? I write a bit—like this. I kick the ball that rolls past because I can never not do that—football reflexes live in my spine. I have a vacation cigarette—this is life. I sit down on a park bench and rest my soot-covered feet that took a beating from the Birkenstocks. Blisters. Ouch. I probably shouldn't go running tomorrow, but I’ll do it anyway at 06:30. It's siesta time. But not for me.

I get a coffee—a cappuccino with brown sugar, not white. Not white. My already high pulse spikes. I eat spaghetti al pomodoro—or whatever it’s called—from the café. Read a page from my book along with a cold drink—maybe a beer? I’d really rather be playing Yatzy and drinking Aperol with friends. Traveling alone is lovely and beautiful—it really is—but it's day five, and I’m a social creature.

Yesterday, day four, I spoke quietly to myself in the elevator and wondered where all my old football shirts had gone—souvenirs from trips to Bibione with my family during those seven summer vacations. We always drove down in the pearly white Volvo (until it was swapped for a Skoda—a Polish car, what the hell, dad) to the apartment hotel where dad always bought fresh rolls from Batistuta’s cousin at the bakery—if it even was a bakery—but let’s say it was, for the sake of the story and my football-loving heart.

While those thoughts spin, I’m clutching three croissants I swiped from the hotel breakfast in Bari. Damn cheapskate. Italy was a big part of my childhood summers. Thank you, mom and dad. Things are different now—today I’m staying four-star, alone. Which is about two-star by Swedish standards. It’s expensive but worth every krona to see the towel swan sculptures and the dubbed TV shows every morning and evening.

I take the train to the neighboring town. Italy is on holiday. It’s crowded. It’s hot. It’s boiling. Wet t-shirts clinging to backs everywhere. We’re all sweating—together.

You see a lot of people when you travel. You observe others, you observe culture. I was standing in line for panzerotti in the neighboring town. Felt like I’d found a truly local spot by pure luck—since I had no plan. It’s total, cutting chaos in the line as a woman uses a crackling mic with a thick, tangled black cord to call out number 27 in Italian into a dying speaker. I was witnessing an intense concert. There were no ticket numbers in sight. Apparently, that was my number. I had no idea.

Someone half-draped themselves over my shoulder like a swimming stroke through the crowd to snatch another Peroni in the heat. Way off from the counter, he slipped in and tossed 2 euros and 50 cents on the table. I laughed to myself. Smiling. There are no lines here. In Sweden, we love lines. “No, no, no,” we say. “That’s where the line starts.” But here—you just go with the flow. And maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be when you’re traveling alone.

I don’t know numbers in Italian, but I finally got my order in that cockfight I had just entered with the locals, also craving panzerotti. I didn’t just eat one—I ate two. Don’t ask me how I managed to order two. With broken Italian, I tried to blend in and be understood. I ended up with two of the same—fine by me. Damn, they were good. I still think about them.

What do I take with me? Maybe we should just let things be a little unstructured and uncomplicated sometimes. It’ll probably turn out just fine in the end—just like those panzerotti in that neighboring town. I still think about them.

Italy. Charming, sweet, salty, expressive, beautiful, chaotic, and lovable. But the trains—they run, just like before, flawlessly. They keep rolling—just like life. Just like my own life. It rolls on. Maybe not flawlessly. But it rolls on. Where am I going?

I take the train to the airport I arrived at five days ago, totally unaware of the place called Bari. My suitcase has lost a wheel. It looks like I’m dragging both myself and the bag through this vacation haze. And honestly, I have been dragging myself for five days. “Idiotic,” I imagine people think. But I’m pretty satisfied. I think about Grandpa—he always said, “Pick up your feet,” when I was shuffling around. It’s gotten better with age.

I continue to capture Italy at the Bari airport, with an over-frothed cappuccino in my left hand at a Peroni bar. Soon, I won’t be lonely anymore. They’re coming. My friends. To the heat of Rome.

In Rome, everything fell into place after 35 minutes. I gasp my way into a hidden vintage shop. There’s a lot of vintage in Rome, apparently. I can confirm. I walk down to the basement—it’s dark. The smell of old clothes and leather weaves together. I look up toward the ceiling. What’s hanging there, sideways? Shirt number 10. Batistuta. I’m overwhelmed with love. And I think of my old football shirts, my dad, and those years in Bibione. All the summer holidays. Just like those elevator thoughts in that four-star hotel in Bari.

I’ve pulled out the Yatzy. Tonight, we’ll drink Aperol and have another vacation cigarette on a terrace.

And here I am—with my friends, in all simplicity—but no longer alone.