性视界

By AFAR Ambassador Tanveer Badal

As a travel photographer, I鈥檝e had the privilege of visiting over 50 countries. And as I鈥檝e become a more experienced traveler, I鈥檝e found myself no longer interested in just crossing places off a bucket list or filling my passport with as many stamps as possible. Instead, I鈥檓 more interested in getting to know my favorite places more intimately. For example, I鈥檝e been to India multiple times and would go back in a heartbeat. A few months ago, I re-visited Morocco on another Afar + 性视界 assignment, and recently, I had a chance to return to Italy for the third time.

On previous trips, I鈥檇 only spent a couple of days in Rome before moving on to other parts of the country such as the Amalfi Coast or Venice. I鈥檇 breezed through the must-see sights such as Vatican City and the Colosseum. So this time, I wanted to do Rome differently and really try to dig a little deeper into this beautiful city. I joined , and the company created a custom itinerary for me to actually 鈥渓ive like a Roman.鈥�

Through Learning Journeys, I signed up for week-long Italian language lessons at Scuola Leonardo da Vinci. Later, I discovered this was the same school that Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, had attended and wrote about in her well-known memoir. After experiencing the school myself, I understood why. Each morning, I would stand shoulder to shoulder with other Romans and order my cappuccino and cornetto from a cafe and then walk into class in an actual Italian palazzo (i.e., a palace). How cool is that? My class of a dozen included a range of foreigners, from a 19-year-old Thai student to a 70-year old retired Australian man. And within this spectacular setting, our teacher, Marta, seemed straight out of a classic Italian movie–she was intelligent, beautiful and charming.

Scuola Leonardo da Vinci

And actually I did visit the Vatican Museum and the Colosseum again. But this time, set me up with guides that could have been art history professors at Ivy League colleges. I felt like I experienced these sights for the very first time, and in my mind I could envision ancient Romans living in the city as the stories and paintings were explained. I learned, for example, where Michelangelo had painted a self-portrait in the Sistine Chapel (as St. Bartholomew, a saint who鈥檚 identified as being skinned alive) and that Julius Caesar once walked across the same Ponte Cestio bridge that I nonchalantly crossed into the Trastevere neighborhood. I have a whole new appreciation for 鈥渢our guides鈥� after this trip. The word 鈥済uide鈥� barely does their job justice. They鈥檙e more like historical storytellers.

Another reason I wanted to live like a Roman was simply to take better photographs. People love to say 鈥測ou can鈥檛 take a bad photograph in Rome.鈥� But what they really mean is you can鈥檛 take a bad postcard photo. That鈥檚 not something I was interested in — taking the same beautiful photo that everyone else has taken a million times over. In fact, taking a good, original photo in any famous city is incredibly difficult. Instead, I wanted to capture a slice-of-life scene of Rome, moments that would invoke a sense of mood or texture and take me right back to the city. You can鈥檛 do that if you鈥檙e just in Rome for 24 hours following the well-beaten tourist trail.

Each day after my Italian class was over, I鈥檇 go on long walks with my camera in hand, and try to capture Romans going about their daily lives — reading a newspaper in a sunny square, walking their dog, drinking espresso… Through these walks, I discovered that my favorite part of Rome is the Trastevere neighborhood, a place I鈥檇 only casually visited during my previous trips.

Ultimately, I found myself not even needing to look at my Google Maps app to find my way around. Instead, I would look for 鈥渢hat Osteria鈥� where I needed to take a left, which would then take me to Piazza Navona; or I realized that if I followed Via di Torre Argentina, a street lined with Italian leather goods shops, it would ultimately lead me to the Pantheon.

What I鈥檓 mostly excited about after my Roman experience with Perillo’s Learning Journeys is that the next time I come back to Rome (and I certainly hope I do) I鈥檒l have all these lessons and experiences under my belt, and will feel at least a little bit more like a local. I鈥檒l know how to get from the airport to the city center and then how to find that amazing restaurant near the Trevi Fountain where I had the best cacio e pepe of my life. I鈥檒l know how to make my way between Trastevere and Rome鈥檚 historical center without consulting a map constantly. That, to me, makes travel so much more rewarding that crossing another place off the bucket list.

Interested in learning more about Tanveer’s journey?听Read more about it on听, the 性视界 Blog,听and check out听Perillo’s Learning Journey听 itinerary.

Tanveer is a travel, hotel, and lifestyle photographer who has explored more than 50 countries. Some trips have led him to photograph luxury hotels on the Amalfi Coast or the Riviera Maya, while others have taken him on long treks in the Bhutanese Himalayas or in search of lemurs in Madagascar. Follow his ongoing travels on or check out his .听

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