It has been almost 8 months since I landed in this romantic, food-obsessed country of Italy. Looking back now, I have changed so drastically from the beginning of this journey. I have travelled a lot and encountered many unexpected matters, both through travelling and simply living. I took a huge step out of my comfort zone, not just once but twice, and both times were great learning outcomes experiences.


First I stepped out of my creative bubble and decided to do something I have always wanted to and passionate about, yet too scared to actually make it happen. I decided to make a documentary about Couchsurfing, a platform that transformed the way I travel and perceive the places I visit, and allowed me to discover more places and cultures than I could ever have without it. The result was a 10-minute documentary full of food and smiley people, and beautiful blue sea, but more important than the documentary was the the overall experience of the trip itself, the traditions (and recipes) I learned and the people I met and became friends with. Even after I visited Sardegna, Calabria, and Sicilia, Puglia was still by far at the top of my travel experience. I have to admit that it was quite frustrating afterwards because nothing seemed to reach the point of my beautiful journey to Puglia.

Then, just after a couple of weeks I got back from Puglia, I took the second step. This time, it was something personal which led to self-discovery…well, it’s not as fancy as it sounds, I just opened myself up for a relationship for the first time in a very long time.

Having been travelling, moving from places to places (and living in England), I tried to avoid getting too attached to anyone. I loved my independency too much and even though sometimes I would feel quite lonely, I wasn’t quite ready to give up my freedom for a relationship.

I mean, I thought relationship was just relationship, how much can I learn from being in a relationship than travelling and meeting interesting cultures?

For that, I was wrong. Being in a relationship taught me much more than I could ever imagine. Not just about being with another person, but also about myself and all the issues that are buried deep inside me, something I didn’t even notice it was there. By allowing someone to be so close to me, I opened up myself bare and he saw it right through me.

On top of that, I also found my best friend in Bologna.

It’s been almost 5 months since we first got together, and so my experience in Bologna has been highly influenced by his presence, since we spent more time together than not. I have travelled less and been through more states of confusion and frustrations, and I have cried more than ever. He helped me grow in a way no one else could ever have, and I thank him for that.

So yes, my time in Italy as an Erasmus student ends today. I’m boarded on my delayed flight back to the wet and cold England like a new person, with a significant increase of my Italian-ness level and understanding of this beautiful-mess people, culture and country. All these not-for-sell experiences will stay with me forever, in the way I am, the way I live, and the way I view the world.

It’s is the beginning of a different version of me.

This, is what I find beautiful.

Ten days ago, I packed up my apartment in Bologna and moved all my stuff out.

It was a short 4-month stay, but so many things had happened that it felt like I had been here forever. I still question myself every once in a while how did I end up here, making pasta with grandmas, roaming around the city by bike, eating gelato for dinner, shopping at a slow food farmer’s market and having simple conversations with shopkeepers in Italian.

Oh, and somehow ended up having an Italian boyfriend, which was probably the last thing I could imagine happening within these four months, but somehow it did.

Maybe that was what made it even more memorable, and made saying goodbye so much harder.

What surprised me the most, though, was how much I learned from this relationship.

After having been by myself, taken care of myself and been so ‘independent’ of anyone since I left home, it took some time to learn how to open up, and to share my thoughts and feeling with another person. Not only that, but even on the physical level it was hard.

But as adaptive as I am, at the end I learn. Everything was fast, far too fast than I could ever imagine.Though I didn’t regret a single decision I made. I learned to share my life with someone, to open up and share my feelings, to say what I think, what I feel. I learned both about myself as well as about being in a relationship. I learned to compromise and I experienced the beauty of sharing. Nothing has to be perfect in order to be beautiful, as long as happiness is shared between two people.

All of the sudden, I didn’t feel the need to visit all the places anymore. I much enjoy spending time in the kitchen, cooking together, baking and going grocery shopping, training in the morning or dancing in the kitchen. The simplicity of everyday life shared with someone became equally as enjoyable as travelling to new places.

Maybe because all these things, when shared with someone, are also new experiences for me.

In the past two months, my feeling grew and grew, and rooted deeper and became stronger. I had never thought I could become so close to someone within such a short amount of time. When it all began, I didn’t expect myself to have come this far.

But I did, and it had been beautiful. I shared so much of myself with this other person, and more important than being a lover, he’s also my best friend.

That would never change. A part of me would never forget how bare and naked I could let myself be around this person, and comfortable I had become around him.

