Born in Melbourne to Italian parents, Cristian Boneto was raised on a healthy diet of polenta, panettone and stories of adolescent cruising in Fiat 500s. He still vividly remembers his first encounter with the 'motherland', bewitched at the thought of not needing to spell out his surname. It felt like meeting 57,000,000 long lost relatives. Smitten, the 21 year old backpacker got himself a Milanese address and spent the next two years of his life working on an intense love/hate relationship with Europe's sexiest boot. When not gorging on chocolate in Turin, competing against Latin lotharios in Naples or rubbing shoulders (literally) with Stefano Gabbana in Milanese bars, Cristian snapped and sipped his way across the continent in a chain of somewhat surreal moments, which included clubbing to Kylie Minogue at a hardcore anarchist bar in Bilbao. Not long after returning home to Australia to complete his Arts degree, he was back in Italy to document the tour of his play 'Il Cortile' (The Courtyard). Several trips and articles later, Cristian finally saw the light in 2006, ditched his gig as a TV soap scribe, and re-invented himself as a Lonely Planet vagabond. He now gets to taste test Sicilian ice-cream brioche in the name of research. Travel tip: Give Swedish pizza a miss.