The Expat Paradox: Finding Freedom in Italy's Coldest Welcome

 Twenty-six kilometers separate Biella from Ivrea, but they might as well be centuries apart.

I’ve already told you about Ivrea—the city that dreamed outward, that built its utopia around Olivetti’s vision, that wanted the world to see what it had created. Biella chose differently. When the textile industry that defined it for generations disappeared, Biella didn’t dream of the future. It turned inward.

There was once a sign at the city entrance—or maybe it’s a legend that captures the truth better than facts ever could—that read something like: “Welcome to Biella—but no one’s expecting you.” In 2018, statistics confirmed what the sign suggested: Biella was officially Italy’s least attractive city, the place no one wanted to move to.

And yet.

I fell in love with Biella the moment I arrived, eight years ago, not despite its coldness, but because of what that coldness actually meant.

One day, walking into town from where I live just outside the city, I dropped my shirt—an expensive one I loved. 

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/the-expat-paradox-finding-freedom

The Hierarchy of Mountain Gods

Walk into any landscape that's bigger and more powerful than you are—any mountain, any ocean, any desert, any forest dark enough to remind you that you're not actually in control—and boots up.

Messages in Stone: Getting Lost Among Prehistoric Secrets

A Sunday Walk Through 4,000 Years of Mystery (and Wild Boar Territory) in Bessa Natural Reserve, Piedmont

Sunday afternoon, trapped at my computer, the November sun mocked me through the window. Then salvation arrived via email: a package waiting at the Locker. Fifteen minutes there and back, I told myself. Just fifteen minutes.

But the day was impossibly beautiful—that rare late autumn gift when the light turns golden and you can feel winter’s approach making every warm hour precious. I had two, maybe three hours before it got dark. Where could I go?

My friend wasn’t home. The closest option was Vermogno, the Bessa park, where humans have been digging for gold for millennia. I’d walked there dozens of times, at least twice a year, always on the well-maintained trails. But this time, I noticed something new at the trailhead: a sign pointing toward “Percorso delle incisioni rupestri”—the path of prehistoric rock carvings.

Continue reading: https://exegi.substack.com/p/messages-in-stone-getting-lost-among

The Village of Secrets: Every Stone Speaks in Symbols

Inside Rosazza—Italy's Most Mysterious Village, Built by Freemasons to Transform the Soul Rosazza, Province of Biella, Piedmont

Sometimes the rain knows something you don’t.

Google promised a dry afternoon, but the sky had other plans. By the time I left my car at the village entrance, the drizzle had turned serious, insistent, the kind of rain that soaks through optimism and practical planning alike.

I had no destination, no agenda—just a pull I couldn’t name, urging me toward Rosazza on this gray November day.

I’d been here before, of course. Many times. But always rushing, always with somewhere else to be. This time, drenched and aimless, I finally saw what I’d been missing.

Where Triangles Point to Heaven

The wild boars weren't expecting company for dinner. Neither was I hoping to find myself clinging to a rocky slope in the Italian Alps.

No proper path beneath my feet, just brambles and determination, chasing a mysterious temple that hung somewhere above my head like a promise. But that’s what happens when you follow Federico Rosazza’s ghost through the mountains near Biella.

In 1850s Italy, while most politicians were content with Rome’s marble corridors, Senator Federico Rosazza was building roads through impossible terrain. Not just any streets—sacred paths connecting the Sanctuary of Oropa to the Sanctuary of San Giovanni, including a tunnel carved through solid mountain. Along this route, perched on a scenic overlook that only a man possessed by grief and mysticism would choose, he built something strange: the Tempietto del Belvedere.

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/where-triangles-point-to-heaven

A Rough Week

Ever feel completely wrung out? Like maybe the best thing to do is just drop everything and go for a walk?

I’m currently swamped creating content and ads for my classes and courses. This is prime time—when people come back from the holidays, settle into their work routines, and start looking for something to fill their winter evenings.

They’re browsing courses, searching for a distraction from life’s daily grind. So right now, you’ve got to pull out all the stops to make them choose you over the competition. But freelancing isn’t easy. Students are flaky. One day they’re all in, the next day they’ve ghosted you... Today they show up, tomorrow they forget, or suddenly something “more important” comes up. It’s a stressful time for a teacher. On top of that, everyone’s getting sick. And I’m also juggling a lot of volunteer commitments... So yeah... It’s a stressful period.

Where I live in Italy, it has been cold over the past few months, with more rain than sun. So I’ve managed to squeeze in a few walks whenever those rare sunny hours appear.

Walking In A Forest: Discoveries And Encounters

Liudmila

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16 novembre 2023

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Italians have coined a new term for early autumn walks: foliage. Sounds French, doesn’t it? I’d never heard it before—or maybe I just never noticed people saying it. It refers to that magical time when leaves start to fall, and the ones still clinging to the trees blaze with bright, warm, gorgeous colors. It’s absolutely stunning, but it only lasts until November. After that, they turn a murky brown.

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The Viper's Flight: 1390 to 2025

What flies away is never truly lost. It only waits to be found again, to catch the light, to rest in someone’s palm and tell its story one more time. 

Candelo’s main piazza (square) with one of the Ricetto towers

The archeologist’s trowel scraped through mud in Candelo’s main piazza and stopped. Something caught the light—a flash of silver pressed into earth that had held it for centuries.

He knelt, brushed carefully with fingers that knew how to coax history from dirt. A coin emerged: sesino di Gian Galeazzo, Milano 1390. The viper of the Visconti, fierce and unmistakable, is still visible after 635 years in darkness.

Late spring, 1390. The same piazza, but different.

Yesterday’s rain had finally stopped, leaving the world washed clean. The air tasted sweet. Ginevra emerged from the narrow cobbled street into the brightness of the square, and in her palm lay the sesino—warm from her hand, catching the morning sun like a small promise.

Continue reading https://exegi.substack.com/p/the-vipers-flight-1390-to-2025