Then it was time to leave. Though I would be gone for only 3 weeks, but almost every day in the past two months I had not been alone. I got used to all those hugs and kisses, falling asleep and waking up with someone. The fact that I was going to be without him again for 3 weeks just made me realised how much I loved this person, how much he meant to me, and how beautiful those two months had been.

After all, I think it’s important to step away from everything for a bit, in order to see things in a much clearer picture.

I know that one day it might end, but I would not regret a single decision I made. By being in this relationship with him, I have lived so many ordinary but new experiences and I have learned something through every one of them. He has become such a big part of my growth and I will be forever grateful. He has left something inside me forever and I would never forget.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It’s often the case for me, and maybe for many people too, that I would ignore what’s close to me. I have written so many things about other cities I visit, other cultures, but rarely about those where I actually lived, or live. But since moving to Bologna, a city rich in food cultures and delicious goods, it’s about time I start to write about the place where I live in.

And luckily, I was invited by my friend’s granny to join her and her family for lunch in their country house outside Modena.



Emilia-Romagna is a region in central-North of Italy, where food is probably one of the first words people associate this place with. It was the birth place of raw Parma ham, Parmegiano Reggiano, aceto balsamico, and the lovely knotted ravioli called ‘tortellini’ and ‘tortelloni’

Plus, the gelato in this town is just divined.

Simply said, people who travel to this region, their main reason is probably to eat, just like me.

So, where else would be a better place to learn about how the Bolognese people eat, if not at a lovely grandma’s house where she makes her own fresh pasta almost every weekend, and ferment her own balsamic vineger in the attic room?





It was a warm and sunny summer morning when my friend Giulia picked me up from the train station in Modena and drove me out into the countryside. When we got there, her grandma already made quite a lot of tortelloni, but of course I was there to learn so we made some more together. Starting of with making the egg pasta dough by mixing just plain flour with eggs, 100g. flour per egg. She rolled the dough out thinly in two different ways, using the metre-long rolling pin in a traditional way, and an electronic pasta machine which saved much more time and work. Then I had a go at folding the lovely tortelloni knot, filled with ricotta, spinach and parmesan.



After the pasta-making session, we tried some homemade aceto balsamico and Giulia showed me the attic room where the vinegar was produced by her dad. As we entered the room filled with small wooden barrels, the sweet and sour smell hit my nose. She explained the the balsamic had to be done in the attic because it required the extreme temperature, cold winter and hot summer.

This balsamic was so good that you can simply eat it on bread, parmesan, ricotta or even gelato.

Yes, balamic-drizzled gelato had become my new favourite.

We had a walk around the garden in the hot midday sun. Almost-ripe red cherries and amarena (sour cherries) were hanging from the trees. Their land was full of fruit trees, peaches, plums, apricots, persimmons, watermelons, and also many other vegetables, and a small vineyard (where they harvest the grapes for the balsamico) It was just like my countryside dream life.

This was my ‘stereotypical Italian life’ preconception I had, and would probably continue to have.



Back in the kitchen, her grandma was preparing some bread for later. There are several types of interesting bread in this regions. Piadina, a flatbread made traditionally with lard and stuffed with different filling like sandwich is one of the most popular. Tigella, a small but thicker bread, grilled using a special pan that leaves flower pattern on the surface of the bread, is also eaten stuffed with cold cuts, cheese or grilled vegetables like a mini sandwich. What the granny was making from scratch, though, was a fried bread called ‘gnocco fritto’ A thin slice of dough, deep-fried in hot oil until puffy and golden-brown. I didn’t expect to like it very much since deep-fried stuff, especially on a hot day like this, is nor really my think. However, spreading fresh ricotta and topped with homemade sour cherry jam before folding it in hald, that first bite screamed ‘more! more!’



So I fell in love, with ricotta, balsamic vinegar and cherry jam.

Lunch composed of fresh salad from the garden, ricotta and spinach tortelloni with sage butter, tigella and gnocco fritto with cheese, cold cuts and grilled vegetables. Of course, the meal ended with gelato, and a shot of homemade limoncello with the lemons from their garden.



It didn’t surprise me that the concept of slow food was born in Italy. People are still living this lifestyle now, in a very genuine and non-pretentious way.

I was well-fed and stuffed until dinner. Her grandma gave me a big bag of fresh tagliatelle we made this morning, and invited me to come back again. Next time we can make lasagna, she said.



Well, it’s probably not very common to meet a food-lover traveller from a faraway land like me, maybe that’s why I managed to make this Italian nonna fall in love with me over a course of lunch.

Of course I would not so no to such invitations, not for a second.

What I look for when I plan my travel is mainly where to go and eat.

