(I Miss Italy Like It's a Person)

There's a particular kind of homesickness that has nothing to do with home.

It creeps up on you, on a grey Tuesday morning when the coffee is fine, but only fine. When you catch the smell of something warm and buttery, and for a split second, you're somewhere else entirely.

I miss Italy. And honestly? I miss it the way you'd miss a person.

Not the postcard version.

Not the big famous sights.

The small, ordinary, everyday things that get under your skin and simply refuse to leave.

So here they are. Five things I miss most when I'm not in Italy. In no particular order.

(That's a lie. Coffee is first for a reason.)

Numero uno: my first espresso of the day

Picture this. A piazza, still quiet. The sun already warm on your shoulders. A double espresso in front of you, and beside it, a cornetto con crema that came out of the oven about half an hour ago.

It's flaky.

It's buttery.

It shatters a little when you pick it up and bite into it, and the custard... oh... the custard is still warm inside.

Nobody is rushing you. Nobody needs anything from you. It's just you, the coffee, the pastry, and a town slowly waking up around you.

And here's the bit that genuinely hurts. All of that costs less than a mediocre cappuccino back home in the UK.

Less. For the whole glorious ritual.

And the best bit? It only takes four words to make it happen. Un caffè, per favore, said with a smile, and suddenly you're not a tourist any more. You're just someone having their morning coffee, the same as everyone else in the square. Funny how far a little Italian can take you.

Numero due: my calves hurting

Yes. Really (although I'm choosing not to examine this one too closely).

I miss waking up, swinging my legs out of bed and thinking, why does everything hurt?

And then remembering.

Twenty thousand steps. Give or take. Not one of them planned.

I probably couldn't even tell you where I'd been.

I was just wandering.

Looking at doors (Italian doors are a whole thing).

Slipping into the cool of a church because the door was open and I was curious. Following a street because it looked interesting, then another because that one looked even better.

My ADHD brain absolutely loves Italy for this. No itinerary. No ticking things off. Just one beautiful distraction after another.

Numero tre: Italian supermarkets

Let me loose in an Italian supermarket, and you won't see me for an hour. Minimum.

The fruit and veg piled high, looking like it was picked that morning.

The cheese counter.

The meat counter, with someone behind it who genuinely cares how thick you'd like your slices.

Pasta in shapes I've never seen before.

An entire aisle devoted to tomatoes.

Food that actually looks like food.

You go in for a pint of milk. You come out an hour later, emotionally attached to an aubergine.

It tells you so much about a place, too. What's in season. What people cook. What they care about. And it's where I stock up on my beloved Cynar for half what I'd pay at home, but I've told you all about that in The Taste of Italy.

Numero quattro: proper olive oil

Not the stuff in a plastic bottle. Never the stuff in a plastic bottle.

I mean fresh olive oil that probably came from a tree a couple of kilometres down the road.

Green.

Peppery.

That little catch at the back of your throat that tells you it's the real thing.

The kind of olive oil that's so fresh you could drink it off a spoon, and your future self would thank you for it.

A drizzle over warm bread, a slice of tomato, a pinch of salt. Honestly, who needs anything else?

And it's olive harvest season in Italy right now (October/November), which means somewhere out there, they're pressing the new oil, and I'm not there to pour it over everything.

I'm coping. Just about.

Numero cinque: the completely unnecessary beauty of everyday life

This is the one that really gets me.

Washing strung between windows, flapping above the street like bunting. Church bells ringing out for reasons I've never quite worked out. A row of old men sitting outside the bar in the piazza, having what looks like a full-blown argument… and is almost certainly just a perfectly normal conversation.

A battered little Fiat Cinquecento parked somewhere it absolutely shouldn't be. The owner? Not remotely bothered. (As a fellow Cinquecento driver, I have nothing but respect. If you're tempted to get behind the wheel yourself, here are my driving tips for Italy.)

None of it is put on for anyone.

None of it is trying to impress you.

It's just life, carrying on, and somehow it's beautiful anyway.

Even going to the market feels romantic in Italy. The stallholder calling out to you. The peaches you're not allowed to touch, because they'll choose the best ones for you. And the bag that's heavier than you meant it to be.

And that's the problem

*The pretty little Tuscan town of Vicopisano*

Once you've fallen in love with ordinary life in Italy, normal life back home starts to feel a little bit… beige.

But maybe that's not really a problem at all. Maybe it's an invitation.

To slow down.

To wander without a plan.

To buy the better olive oil.

To sit somewhere in the sunshine and let the day happen around you, wherever you are.

Italy has a way of reminding you what it feels like to actually notice your life. And once you've felt that, it's very hard to forget.

So if she's been sitting on your wish list for far too long, consider this your sign. She's waiting for you.

And trust me. She's worth missing.

Baci,

Beara x

Five things I miss about Italy when I’m not there