La Dolce Vita Isn’t About Luxury

What a Month in Italy Taught Me About Time, Presence, and the Sweetness of Ordinary Moments

When most people think of Italy, they think of luxury.

Five-star hotels overlooking the sea. Designer boutiques in Florence. Michelin-starred meals served under the Tuscan sun. Spritzes with perfect views and carefully curated moments worthy of postcards and social media feeds. And yes, Italy certainly has all of those things. But, after spending nearly a month traveling through Sicily, Venice, Florence, Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast, and Rome, I came home realizing that perhaps we have misunderstood La Dolce Vita all along.

The sweet life isn’t about luxury.

Not really. It is about time. It’s about sitting at a café table for longer than necessary. It’s about conversations that linger long after the plates have been cleared.

It is about walking instead of rushing. It is about pausing to admire the view instead of merely photographing it. It is about understanding that sometimes the point of the journey isn’t efficiency. Sometimes the point is simply to experience the journey itself.

Over thirty days, I walked ancient streets where millions had walked before me. I stood in churches built centuries before my own country existed. I followed family roots through Sicily and found myself thinking about those who came before me and the choices they made that eventually led to me standing there.

I found myself slowing down. Not because I planned to…Because Italy insisted upon it.

Shops closed in the afternoon. Meals stretched for hours. Ferries ran on their own schedules. Trains occasionally required flexibility and patience. Life unfolded at its own pace whether I was ready for it or not.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting that rhythm and I started embracing it.

Some of my favorite memories were not the grand attractions or famous landmarks. They were morning coffees before the cities woke up. A vineyard sunset in Tuscany, a ferry ride along the Amalfi Coast, splitting wine and pizza after walking miles through Rome. A candlelit procession at St. Peter’s Basilica on my father’s birthday. Watching the light change over the water. Sharing stories with friends around a table.

Finding myself unexpectedly emotional while walking through places I had once visited with my parents years before.

Those moments cost very little, yet somehow, they felt priceless Even my journey home became part of the lesson. Flights changed. Plans shifted. Non-rev travel reminded me once again that certainty is often an illusion and flexibility is a skill worth cultivating. Eventually, I made it home.

But I brought something back with me that didn’t fit into a suitcase: Perspective.

A reminder that a beautiful life is not necessarily a fast life, that success isn’t always measured in productivity, that there is value in lingering. In resting. In savoring. In simply being present where your feet are.

Perhaps that is what La Dolce Vita has always meant.

Not luxury or excess. Not perfection. It’s simply the art of paying attention to the sweetness that already exists in ordinary moments.

For thirty days, I wrote each morning from train stations, apartments overlooking vineyards, seaside towns, and a small apartment beside the walls of Vatican City. Those daily reflections became a travel journal of one unforgettable month in Italy. This piece is only the beginning.

In the months ahead, I look forward to revisiting those journals and expanding them into deeper stories about ancestry, friendship, grief, travel, and the lessons that often reveal themselves only after we return home.

Because sometimes we don’t fully understand a journey until long after it ends.

If you’d like to follow the journey day by day, you can find my daily reflections and travel journals on my Substack, Unpacked with Shannon DalPozzal.