A New Release from Barbara Conelli
Please welcome my guest blogger and amazing travel writer, Barbara Conelli! It's so nice to have you back again, Barbara!
Travel Writer's Secrets: Dream, Share, Write
Being a travel writer and sharing my Italian adventures with my readers has been an incredibly rewarding gift I truly cherish. And although I do call 
myself a travel writer to make it easier for others to understand who I am, deep inside I'm a collector of experiences who writes about the precious glimpses of the world she happens to catch, relying on the three pillars of her life work: Dream, Share, Write.
It all started with a dream: I had been collecting travel experiences for years, capturing them on the pages of my red travel journals and through the lens of my camera. But I felt a strong, growing desire to show the beauty and the magic to others. To help them see what I was seeing, to help them feel what I was feeling. Travel equals emotions. Travel gives you an extraordinary opportunity to learn, grow and discover who you truly are. I dreamt of finding a way to pass it on.
I wanted to share all of it. And one day I sat down and wrote a story that later became the first chapter of a book. I became an open channel and allowed the essence of the places to talk through me. I didn't want to publish a guide book, I wanted to share stories of the people who had been creating the real face of Italy through their ordinary, daily life. I wanted to bring my readers to Italy with me. To encourage them to explore and love the country. To understand it, to taste it, to become one with it. I wanted to create a magic carpet that would take my readers to Italy whenever they felt they needed the fresh breeze of la dolce vita.
In order to do this, I could have made a movie. I could have composed a song. I could have put together an exhibition of photographs. I chose to write. As I have said on several occasions, to me, writing is like breathing. It comes naturally, and it has always been a great joy. The connection of writing and traveling has been a blessing. My travel writing and publishing journey has not always been easy but I'm grateful for every single bump in this precious road. With my Chique Books, I have found my purpose, and the only way to describe it is ecstatic joy.
Being a travel writer / collector of experiences / sharer of stories does not require education or credentials. All you need is curiosity, passion, humbleness, an open mind and an eye for beauty. If you have all this in your heart and soul, images and words just flow through you, and one morning you wake up and find it stunningly, joyfully easy to Dream, Share and Write.
[image error]Chique Secrets of Dolce Amore by Barbara Conelli is now available! Read below for Kat's review of this special and inspiring book:
What is love? It is more than the love between two people; it is the love of life itself. In the Italian city of Milan, one of the greatest celebrations of life is experiencing a connection with previous and future generations. Chique Secrets of Dolce Amore is your guidebook for this experience. With insightful nostalgia and personal delight Barbara Conelli takes you on a soulful journey through the magnificent city. With her you will experience the waves of chocolate aromas in a confectionary shop, the pains and joys of life through dance, and the poignant loss of a beautiful and significant statue. In Milan you will discover where the old renaissance meets the new. As Ms. Conelli observes the whole city, "...knows the right moment to say goodbye to the old while opening the door to the new." Milan is a living, growing, changing city, bold in its freedoms of expression, and yet filled with people who strive to find the full meaning of love and life under the pulse of their environment.
The Milanese people are not afraid to experiment as long as the outcome brings with it an aspect of life that they aspire to such as peace, relaxation and joy. As you read this book you will be drawn into that world to enjoy all the myriad features of the city. In Milan you will find a restaurant where you can dine with exquisite taste and purchase the unique furniture you dined on. Furniture that will inspire you to experience the love of life to its fullest, to speed away to the exotic places that thrive in your heart of hearts.
Milan is a place of ironies, for all its strength in wanting to succeed and be a showplace, it has had its share of sadness and hard times. It has grown, going through its growing pains in stages and matured into a city that can contain both sorrows and successes in equal measure while not forgetting its past, nor turning away from its future. Ms. Conelli shows us so many sides of this amazing city that it becomes clear that Milan is a place both to be yourself and to be accepted as yourself by others. Despite its worldliness and unquestionable sophistication, Milan holds at its heart a wish to go on experiencing simple pleasures: a moment of conversation with friends or neighbors, a light snack of cheese and a refreshing drink, a taste of vegetable or fruit-filled bread, a quiet walk through cobbled streets.
Whether you plan to travel to Milan or not, you will enjoy reading this book and surrendering to the temptations Ms. Conelli offers you as you browse through her tour of Milan's dreams of past and present. And the most tantalizing dreams are those that have not yet come true.
Please visit Barbara's lovely website for more information on her books, her amazing talents and her refreshing outlook on life. You will not be disappointed!
