The Long Way Home

On olive oil, a Swiss grocery bag, and the route that tells you who you used to be.

For twenty years, my work was measured in resolutions and negotiations — in the careful weight of a single word in a single paragraph that a multitude of governments had to agree on. Now it's measured in olive oil: which producer, which harvest, whether the bottle on the table Tuesday night in Cortona is the one that makes a guest say, quietly, this.

After the last guest checked out of The Italy Edition this spring, I did what I do every year. I didn't fly home. I drove north.

Milan and Como

The road from Tuscany to Como takes you through Milan if you let it, and I always do. Past the traffic, the plain opens up and the lake appears with the mountains behind it, and I still gasp every time. Tenth visit, twelfth visit, doesn't matter. Como keeps surprising you.

I stay at the same hotel every year. Same view, same first walk in the morning, same espresso at the same bar. People who've moved around a lot understand the value of a fixed point. It isn't a vacation, it's a way of checking back in with yourself.

The Alps and the Manor bag

Then the road climbs into Switzerland and the Alps still inspire me. There's a stretch through the high passes where we drive slowly on purpose.

Somewhere on this leg I always detour to Manor — my favorite Swiss grocery chain — and buy the same canvas tote I've been buying for years. A small, slightly ridiculous habit. It's also how I know the edition is closed and I'm off duty for a few days.

The other thing about driving through Switzerland and into southern Germany: the food at the rest stops is better than most American sit-down restaurants. A plate of cold cuts, fresh bread, a proper soup, an espresso pulled correctly — at a motorway stop, on a Wednesday at one o'clock. You can't get that in the U.S., and you don't realize how much you've missed it until you're eating it again.

Stuttgart, and the schnitzel

Then Germany, to see the friends I made on my first tour.

We always end up at the Schweinemuseum — yes, a museum about pigs, with a restaurant attached that does the best schnitzel we've ever had. We go because it makes us laugh, and because old friendships are partly made of places you keep going back to without ever deciding to.

Those friends knew me before I became whoever I am now. That's worth driving for.

Why I take the long way

This is what reminds me, every year, why I love this work. Not the booking inquiries or the Instagram grid. The drive. Como past Milan. The Alps in silence. A motorway lunch that puts an American food court to shame. A friend in Stuttgart who pours the wine before you've taken off your coat.

The straight line home would've been faster. It would also have been a different person's trip.

- Cynthia

A former U.S. diplomat on what twenty years of negotiations taught her about hosting strangers at a table in Tuscany — and what reinvention actually requires.