One Week in One Small Town Taught Me More Than Ten Cities

For years I travelled like a checklist. Three days in a city, two in the next, an overnight somewhere in between. I came home with hundreds of photos and a strange feeling that I had been everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Two summers ago I tried something different. I rented a small room for seven nights in a hill town in Umbria, a place of about four thousand people, and I did not plan anything beyond the first evening.

The first two days: restlessness

I will be honest. The first two days were uncomfortable. I walked every street by lunchtime on day one. I saw the church, the small museum, the viewpoint over the valley. By the second morning I was looking up train times to Florence.

I did not go. I sat in the main square with a coffee and decided to just watch for an hour.

Days three to five: rhythm

Slowly, the town showed me its pattern. The bakery opened at seven and sold out of its best bread by nine. The old men sat on the same bench in the shade from ten until noon, then moved to the other bench when the sun shifted. On Thursday the weekly market filled the square with cheese, porchetta and cheap kitchen tools.

By the fourth day, the woman at the bakery saved me a loaf. The barista started making my coffee when he saw me crossing the square. A man selling honey at the market spent twenty minutes explaining, mostly with hands, how the flavour changes depending on which flowers the bees visited.

These are small things. They were also the most memorable moments of the whole year.

What staying still gives you

• You see a place as it is, not as it performs. Tourist hours are a show. Tuesday mornings are real life.
• You spend much less. No train tickets every two days, fewer restaurant meals, more picnics from the market. My week cost less than half of a typical city-hopping week.
• You rest. I came home without needing a holiday from my holiday.
• You get small, true stories. Not a famous painting, but the honey man and his bees.

Days six and seven: belonging, a little

On my last evening there was a small festival for the town's saint. Long tables in the street, homemade wine, a brass band slightly out of tune. Someone handed me a plate of pasta without asking, and I sat between a schoolteacher and a retired lorry driver who wanted to know everything about Seville.

I did not see ten cities that summer. I saw one town properly, and it stayed with me far longer.

If you want to try

Pick a place with a market, a café on a square and a few walks nearby. Book at least five nights. Plan nothing after the first evening. Survive the restless days. The town will do the rest.

Cover: Photo by Max Harlynking on Unsplash.