Full Circle: From the UK to Italy via Switzerland, Australia and Spain

Picture a late afternoon in a small British kitchen. Light spills through a corner window onto a flour-dusted wooden table. Tomatoes simmer slowly nearby, filling the air with warmth and familiarity.

At the table stands an Italian nonna and her young granddaughter, balanced carefully on a stool. Eggs crack into flour. Hands press and fold dough with quiet confidence. English fills the room, but Italian rises through it — affectionate instructions, remembered phrases, the rhythm of another homeland.

Eggs into flour — the timeless starting point of pasta, and a small ritual Francesca first learned beside her grandmother.

“You know it’s right,” her grandmother says, “when the pasta is so thin you can read the newspaper through it.”

In moments like this, something more than food is being passed down.

For Francesca, these early scenes were the beginning of a life shaped by food, family, and an enduring connection to Italy — a country that, even from a distance, always felt close.

Francesca grew up in Bournemouth on England’s south coast. British by birth, Italian by heritage through her father’s side, she was the eldest of seven children. Her grandmother had arrived in Britain as a child, yet Italy remained alive in everyday life — in language, in rituals around food, and in a quiet respect for good ingredients.

One of Francesca’s earliest memories is standing on a stool beside the stove, dipping warm bread into a pot of ragù that had simmered through the night.

“My grandmother made it with a large piece of brisket,” she recalls. “Nothing was fried or chopped — just tomatoes, red wine, garlic, bay leaves, and time.”

Then there were the suitcases.

Her nonna returned from Italy carrying olive oil, cured meats, and cheeses — precious treasures in a Britain where olive oil was still something found at the chemist in tiny bottles. Those arrivals were more than culinary gifts; they were reminders of identity and belonging.

Her grandmother did not so much teach Francesca to cook as inspire her to cook.

Food became her compass.

As an adult, Francesca’s life unfolded across continents — living and working in Puglia, Australia, Switzerland and later Spain. She owned and managed a cooking school, a catering company, and a coffee shop. She organised weddings and events. Wherever she lived, food remained a way of gathering people together and creating a sense of home.

Years later, semi-retired and living in a remote part of southern Spain, she felt something begin to shift. The landscape was beautiful, but life there no longer felt quite right. With her daughter settled in Paris and no desire to return to the UK, she realised she was free to choose what came next.

Italy, long present at the edges of her thoughts, began to feel inevitable.

One day she typed her grandmother’s maiden name into an online property search. A palazzo appeared — in Arpino, her grandmother’s birthplace.

She quietly took note.

In 2022, travelling north with friends toward Rome, they passed signs for Cassino and took an impulsive detour. The palazzo was no longer for sale, but the town itself captured her attention.

A generous piazza. Terraced views. Olive groves and mountains beyond.

“What appealed to me,” she says, “was that even though I was in a town, I could still see nature everywhere. It reminded me of Spain.”

She returned later that year with her daughter — a practical companion meant to keep emotions in check. But objectivity rarely survives Italian house hunting.

There was the fireplace. The view. The small garden with an orange tree.

And then there were the tiles.

Each room held a different hand-painted pattern. At one point her daughter simply said, “You have to buy this place.”

In the kitchen, the blue hand-painted tiles bring the room together — imperfect, expressive, and unmistakably Italian.

The house dates from the eighteenth century, tucked along a narrow cobbled street below the Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta. Behind its heavy wooden door lies a history stretching across generations. The original owner was a doctor who once visited patients on horseback; over time the palazzo was divided into apartments.

Francesca purchased the final portion from a descendant of the original family — a sale marked by tears and the closing of a long chapter.

Her own was just beginning.

Renovation was approached carefully and respectfully. Rather than modernising aggressively, Francesca chose to preserve the house’s character. The hand-painted tiles stayed. Frescoes were maintained. Details that carried history were left intact.

The interiors now reflect the arc of her own journey — art collected abroad, furniture from earlier homes, and pieces discovered in Italy. Nothing feels fixed; the house is still evolving.

“I want it to feel layered,” she says. “Not like stepping into the past, but something personal — a mix of old and new.”

Terracotta walls and patterned floor tiles give the bathroom area warmth and texture — a quiet balance between restoration and modern comfort.

Her daughter, now an art director, helps shape the space. It is another thread connecting generations.

The kitchen, unsurprisingly, has become the heart of the home.

Open shelves hold jars of flour, herbs and pasta. Pots hang within easy reach. A pasta machine remains clipped to the worktable — used often, a quiet echo of the child on the stool beside her grandmother.

Open shelves, blue patterned tiles, and a simple worktable where pasta is still made — the kitchen as the true heart of the home.

There are no formal cupboards. Tiles and fabric curtains replace cabinetry. The effect is simple, practical, unmistakably Italian.

Outside, beneath olive and orange trees, a table waits. Francesca imagines it becoming a gathering place for family — siblings, nieces, nephews and friends drifting in and out.

Living here feels slower. She walks everywhere, shops locally, chats with neighbours, and slowly deepens her connection to the community.

“I feel part of life here,” she says.

At the end of our conversation, she offers a piece of advice that feels less like instruction and more like quiet certainty.

“Be brave,” she says. “The things that feel scary are usually the things that make you happiest.”

She smiles.

“I’m a Sagittarius — the optimistic adventurer.”

Perhaps she always was.

Photography by Stefano Notariocomo - stefanonot.photo @stafanonot.photo

Author's Note

This story is part of a larger unpublished manuscript currently in development. Full chapters, extended interviews and additional interiors are intentionally held back in anticipation of future publication.