I spent a month between Spain, Italy, and Greece—here is one journey rule I’d break subsequent time

I used to journey like a child let unfastened in a sweet store with a stopwatch — counting cities, tasting the whole lot as soon as, sprinting to the subsequent shiny factor. My most sacred rule was easy: by no means return to the identical place twice.

New, new, new.

Then I spent a month ping-ponging between Spain, Italy, and Greece, and the moments that caught weren’t the “ones.” They had been the seconds — the repeats.

In Madrid, a slim bar in La Latina pulled me in throughout la hora del vermut, that pre-lunch window when the town exhales and clinks glasses. I ordered awkwardly, obtained a small ocean of olives, and watched three generations argue lovingly about soccer. It felt like an ideal accident. By my rule, I ought to’ve left it in amber and moved on.

The subsequent afternoon, I walked previous, thought in regards to the barman’s wrist-flick topping the vermouth with seltzer, and broke character. I went again. He acknowledged me and slid over a wedge of Spanish tortilla I hadn’t requested for. Warm center, shiny olive-oil sheen, onions candy sufficient to make you overlook your final three disappointments.

The second go to tasted like recognition — and made sense of why vermouth tradition in Madrid has roared again to life. (Curious? Start here for a primer on vermouth hour and here for the place to drink vermouth in Madrid.) 

Barcelona examined me subsequent.

There’s a café in Gràcia with wobbly tables and a terrace that wears the precise slice of morning solar you’d need as a shawl.

First cappuccino: good.

Second: a dialog about why their oat milk foams higher if it rests, plus a tip on a bakery two streets over.

Third: the barista waved me inside to odor a contemporary bag of beans, and I swear the room shifted from “pretty neighborhood” to a map of small rituals.

Repeats flip a metropolis from postcard to follow. (If you don’t know Gràcia, a local’s guide captures the village-inside-a-city vibe.)

Rome tempted me in Testaccio.

I discovered a trattoria the place the carbonara arrived shiny and alive, the guanciale crisped to the purpose of formality. My inside vacationer whispered, “There are a thousand trattorie. Keep moving.” My abdomen replied, “No.” I returned two nights later and obtained puntarelle I hadn’t seen on the menu — curly chicory shoots in an anchovy-garlic emulsion decisive sufficient to straighten your posture.

The server discovered I like my espresso ristretto-ristretto. I discovered Testaccio isn’t only a neighborhood, it’s a meals language. 

On Naxos, I discovered a taverna tucked from the harbor the place the printed menu is a prologue and the true story sits on a silver tray: what the farm despatched that morning.

First meal: grilled eggplant with unjustifiable quantities of garlic and a bowl of golden fava carrying capers like confetti. I paid, strolled the marina, caught a thyme-and-sea-salt gust, and boomeranged proper again. The proprietor waved like we’d rehearsed it. “You try,” she mentioned, setting down zucchini blossoms filled with rice and mint—nowhere on the menu. We talked about sigá-sigá—“slowly, slowly”—and she or he laughed at my accent, a Spanish speaker making an attempt on Greek vowels. I wore the joke like a badge.

Somewhere between these seconds, I understood what my rule had been stealing. The “no repeats” mindset offers you breadth, certain, but it surely quietly subtracts depth.

Day one, the pintxo tastes just like the bar; day two, the bar tastes like your relationship with the one who plated it. Day one, a piazza is a backdrop; day two, you recognize which bench dodges the midday solar and which pigeon is the diva.

Repeating isn’t laziness — it’s a lens.

It modified how I packed.

Repeats meant fewer garments and extra rituals—leaving a sweater on the again of a well-known chair, figuring out I’d see it tomorrow. It modified how I deliberate—clean mornings to loop again and watch a market shift from clatter to hush. It even modified how I took pictures. The second go to made me affected person sufficient to attend for the sunshine to creep three toes throughout a tile wall.

The counterargument writes itself: in case you don’t repeat, you attempt extra. True. But selecting one place to return to didn’t shrink the journey; it deepened it. It was like choosing a favourite monitor on an album. You can nonetheless hear the remaining, however the favourite teaches you tips on how to hear.

Back in Madrid on my final night time, I went for an encore. Same tiled bar. Same barman. He glanced up and lifted the bottle earlier than I opened my mouth. “¿Hoy, mejor?” Today, higher? The olives had been saltier, the vermút colder, the room by some means hotter.

Nothing had modified besides me, and that was the purpose.

Next time, I’ll bake in a single insurrection per metropolis. One repeat on goal. One cappuccino sequel. One trattoria do-over. One taverna encore.

Because novelty is an effective way to reach — however repetition is the way you belong. And in case you want a nudge, let the town’s personal vocabulary remind you: Madrid’s vermouth hour, Rome’s puntarelle, Greece’s sigá-sigá. All of them say the identical factor in numerous accents — decelerate, come again, style once more.