When I first watched Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, I fell in love with all three locations where she ate {Italy}, prayed {India}, and found love {Bali}. Who wouldn’t want to take a year off to go on their own personal journey of self-discovery through Italy, India, and Bali!
Eat: Italy
During the first part of her journey, Elizabeth {played by Julia Roberts} spends her time in Italy exploring the beauty of this boot-shaped country, learning the language, and eating delicious food.
“I wanna go someplace where l can marvel at something. Language, gelato, spaghetti, something.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love
“In her travels, she {Elizabeth} discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.” – from description of the storyline of Eat Pray Love on IMDb
– Liz Gilbert, Eat Pray Love {Photo Source: IMDb}
Dream of Italy has some great suggestions for where to eat in several cities in Italy, including Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Venice.
Pray: India
“An Ashram is a place for practicing Yoga, Meditation and other spiritual practices to evolve and grow spiritually. … They follow the daily routine of the Ashram and help with chores while pursuing their spiritual goals. Ashrams were originally founded as Indian hermitages or places of seclusion, and remain so today.” {Source: Yogi Approved}
Meditating, taking a vow of silence, doing daily chores – that’s some of what Elizabeth did while she was staying at the Ashram in India.
According to Conde Nast Traveller, Elizabeth was rumored to have stayed at Gurudev Siddha Peeth in Maharashtra. {Julia filmed at Ashram Hari Mandir, about 50km from Delhi. However, for a more luxury approach, try Ananda in the Himalayas, or head to Sheyras Retreat.
Love: Bali
Maire, South African blogger of Temples and Treehouses, wrote about her trip to Bali and summarized the movie in her blog post: “In the film / book, recently-divorced Julia Roberts / Elizabeth Gilbert travels to Italy to reignite her love of food and life (“Eat”), to India for a spiritual awakening (“Pray”) and then to Bali, to bring the two together and find love again (“Love”).”
{Photo Source: Bali Bible}
Trying to find love and balance {inner peace} in her life is what led Elizabeth to Bali, where she eventually found both love and inner peace. According to Conde Nast Traveller, “if you fancy yourself the next Elizabeth Gilbert, visit the annual Ubud Literary and Writers’ Festival, or find out what your future holds with a palm reading from old Ketut Liyer, Gilbert’s medicine man (anyone in town can point the way).”
{Photo Source: Pinterest}
Elizabeth made several friends along the way, including Wayan, a healer, and her daughter, Tutti. If you watched the movie, then you know that she wrote an email to all of her friends:
“Dear friends and loved ones: My birthday’s coming up soon. If I were home, I’d be planning a stupid, expensive birthday party and you’d all be buying me gifts and bottles of wine. A cheaper, more lovely way to celebrate would be to make a donation to help a healer named Wayan Nuriyasih buy a house in Indonesia. She’s a single mother.
“ln Bali, after a divorce, a woman gets nothing, not even her children. To gain custody of her daughter, Tutti, Wayan had to sell everything, even her bath mat, to pay for a lawyer. For years, they’ve moved from place to place. Each time, Wayan loses clientele and Tutti has to change schools.
“This little group of people in Bali have become my family. And we must take care of our families, wherever we find them. Today l saw Tutti playing with a blue tile she’d found in the road near a hotel construction site. She told me: Maybe if we have a house someday, it can have a pretty blue floor like this.
“When I was in Italy, I learned a word — It’s “tutti” with double T, which in ltalian means “everybody.” So that’s the lesson, isn’t it? When you set out in the world to help yourself, sometimes you end up helping Tutti.“ {Source: Wikiquote}
Bali is where Elizabeth Gilbert ended her year-long journey and where she found love.
“I decided on my word. ‘Attraversiamo‘… It means: ‘Let’s cross over‘.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love
Have you seen Eat Pray Love? Would you ever go on an “eat pray love” kind of journey of self-discovery? Let me know your thoughts on Italy, India, or Bali in the comments section below!
Yours Truly,
Vanessa
