Cold pizza and pasta from a packet for 23 euros. My Italian vacation

Nicole Venglovicova
7 min readJun 29, 2024

The expectation of my Italian solo journey was actually something like that of a Julia Roberts movie. Instagram and TikTok gave me a certain idea of how I would enjoy the food, the best pasta and pizza in the world. That’s why I booked an Airbnb in a village up a hill, which I have to climb on a bike to burn off all the calories I’ve absorbed.

My journey started in Rome, where I spent a very short time. Not even a whole day. A three-hour dinner was out of the question due to lack of time, so I opted for takeaway pizza from a pizzeria with fantastic reviews on TripAdvisor.

My first pizza in Italy

I stupidly ordered a Carbonara pizza because I really wanted Carbonara pasta, but it didn’t work out. I felt like they made pizza fresh everywhere. I waited about 12 minutes, and the pizza was ready. The seller opened the pizza box and made a sour face of dissatisfaction. The chef looked scared at him and asked him something in Italian. The seller looked at me and, as if gesturing, smelled the pizza and told me in English that it was good.

I was surprised that there was no steam or smell coming from the pizza when it was taken straight out of the oven. I took the box and went to the hotel. The box was not warm at all.

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