Sofia doesn’t reveal itself all at once. This is a city shaped less by certainty than by transition, where meaning emerges in the tension between what was imposed and what was lived, and where walking its streets feels like entering a story in progress, waiting for its conclusion.

Catania isn’t a city that performs for you. It doesn’t pose or polish itself the way most of Sicily’s postcard towns do. It greets you with black lava stone, with noise, with scents of lemon and frying arancini tangled with the sea. It’s raw, restless, alive, like the volcano watching over it. And if you stand long enough in its chaos, you realize it’s not ugliness you’re seeing. It’s honesty. A place where beauty doesn’t hide beneath perfection, but glows through imperfection, like fire under ash.

Can a city be overhyped? Or is the hype itself creating a psychological trap? 😬 

Now, before you answer that in your head - whether you’ve been to Berlin, dream of going, or maybe you live there - let’s take a moment to step back.
What does it even mean for a city to be “overhyped”?
When we say a place is overhyped, what we’re really saying is that our expectations have outrun our experience.

In Lisbon we begin to understand what saudade truly means with Florbela Espanca's poetry and Fernando Pessoa's philosophy in mind. A gentle ache woven into the city's soul.

St. Malo: A fortress at the sea, reminding us that the walls we build outside often mirror the ones we carry inside