In the placid days that followed the relaxation of the first wave pandemic restrictions, my then-boyfriend and I decided to head to the very heart of the dolce vita. The conditions were simply ideal. It was June, so the heat was still bearable.

American tourists were still locked out of Europe, and the general scarcity of international tourists meant that Airbnbs were cheap enough for us to set up base in Atrani, the smallest town on the Coast–and in Italy, for that matter–for a week. Little did we know that reaching heaven required a trip through the hell of the Italian train system.