Confessions of a red notebook

Well, what I want to do is to inspire you with my travel tales (didn’t I tell you here 🙂 ?). But before, let me tell you a brief story from the past…

I clearly remember the rows: wide, well spaced, surely from a second or third grade elementary notebook. The bright red cover peeked out from the desk drawer built by my grandpa, where my dad had studied and that I was starting to use for my first homeworks. Every now and then imagination had the upper hand: thus the stories of my stuffed toys, “The Marriages of Baby Cat”, my favorite toy, who over time had married a dog (St. Bernard!), a purple waistcoat bunny, a third pet I can’t remember. A real “novel by instalments” I carried on for years, up to middle school maybe, and then disappeared in some cellar’s hidden corner…


What never disappeared was the innate urge to tell stories. I kept on writing, whatever and wherever, diaries, school themes, the articles of my very first job in an online newspaper (15 years ago!), my blog Valcuvia Express… A words’ storm increasingly dematerialized but very clearly painted in my mind, even at the time of the Splinder shipwreck that destroyed months of work. Now that I am floating between my red Moleskine and the laptop, I have a new goal: to inspire you with my travel stories, escaping from the world, in pursuit of my dreams, maybe just looking for new exciting horizons and people in a world so huge and complex to be infinite.


Certainly, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, said Lao Tzu. My new journey starts like this, almost by accident: unusual destinations, unconventional itineraries, a few books. And, as a good notebook, a lot of practical tips for those who take a first step in the world, wherever it is.

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