For the rest of the itinerary, I’ll just see where the places I want to eat at are and wander around from one place to another, looking at different things along my food trail.

Sourdough bakery is one of the terms I search before my visit to each city.

From my visit to Italy earlier this year, I noticed that good bread became harder to find as I travelled North. Bread in Rome was just fabulous, but other than that I much preferred the sourdough in England.


When I searched for a sourdough bakery in Bologna, Forno Brisa came up, and it looked like something I was looking for. Delicious bread and lengthly-fermented croissants and other viennoiseries. It became one of the top food spots I wanted to visit in Bologna.

But I was moving from one place to another, meeting new hosts everyday. It became quite tricky to go and eat at all the places I wanted to. Not only that other people were (seemingly) not as obsessed with food as I was, and some of them offered to cook for me, which is something I would never say no to, there was so much food I could eat until I get to the point that nothing would fit in my body anymore (the state I experienced almost every day in Italy)

At last, a day before I travelled back to England, I got to visit the bakery to have my second breakfast/first lunch (yes, second lunch followed like two hours later.)


Mid-morning, I walked along the street of Bologna with no hurries, the only plan for today, my last day in this country, was to eat good food. And so I arrived at my destination. A rather modern one-unit bakery with an eye-catching brand identity, created by one of the bakers and founders of this bakery, who was also a graphic designer. On display were endless choices of deliciousness, from gooey dark chocolate brownies with crispy cracking top to flaky, buttery croissants to focaccia with various toppings. It was a hard choice I had to make. At the end, I opted for something savoury, a slice to focaccia topped with fresh cherry tomatoes.


Though that fig and walnut ‘escargot’ was very tempting.

I somehow got talking to Enrico, the friendly guy behind the counter, when he found out about my passion for good sourdough bread and that I also bake sourdough bread in Leeds. After finishing a piece of soft and chewy focaccia, I ended up trying the fig and walnut pastry, which, let me tell you, is a must when you visit this bakery. The dough was flaky and caramelised, and the filling was full-on. Big chunks of walnuts and chopped dried figs, they give you all they have and it was just simply delicious.


Their lunchtime pizzas also looked very mouthwatering, to bad I couldn’t fit in any more food in my little tummy.

Then Enrico told me the short history of this bakery.

Four friends from different parts of Italy came together while they were studying at University of Gastronomical Science, founded by Slow Food organisation. What stye had in common was their love for good bread, which was hard to find in Bologna. So 8 months ago, Forno Brisa was born. They used many different types of local grains sourced from all around Italy, including rye, durum and emmer. I had a quick tour around the bakery and chatted with other bakers at the back, who gave me loads of recommendation (food-wise) I would need to come back and try them all out next time.


And just like that, two hours later, we sort of became friends.

I came back here the next morning, before taking a bus to the airport. Enrico gave me a loaf of emmer bread to bring back to Leeds and let the guys at the bakery try them. The flavour was so sweet and complex it was fascinating to know that the only ingredients in there were flour, water, salt and sourdough starter.


In such a short amount of time and I felt so much sense of belonging, at this bakery and with all these lovely people who welcomed me to their community of good food lover. Not only at the bakery but Bologna itself was so kind to me, or at least all the people I met here were.

That was why I decided to follow my feeling and come back here for my Erasmus exchange semester. As simple and quick as that.

So Bolgona, see you again very soon.

Sara / Scottish

So the first person wiped away my bad experience in Bologna was Sara, a Scottish mathematician who had been living in Italy for a year. I swear I learned a lot more about Bologna and its food from her than my Italian host who had been living in this area for more than ten years.

I first met Sara in York, when I was couchsurfing at her place out of boredom (who else from Leeds would couchsurf in York otherwise?) We got on really well and kept in touch every now and then. We didn’t manage to meet again since she moved to Italy, but here I was in the city she lived, and we arranged to meet.


She showed me the wonderful sides of Bologna. We had Piadina, a tradition Italian flatbread from the region of Romagna, filled with different fillings which you could customised yourself. Followed by a gelato at Lilasù, where I had this amazing salted peanuts gelato in a real waffle cone.

Yes, they have a thing in Bologna where every gelateria uses this shitty, plastic-tasting waffle cone.

We walked a lot, and met up with her friends, had some really yummy focaccia for dinner before going to this lovely piano recital in a museum’s courtyard. Her friend, Antonio from Sicily, came and joined us, then we roamed Bologna at night together. Thanks to Antonio, we ended up in this Sicilian deli/bar where everyone seemed to be from Sicily, and more specifically the town of Messina where Antonio came from.

Except this one guy from Naples though.

