Earlier this month, I got out of a months-long situationship that came to a devastating halt. We had been close friends for two years, but we slowly began talking nonstop and dipped our toes into a flirty fling that eventually led to a fiery love affair. He used words like “euphoric” and “electric” to describe being with me, asked if I could see us living together, and stroked my face while telling me I’m beautiful. Then, when faced with taking the next step in our relationship, he suddenly got cold feet due to the usual suspects – timing, distance, the inability to overcome his personal demons – and couldn’t fully commit to me. The pain of losing him, not only as a potential partner but as a friend, was one that I was not prepared to bear.
A week after things ended, needing to do anything other than cry in my bed, I made my way to my parents’ kitchen in upstate New York to make red sauce. With Taylor Swift’s “Red” album on repeat, I let my mind drift to my happy place: Italy. With the courage of my third glass of Prosecco, I spontaneously booked a flight that left a few days later to the dreamiest cities I could think of: Venice and Florence. I decided this would be my heartbreak retreat: a solo trip to help mend my broken heart.
As a full-time travel writer and content creator, I’d frequently visited Italy, but never on a post-breakup whim. Though I toyed with the idea of exploring somewhere new like Nicaragua or Guatemala, I felt drawn to Italy. I can speak the language, and since I have Italian roots, it has always been my inexplicable safe corner of the world. And while I knew Italy couldn’t solve all of my problems, at the very least, it would make for a more beautiful place to cry about them.
It was a small glimmer of hope that the heartbreak was working its way through my body.
The trip started off on a sad note. On my flight to Italy, I plastered my head against the window in an attempt to hide my tears. When I checked in at the Avani Rio Novo Venice Hotel in Venice, which is located on a quintessential canal while still being in a quieter part of town, a woman working the front desk told me I must eat cicchetti, a typical style of Venetian cuisine. I took her advice and headed to Adagio, a small cafe about a 10-minute walk from the hotel, where I ordered a variety of crostini and small bites. For the first time in weeks, I escaped my own thoughts and got lost in people-watching.
The main reason I chose Venice, though, was to ride a gondola. The cost was a flat rate of 90 euro, meaning if you’re a party of one or six, the price is the same. It was a steep price to pay for having no company, but it was worth it. As I shamelessly snapped photos with my selfie stick on my gondola ride, I noticed the color creeping back into my pale complexion and hollow eyes. It was a small glimmer of hope that the heartbreak was working its way through my body.
Venice was dreamy, but the real healing commenced in Florence. Off to a rocky start, I missed my train by exactly one minute. The minor inconvenience reminded me of how much I had bubbling beneath the surface, and my eyes welled. But as I teared up, I had the revelation that this was the first time I was crying since I had gotten to Italy, meaning I made it two whole days without shedding a tear over him.
Hours later, I arrived at Hotel Torre di Bellosguardo to discover I was accidentally treating myself to a 12th-century villa. The hotel is perched high above the city, with breathtaking views surrounded by gardens. It screams honeymoon vibes, and I wondered if loneliness would follow me here. However, when I got to my room, I let out a happy shriek when I saw a piano. Writing music is my go-to form of therapy, so having access to a piano felt like a hug from some higher heartbreak-healing goddess. Coincidentally, on my flight, I had written a song inspired by the breakup. Is this killing you the way it’s killing me?, the song begins. Now, I had a quiet, safe place in my favorite part of the world to plunk out its tune.
One evening, I took myself out for a long walk to a small eatery by the Duomo, La Cantinetta. My last time there was just four months earlier, as our relationship began to blossom, where I had been texting him throughout my meal. I feared returning to the same restaurant might bring back memories of him, but sitting there this time felt like reclaiming a space, and a city, that was meant for just me.
I wondered if I was giving him too much credit. Was this all too much, sitting in this massive villa by myself? Was this guy really worth the extremity of flying myself to Italy? It’s not like I ever needed an excuse to fly myself to Italy in the past. Maybe this all wasn’t meant for me to get over him, but instead, to revive what I had lost while depleting myself to try to make something work with him.
As my week in Italy came to an end, something had inarguably shifted. My sadness did not instantaneously disappear, but as the trip went on, I became preoccupied in the most glorious of ways: I conversed with strangers in a language that was not my own; I missed a train that forced me to be self-reliant and come up with a quick solution; I met a curly-haired man who complimented my dress and bought me a drink; and I ordered bistecca alla Fiorentina, a dish typically meant for two, just for myself. All of that to say, he didn’t disappear from my mind simply because I was across an ocean.
I still missed him, and the idea of letting him go weighed hard – because letting go meant accepting that it’s never going to happen – but I knew I had no choice. If I can navigate my way through foreign cities in a pink fringe dress and confidently sit alone in a gondola in one of the most romantic cities on the planet and actually enjoy it, I can certainly find the strength to release what’s not mine to keep, as painful as it might be.
In the end, my heartbreak retreat to Venice and Florence reminded me that we do all have a soulmate. But what allowed me to heal was realizing that as badly as I wanted to be with him, he wasn’t it – my soulmate is a place, right here in Italy.
Kaitlyn Rosati is a food and travel journalist. Previously, she interned for UN Women and briefly attended law school, both of which were largely fueled by her advocacy for victims of gender-based violence. While these days Kaitlyn’s work focuses more on finding the best hidden dining gems at various destinations around the globe, she still speaks at universities and college campuses to raise awareness about sexual violence, particularly cyber sexual abuse.
