The Magic of the Senses

The senses of the journey

There are trips that do not require a passport.
Sometimes, a scent is enough. Or a song.
And suddenly, I'm there.

In Rome, I know I'm in Rome not by what I see, but by what I smell.
The aroma of coffee in the air is not that of Madrid, nor that of Paris, nor that of Stockholm.
It's Rome. It's its invisible identity.
I can close my eyes and know.

Every city has its own perfume.
In mine, spring is announced with the orange blossoms in bloom.
That white, sweet, enveloping aroma tells me I'm home.
I don't need to see anything. I just need to smell.

Of all the senses, it is smell that touches me the most.
It envelops me. It intoxicates me. It caresses me from within.
The aroma of freshly baked croissants escaping from a bakery…
Warm incense in a temple…
The sea when it mixes with the wind…
And also, the sound.

Like the songs that appear in the middle of a trip, without you choosing them.
And without asking permission, they become the soundtrack to a moment that will never be repeated.

Unlike the view, which observes from outside,
smell and hearing pass through the skin.
They touch something deep.
They return us to a place where we have already been—even if we don't know when—
or they take us for the first time to one we may never have set foot in,
but that we recognize as our own.

These are the marks that a trip leaves on me.
Not the photos. Not the monuments.
But the moments that are activated when I least expect it.

I don't know if I travel to discover the world or to reconnect with the senses that reveal it to me... and I don't put full stops, I don't believe in them.