Purab Kohli
Seeing a country with a local is an entirely different experience. It’s just not the same when you are seeing it on your own. On my trip to Italy in August, I stayed in this little town called Todi at a friend’s place. It was one of the most interesting vacations I have had — we swam a lot, enjoyed the summer and just chilled out.
Todi is about two hours south of Rome and is delightful. You know, someone who loves his country is the best person to show you around the place. This person I stayed with was a politician in the making, so he was terribly passionate about the country — knew a lot of the history, quirky things about the town and that kind of thing.
A great way to discover a country is to go to its little towns and mix with the people. We used to leave home before lunch and head to nearby settlements and eat at the local restaurants. Eating there has made me realise that I’ll never eat Italian food in India again, for sure.
This one time, my friend whose father is Roman, decided to make us taste a Roman pizza. Basically, it’s a naan with chunks of cheese and whole cherry tomatoes. It was lovely — you could just roll it up and eat it. For sure, you’ll never enjoy, or even eat, what they pass of as Italian food in India once you taste the food there.
Most of these local eateries had their own house wines, made their special pastas and pizzas. It was something else. And there’s so much more to Italian food. It’s not like you’ll walk into an Italian household and find them eating pasta or pizza for lunch.
I’m not much of a shopper but I did pick up a terribly expensive pair of sunglasses from there, which I lost within a month. But yeah, otherwise, I didn’t pick up anything else from there.
As told to Sandhya Menon
