4 Lessons Learned: Liguria, Italy
The region of Liguria has gorgeous scenery, friendly people, and delicious food. With so much to explore and taste, it’s difficult to choose. I spent a long weekend here and learned a few lessons, some funny, some frustrating, some realistic. The more you travel, the more moments you might have where you realize you’re learning something that seems you already should have known, but it keeps you humble. Traveling is the world’s greatest teacher and this trip was no different.
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Table of Contents
1.The 3 W’s Are Never Free | 2.Take The Picture Now | 3.Never Trust An Italian With Time | 4.Listen To Your Feet | Takeaways
1. The 3 W's Are Never Free
The 3 W’s of the un-free Europe. Something that I realized I took for granted in North America and the Caribbean, is that water at restaurants, abundant public wi-fi, and public restrooms (WC or water-closets) are never free here. “I would like a water, please.” “Still or sparkling?” Very few places will give you tap water, and even fewer won’t charge for it. Water in a glass, boujee. Wi-fi, while you don’t necessarily have to pay for it in the typical sense, is not abundant. Not many restaurants and stores have wi-fi, and if they do, will only give you the wi-fi code if you purchase something from them. And lastly, public toilets. Need to relieve yourself? 1€. If you’re lucky, 0,50€, if you’re not, 2-3€. You can’t even sneak in, because some places have gates, but every place has staff who guard the entrances. Gotta pee, gotta pay.
Water fountain in Piazza de Ferrari.
2. Take The Picture Now
Even if you intend on going back to that exact location at a later time, you might not make it back. Plans change, days become unexpected adventures, and crowds ruin pictures. If you see something and think to yourself, “It would be nice to have a picture of that,” then take the picture at that exact moment. Or, if you want a picture of yourself there, do it or ask for someone to take your picture for you. This sounds silly, but some of my biggest frustrations so far while traveling have been not documenting certain moments because I thought, “Oh, I’ll be back.” I didn’t go back.
The Santa Margherita harbor at sunset.
3. Never Trust An Italian With Time
One of my first experiences with this was asking for directions to a grocery store. First of all, the directions were too vague and required City Mapper. But I was told “5 minute walk.” It was closer to 15. The most obvious example happened when I was in Liguria. There was a ferry that wasn’t running the day I was exploring, but I was told I could walk between cities and it would take “about an hour.” Well, it did. Plus another hour and a half. Nearly three hours later, walking through the hilly, twisting scenery between San Fruttuoso and Portofino, I made it to the classy city of posh yachters. So, if an Italian tells you how long something will take, double-check with Google.
Pretending to enjoy Portofino after my hike.
4. Listen To Your Feet
This might sound obvious, but if you’re as stubborn as I am, it’s not. Especially if you are really enjoying exploring a new place, accidentally going on two-and-a-half hour hikes to Portofino, and too cheap to pay for public transportation… But on average, I have been walking 15K steps a day, which is about 10,5km / 6.5mi. That’s an easy 2-3x more than my average before traveling. It becomes easy, then, to get wrapped up in the magic of seeing new places that we neglect our feet. That’s part of why it’s so important to wear the right shoes when traveling and part of why I wear barefoot shoes, which you can read more about here. But if your feet start to ache, sit and rest. Better yet, call it a day and start again tomorrow. Or at least find a park to take a nap in, read a book, or have a picnic with your new friends. One of the worst things in the world is pushing your feet past their breaking point and then having to walk a lot again the next day. Be gentle with your feet- they literally support you all day.
My feet before my accidental 2,5h hike.
Takeaways
Lessons I wasn’t expecting to learn or even write out, but learned nonetheless. The 3 W’s that aren’t free in Europe, take the picture now, never trust Italians with the time, and listen to your feet. Cultures are vastly different, communication can be high or low context, and our bodies need rest. Sometimes, it’s the subtle lessons that we can learn the most from. In this case, these lessons can be summarized as: do your own research and listen to your intuition. Look at how wise traveling is making me. I hope by sharing my lessons, it will help you as well. If you find any of this useful, let me know! If you have questions, comments, or concerns, share them! My goal is for this to be a platform for like-minded travelers to share and help others. If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, you will find that’s the easiest place to interact with a community of wanderers. On my YouTube channel, I will share tips, tricks, and lessons learned from each destination I go to, and my podcast will have similar content in a different format. I hope that you find this information helpful and use it as a starting point for your own wonderful, magical adventures! Happy wandering.