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The appropriately named WOW Room at Borgo del Gazzano, near Parma, Italy. The smell hit me before I could fully take in what I was looking at. Salty, nutty, deeply savory. The kind of smell that makes you wish there were some way to bottle the air and bring it home. And then I looked up. There they were. Towering shelves of Parmigiano Reggiano, wheel after wheel stacked above my head and stretching farther into the room than I could see. I'd imagined standing somewhere like t

At some point in Italian history, someone looked at the average dimensions of the human body and thought, You know what would be perfect? A glass box approximately three centimeters larger than that. And thus, I assume, the Italian shower was born. I've spent enough time traveling around Italy that the tiny shower shouldn't surprise me anymore. And yet every time I step into one, I'm reminded of just how little space is apparently required to call something a shower. Turning

Social media makes it incredibly easy to show you exactly the version of travel I want you to see. I can post the bowl of tortellini in brodo in Bologna, the glass of wine at aperitivo, the beautiful piazza and the carefully selected photo where the lighting is good and I’m looking particularly well-rested and European. What you don’t usually see are the puffy eyes, greasy hair and general look of defeat that comes after more than 24 hours of traveling on almost no sleep. And