Why I Gave Myself an Italian Summer Instead of the UAE Heat
I am writing this from Italy, on my birthday, having given myself something I did not expect to need this year: an entirely different kind of summer. Instead of the UAE heat, I went back to the places where I spent every July hiking and every December skiing as a child, Sesto, Dobbiaco, San Candido, and Cortina, in the Dolomites.
For years, summer meant something else. In Los Angeles, summer was the busiest stretch of my working year, the automotive calendar building toward Pebble Beach, and a slow European summer was not a luxury I gave myself. This year was the first time in a long time I actually did.
Why I Chose to Go Back, Not Somewhere New
There is a meaningful difference between a new destination and a place that already holds you. Research on place nostalgia, the specific pull toward locations from our own past, finds it confers benefits separate from ordinary travel novelty: stronger social connectedness, meaning, continuity of self, and authenticity. Returning to the Dolomites was not an escape from the present. It was reconnecting with a stability I already knew was real, because I had lived it.
What Nature and Grounding Actually Gave Me
Hiking the same valleys I walked as a child, Val Fiscalina among them, the trail toward Tre Cime di Lavaredo, did something rest alone could not. Legs working, air sharp even in summer at altitude, attention pulled into the present by uneven ground and changing light. It is one of the more reliable ways I know to get out of an overactive mind and back into a body carrying more than it had room to process. The food mattered too: simple, local ingredients, bread, cheese, vegetables grown nearby, with a different relationship to the body than anything elaborate.
The Alpine Dream: Why a Space Can Make the Body Exhale
I found a property that made my nervous system visibly relax the moment I walked in. You can see it here. Natural wood, stone, linen, low clutter, honest light. Nothing about it was trying hard, and that is precisely the point.
There is a real field behind this reaction, not just a design preference. Neuroaesthetics, the study of how the brain processes built environments, was given its clearest framework by neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee and colleagues, who proposed that aesthetic experience emerges from three neural systems: sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge. Applied to architecture, this work names three qualities that determine how a space feels: coherence, how easily it can be read; fascination, whether it invites the eye to stay; and hominess, how safe a person feels inside it. A well-designed alpine room tends to score highly on all three.
Simplicity is not the absence of design. It is design that has removed everything that makes the nervous system keep evaluating. A room built from a small number of honest, natural materials gives the body permission to stop scanning.
Reconnecting with People Who Knew Me Before
Part of what made this trip what it was had nothing to do with the mountains directly. I spent time with childhood and university friends I had not properly seen in years. Recent research on reconnecting with old friends found most people can name a friend they have lost touch with and would genuinely like to hear from again, and that the anxiety around reaching out is consistently overestimated. There is something specific about being with people who knew an earlier version of you, before titles, before the version of yourself built for work. It requires no explanation. It is simply recognition, and recognition is one of the more underrated forms of rest.
A Few Spots Worth Not Missing
For anyone considering the Alta Pusteria region, plus Cortina d'Ampezzo a little further south, a few places that earn their reputation honestly:
Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the three iconic peaks accessible via Val Fiscalina from Sesto, roughly a three-hour hike climbing about 1,000 meters.
Lago di Braies, an emerald lake ringed by mountains, best experienced early, with a quiet loop trail most visitors skip entirely.
Seceda, reached by cable car from Ortisei, with views that genuinely earn the word dramatic.
Alpe di Siusi, the largest alpine meadow in Europe.
Val di Funes, with its small baroque church set against the Odle peaks.
Why This Kind of Break Is Worth Taking, Not Just for Me
A birthday tends to invite reflection regardless of where you spend it. This year, mine happened somewhere that let the reflection land: mountains, simple design, old friends, a place that remembers an earlier version of me. Returning to a place that already holds meaning is not a lesser choice than discovering somewhere new. It may offer something a new destination cannot.
Frequently Asked Questions
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A. Research on place nostalgia suggests revisiting a personally meaningful location offers distinct psychological benefits, including stronger social connectedness, sense of meaning, and continuity of self, that are separate from the restorative effects of visiting somewhere new. Both have value, but they are not interchangeable.
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A. Neuroaesthetics is the study of how the brain processes beauty and built environments. Research from the University of Pennsylvania's Anjan Chatterjee describes spaces as feeling restful when they score highly on coherence, fascination, and hominess. Natural materials and uncluttered design tend to satisfy these qualities, giving the nervous system less to evaluate and more room to settle.
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A. These towns sit in the Alta Pusteria, or Upper Puster Valley, in the northeastern Dolomites of South Tyrol, close to the Austrian border. The area is the gateway to the Sesto Dolomites and Tre Cime di Lavaredo, and functions as a destination for both summer hiking and winter skiing.
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A. From Sesto, the route through Val Fiscalina to Tre Cime di Lavaredo is roughly a three-hour hike with about 1,000 meters of elevation gain, offering some of the most iconic mountain views in the entire Dolomites range.
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A. Physical effort outdoors draws attention fully into the present moment through changing terrain, light, and sensation, which can interrupt the mental rehearsal patterns that keep an overactive nervous system engaged. Combined with genuine distance from daily stressors, this is part of why structured time in nature is consistently associated with reduced stress markers and improved mood.
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A. Yes, and research suggests that anxiety is usually overestimated. Studies on reconnecting with old friends have found most people can readily name someone they have lost touch with and would welcome hearing from again, with the actual experience of reconnecting tending to go more smoothly than anticipated.
