I’m often asked what my favorite country is to visit. I usually fumble my words trying to think of the most exotic places I’ve been so I don’t give the stereotypical answer, Italy. I mean, everyone loves Italy. I’ve been there nearly twenty times, and yes, it’s my favorite country. Rome is my favorite city in the world. But, it wasn’t always my favorite.

The first time I was in Rome was while I was studying abroad in college. My friend Piper and I decided to get on a bus outside the hotel we had just checked into with our college group. Unfortunately, we didn’t bother to write down the name of the hotel. After a few hours of hopping on and off the bus, eating pizza, and walking down dark narrow streets we decided to go back to the hotel. We thought surely we would recognize it at one of the bus stops. We spent two hours on that bus, driving around the city at midnight in a complete panic. I honestly don’t remember how we finally found it, but I do remember being scared and vowing I would never return to Rome.

Fifteen years later, I did go back to Rome with my husband. I was just starting to enjoy the city until our taxi driver took off with two of my cameras in his back seat. I thought surely he would return them to our hotel where he had picked us up. I had months of photos in those cameras, and I was sad the rest of the trip. Again, I decided I couldn’t go back to the city that had caused me so much grief and frustration.

I guess my memory was short because it was a couple years later I returned to Rome to cook with Diane Seed who taught Italian cooking in her apartment near the Colosseum. Diane became a good friend, and her love for Rome quickly rubbed off on me. That day we cooked lemon meatballs, stuffed eggplant rolls, osso buco, and zucchini spaghetti. Diane and I sat at her kitchen table and she explained how the Italians enjoy food, and the importance of olive oil in their everyday diet. She described how Italian women make sofrito, the minced vegetables that are the base for many dishes. Diane clarified the difference between northern and southern cooking, and her preference to the southern methods that were lighter and reminiscent of warmer climates with fresh fish from the Mediterranean Sea. It didn’t take long for her to convince me to join her in Sicily later that year where I would taste the dishes Diane had described so vividly.

Over the years I’ve walked the streets of Rome many times, shopped the Campo de Fiori Market, eaten pizza with crust so thin and crisp, strolled around the Circus Maximus where chariots raced centuries before. And I fall more in love with the city every time. My favorite place to stay is near the Piazza della Minerva just behind the Pantheon. Many mornings I drink coffee on the hotel rooftop and watch the sunrise while looking out over the city I detested for so long. I particularly love visiting Rome in the winter when you can actually look around and admire the stunning architecture without the fear of running into a mob of tourists getting a selfie. And it’s so pleasant to watch the locals as they go about their routine of shopping for cheese and bread after a morning cappuccino and maritozzo.