It was an authentic experience. We ended the night with a drive up to San Luca at two in the morning before going home.

I slept like a baby until almost twelve, it was a rare occasion for me to wake up this late.

We met up a few more times after I got myself out of the farm and couchsurfed different people in Bologna. For once during this whole trip, I felt like I was, to a certain extend, being taken care of. It was just what I needed in that moment.

Whether it would be in Italy or Scotland, I’m pretty sure we will manage to meet again.


Heidi / German

When I got back to the farm after spending the weekend with Sara, I decided I wanted to leave. As soon as I could. Bologna had so much to offer and being at the farm was just a waste of time for me.

I set no expectation, so when Heidi got back to me I was over the moon, and I started packing my back straight away.

On the next day, a warm and sunny Monday, I waved goodbye to the farm for good.

So many gelaterias and places to eat were waiting for me in Bologna!

Heidi was an Erasmus student from Germany. She was so German from the first moment we met and it was impossible to mistake that. It made me miss Germany a little bit I have to say.

She arrived in Bologna around two weeks ago, with no place to stay, and ended up couchsurfing this guy for a week, then she couch surfed another girl’s flat just to find out that one of the rooms in that flat was free.

So she ended up staying there, renting a flat with her couchsurfer host!


After our early lunch, we took a nap and went out for a gelato at Sorbole, I had the most incredible vegan dark chocolate orange gelato ever. It was amazing.

That evening, Heidi bumped into her ex-host (who she spent her first week here with) with his new couchsurfer from Taiwan (who travelled around Europe for 2 months with a tiny backpack the size of my daypack.) He invited us to have pizza at his place, a lovely apartment in the city centre with a roof terrace where we sat outside, enjoying our pizza and wine under the stars.

What a life.


Lisa / Roman

Lisa was a character, and she was young at heart, just like Sara.

The difference was that she was very Italian.

She was an Italian with lots of experience. A salsa dance teacher, bartender, chef’s girlfriend (hence all the good recipes she had) and Italian teacher. Now she’s learning French because it has always been her dream to speak this beautiful language.


Her one-bedroom apartment was in the middle of university quarter. I was lucky that she didn’t have her French class on the evening I visited so we had a bit more time to hang out. Turned out that she did the Vipassana course over the new year this year as well. Despite our age difference, we had a lot in common, and our conversation ranged from childhood memories to education system. Lisa also had great knowledge of Italy and its amazing food from different regions.

We went out for some aperitif in the evening at a bar called ‘Senza Nome’ or no name in Italian. There were two amazing things about this specific bar behind Mercato delle Erbe. First, the aperitif buffet was incredible cheap and tasty. We had a small beer which costed 2.5 euro, plus an empty plate to put food in for a euro, and we could eat as much from the buffet line as we wanted. There were couscous with pesto and tomatoes, lots of green veggie dishes and different kinds of salad, also some sandwiches with cheese and proschiutto and yummy roasted peanuts in the shells.

It was a great dinner, all for the price of 3.5 euros.

Another great thing here was its concept. This bar is run by a community of deaf people, the first and only one of its kind in Italy.

Great food, good company. What else could I ask for?

The next day, we had some lunch together. Lisa made some yummy pasta with pumpkin and pumpkin flowers, and I tried the best onions I’ve ever had in my life. They were so sweet even when I ate it raw. So delicious that I wanted to bring these Calabrian onions back to England with me.

I had such a great time with Lisa, learned a lot about Italian food (and language) from her. And also which pizzeria to visit when I go to Rome again next time, it’s her brother-in-law’s one!


Ambra / Piedmontese

My last host for the trip, just when I was running out of energy to meet new people, she radiated her cheerfulness and shared it with me.

Ambra was one of the sweetest person I met, and I could feel her brightness through her voice, even before I saw her face. Even though I only spent like 5 minutes with her when we first met, as I was running late to go and meet up with Sara. She was very understanding, and all her flatmates were no less friendly than her.

Back in the flat, after two hours, the coffee was brewing in her Moka pot for the tiramisu she was making for dinner later today.

We hung out and talked for a while before she had to leave for her Tai Chi class. She let me stay at home and regain my energy, which was just how I wanted to spend my last afternoon in Bologna. It has been a long trip after all.

When she got back in the evening, she made some vegetable pasta and we had dinner together with her housemates. They were all students, two on master degree in Astronomy and two on Bachelor degree. It was a great student-y atmosphere, delicious food, good laugh and a glass of wine. Nothing crazy like those British students getting wasted.

