A Love Letter To Italy

I was on the train from Naples to Sorrento and my phone was at 1%. The company I work for recently gave out portable chargers, but of course I didn’t bring it. Exhausted from a ten-hour flight and six-hour layover in Germany, I just wanted to get to the Airbnb and throw down my heavy, over-packed bag as soon as possible.

So I kneeled down on the train, pulled out pen and paper, and wrote down the address that my cousin Brian texted. I got a few weird looks as I did this. Who cares. I’ll never see them again. My phone died thirty seconds after.

The friendly Italian guy I’d been chatting with typed the address into his maps and it looked easy enough to get there. But as I got off the train and walked through the park, I already felt lost. So I showed the piece of paper to another Italian guy and asked for directions. I walked the way he told me for a good amount of time, until another person I asked for directions, an Austrian woman, told me I should be going in the complete opposite direction.

She said she was going that way too to meet up with friends, so I followed her and we linked up with them—two more Italian guys, as well as other people from various countries. One of them gave me a portable charger as we walked, but it wasn’t working. I felt thrilled to be in Sorrento, but also guilty knowing that my family must be wondering where the hell I was.

One of the Italian guys suggested joining them for a drink; and there I could charge my phone at the bar. Why not, I thought. So while my mom thinks I’m dead, because I said I’d be at the Airbnb much, much earlier, I was drinking a spritz with a bunch of nice new people on a cliff watching the sunset. I remained anxious to get to my family, but it was definitely one of the best ways you can be “lost.”

When I finally made it to the Airbnb—which was even later, because my phone never charged even on the normal outlet at the bar—my dad joked that I made a dramatic entrance on purpose. While I definitely did not, I’m glad it turned out this way, although I still feel bad that my mom probably thought the mafia whacked me.

I’m filled with unspeakable levels of jealousy that my brother David will be living there this summer for a study abroad program, and I couldn’t be happier for him. Sorrento is so beautiful it is almost like a joke. It doesn’t look or feel real. It is like it is a movie set or an AI-generated image.

And yet it is real. And we were masters in the art of enjoying life while there, you could say. Well, I strive to always be such a master, but it is impossible not to be when you’re in Sorrento. You know, when you’re sipping a strong cappuccino and viewing Mount Vesuvius in the distance, or drinking a Moscow mule and singing along to classic music, or tasting a delicious salmon at a restaurant right on the water.

It is unparalleled to anything else I’ve ever seen, the natural beauty of that coast.

But there was a different type of beauty we saw that caused as much awe as Sorrento—the artistic beauty of Rome. The eternal city. In preparation for taking the scenic train ride there, I repeated the G.K. Chesterton quote to my family only a billion times: “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.” This was my second time being in the capital of the world, and I’m now even more confident that that line is the truth.

For all the greatness of Rome—from the Sistine Chapel to the Pantheon and more—my favorite part, hands down, is Saint Peter’s Basilica. It is probably the most spectacular place on Earth. Magnificent. Majestic. Glorious. There are no words dramatic enough to express how amazing and inspiring it is. Knowing someone could have even made this, never mind that long ago, makes you both confused and emotional. Many of the artistic and architectural achievements of Rome don’t even make sense. The level of skill and passion they reflect makes you feel the deepest possible levels of admiration.

Not to mention the spaghetti at a restaurant near the Colosseum, which was, unsurprisingly, the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted.

I will miss food of that caliber. I already do. Post-Italy sadness is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But there is still, within me, an untouchable joy. It is a hard feeling to express, but I’ll try: I often experience moments of such profound happiness and awe in life that all I can think is, “I won.” I’m thankful for many such “I wons,” on this fun and meaningful trip. This feeling always reminds me that Prince Myshkin was right: beauty will save the world.

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