The best part of the dinner, though, was her Tiramisu. It was the best I have ever eaten in my life. I had to ask her for the recipe straight away (and now I’ve got in my journal!) Even her flatmate from Rome said it was ‘better than Pompi’

I really loved how people here cared so much about food, even though the students with low budget, they still bought some things organic and local, and cooked this amazing meal.

The rest of the night was spent talking about travelling and all the random stuff. Ambra had this really great ‘I don’t care’ attitude. She didn’t drink alcohol, simply because it didn’t taste good. And she would go out only when she wanted to, otherwise she was perfectly happy chilling in her bed reading book. She didn’t care what people would think of her, and I loved that.

She also spent her whole summer holiday workawaying and travelling around Ireland, cooking proper food for her host, hitchhiked and couchsurfed her way around. It sounded like an amazing experience, and she did enjoy very much.

The next morning, I had to wake up early to get ready and take a bus to catch my flight. So I had less than 3 hours of sleep and I woke up exhausted. When I got out of the bathroom, Ambra was preparing all kind of breakfast stuff on the table, and I was well fuelled. Apart from the best tiramisu, she also had the best honey I have ever had, again, in my entire life. Bitter wildflower honey with a small hint of molasses was just the perfect combination of sweetness and flavour.

If I were to buy any honey to bring back home, this would be it.

And it was made by her friend’s sister.

She said I could take that jar home and she’d buy another one. I was so close to doing that, but no, I felt like I would love to give back to people before receiving more from them.

In the past five days in Bologna, I have accepted unmeasurable amount of kindness from people many would classify as strangers. I left this country with my heart filled with joy and happiness. Liveliness radiated from me, and I travel back to England with a smile painted on my face.

I knew that this happiness wouldn’t last, but as long as it did I cherished every moment.

And I knew I should be back here, soon enough, one day.

After two and a half weeks of hiding and retreating in the mountains, lush, green nature and unpolluted air of the dolomites, I left my sanctuary behind and headed to the city.

In search for the good food, in Italy’s capital of food.

Bologna.

Five hours on a bus and two trains, plus a bit of running through Bologna Central Station, gasping for air and trying to catch my connection, just in time when it was scheduled to leave…

only to find out that it was 10 minutes late.

I was standing at Rastignano train stop, waiting with my two best friends, mother and daughter rucksacks, for my host to pick me up. The city life was overwhelming.

At least the farm had quite a bit of green and nature around. And one unfriendly cat.

The farm/agriturismo, was not quite what I expected to find. I came here, to the part of Italy, specifically to learn about food. (Obviously the landscape was no where compare to South Tyrol) On the farm description, it said that there was a small restaurant as a part of the business. Only when I got there that I found out he stopped running the restaurant 5 years ago, it was too much for a one-man business.

Oh well, five years ago, you could at least updated your profile maybe?

Anyway, that wasn’t a big deal of course. The big deal was the fact that he did even like to cook. He seemed tired all the time and his lack of energy maenad that I hardly learned anything from this place. The only job to do on the farm seemed to be weeding, and a bit of fruit picking. He took part in none of that. He just told me to do it.

Then there was the grape picking. It was the best job at this farm actually, even though I didn’t learn anything much from it, and I did the whole vineyard of white grapes by myself.

Apparently, he had to fix the bloody swimming pool, otherwise his guests would be unhappy.

It wasn’t too bad, but there was no sense of collaboration and I felt like a worker there. The most important thing was that I didn’t get to learn what I was here to learn. Never mind the fresh pasta (what was too complicated for him to show me how to do it) but even when he cooked Tagliatelle con Ragù, the ragù was from a store-bought jar.

Seriously? And they said the Bolognese takes their food very seriously. I couldn’t believe it from what I experienced.

The next day after I arrive, he also gave me a wrong bus ticket to go to Bologna, and I ended up getting a fine because of that. (Oh yes, I asked him if this was for Bologna, I double-checked, and he said yes)

That was my first impression of Bologna, I didn’t want to come back.

I guess at the end, it came down to our unmatched chemicals and beliefs in the way of living. It’s true, I cannot afford to buy everything organic, but at least some things like eggs, milk or meat, it was crucial to source them well. But for him, running an agriturismo and small organic farm, buying the cheapest eggs, meat and dairy products on offer was the choice he made.

It was against my value, and I didn’t want to put up with that, to live in an environment I didn’t feel like I could fit in, it was uncomfortable to be there even for one more night.

So at the end I left. I left before I was supposed to, by sending lots of people Couchsurfing’s requests. Three people got back to me, and I spent three nights sleeping on three different beds.

It changed my perception of Bologna, it completely did.