This time, we were not the guests. We were the hosts.

On the 7th of March, Adriana and I packed our bags and headed to Palermo, Italy. We stopped in front of a historic villa facing the city’s Botanical Garden, and were handed something no coliving had ever handed us before: the keys. For the next six weeks we would be the community managers of Beet Community, and the very next day, the first edition of Italia Nomad Fest was kicking off across the city.

This is the story of our stay at Beet Community.

P.S: Reading this post while eating a cannolo is not mandatory. But it is strongly recommended.

Where is Beet Community located? Palermo, Sicily, Italy.

Beet Community lives in the heart of Palermo, the capital of Sicily, the island that sits at the crossroads of pretty much everything. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spaniards: everyone passed through here, and everyone left something behind. You can feel it in the architecture, in the food, and in the people, who treat you like family before you’ve even finished introducing yourself.

Want proof of that mix of cultures? Step into the Cappella Palatina, where golden Byzantine mosaics sit under a carved Arab ceiling inside a Norman palace. Three worlds, one room.

And then there’s the food. Oh, the food. Palermo is one of the street food capitals of the world: arancine (and careful, in Palermo it’s arancin-A, not arancin-O, locals will correct you with love), panelle, sfincione, and markets like Ballarò that feel more like an opera than a grocery run.

From colivers to community managers

If you’ve been following my coliving adventures (Anceu, Wonder House, Burgas, Finca la Palmera…), you know Adriana and I have stayed in quite a few communities as colivers. This time, thanks to my involvement with Mapmelon as an ambassador and our podcast Colivers Club, we crossed to the other side of the counter: we became community managers.

And let me tell you: hosting a community is a completely different sport than being part of one.

We stayed at the Botanical Garden house, one of the two houses Beet Community runs in Palermo. Beet was born as Italy’s first coliving and coworking space, founded by Marco Traina, a Palermitan who decided that his city deserved a spot on the digital nomad map.

He’s not doing it alone. There’s Anna Dueck, Head of Operations and the person behind Your Travel Friend (a Canadian who has solo travelled to more than 30 countries, so yes, she knows what a traveller needs), Ambra Terrasi leading communications and visual design, and Alice Ciraulo making events happen. Working alongside them, we got to see how much intention goes into every detail of the community.

Italia Nomad Fest: we were speakers!

Remember I said the timing of our arrival was not a coincidence? Well, on the 8th of March, the very first edition of Italia Nomad Fest kicked off in Palermo, organized by Marco and Federico Violante, who left a decade-long tech career to build communities. Around 200 people, a week of talks at Villa Niscemi (a Renaissance-era villa, because in Palermo even the conference venues have centuries of history), afternoons exploring the city, and evenings of home dinners, music and a gala night.

What made this festival special to me was one number: 50/50. Half locals, half nomads. Most nomad events end up being a bubble of foreigners talking to each other. Italia Nomad Fest was deliberately designed as a bridge between the nomad world and the Palermitan one. It was also impressive that the mayor of Palermo visited us, not once, but twice!

This time I didn’t attend as a spectator: I was a speaker! I gave a talk called “Freelancing with AI: AId or AIlment?”, where I shared what almost two years of freelancing as an AI Architect have taught me about using AI with intention: where it genuinely helps your freelance business, and where it quietly makes you worse.

And here comes the part that made me the proudest. Adriana was a speaker too! She gave a talk called “What the Cell?!” about her life project, Mind Your Cells: how understanding your cellular health (through nutrition, environment, stress and daily habits) can transform how you feel day to day.

See those hand-drawn doodles on the speaker passes and cards? That’s the work of Ambra, who designed the entire branding of the event. Superb is the word.

And the closing? A gala night with an awards ceremony in Villa Niscemi, where we were welcomed by, I kid you not, a Roman legionary in full armor (ok, it was our friend Stefanos!). How cool is that?

The house: living in front of a Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden house is a historic villa of around 1,000 square meters on Via Lincoln, directly opposite Palermo’s Orto Botanico. The main building in the coliving is where the shared spaces are, while there are three apartments that are named after plants (Agave, Gardenia, Gelsomino). These apartments are part of the property and have access to the main building through the garden, but are independent, with their own kitchens and amenities.

In the main building there’s a fully equipped coworking with monitors, a cozy living room where cinema nights are hosted, and a steel-and-glass conservatory that feels like being inside a greenhouse. Which, technically, you are.

My favorite part? The garden. Palm trees, citrus trees, laundry swinging in the Sicilian breeze. We would pick lemons a few steps from the kitchen and they would end up in that evening’s dinner.

The community

As community managers, our job was making sure the community thrived: welcoming new colivers, keeping the rhythm of shared dinners and activities, and creating the little moments that turn strangers into a family.

And what a family. We had candlelit communal dinners, spontaneous music jams in the living room, pilates classes, nutrition workshops, climbing activities, the weekly potluck, and even a cooking class where we plated magenta beetroot ravioli.

We also celebrated Adriana’s birthday on the 22nd of March with a big dinner in the conservatory: plates of pasta on the botanical tablecloth, Sicilian wine, and the garden watching us through the glass. When your birthday dinner is cooked and shared by people from half a dozen countries, it stops being a dinner and becomes a cultural experience.

What can you do around Beet Community?

Short answer: everything. Long answer:

In the city. Palermo rewards walking without a destination. We saw a ballet at the Teatro Massimo (one of the biggest opera houses in Europe, and the ceiling alone is worth the ticket), got lost in frescoed palazzos, and ate more gelato than I’m willing to admit in writing.

In nature. We hiked up Monte Pellegrino with the community, with the whole of Palermo unfolding below us, and when the weather warmed up, Mondello beach (a turquoise bay twenty minutes by car from the house) became the official weekend plan.

On the wall. One evening we took over a local bouldering gym with the community. Watching your housemates cheer each other up a wall tells you everything you need to know about them.

Day trips. Monreale and its golden cathedral. The delightfully unexpected Palazzina Cinese.

And the crown jewel: Cefalù, a seaside town an hour away where a Norman cathedral sits under a giant rock and time moves at the pace of the tide. We watched the sunset from a rooftop with the colivers and I’m still not over it.

A birthday in the middle of a storm

On the 15th of April, two days before the end of our stay, I turned a year older. And Sicily, generous as always, gave me a birthday present I didn’t order: a full-blown storm.

The rain hammered the conservatory’s glass roof unexpectedly while we were all gathering to have a home-cooked dinner. The wind rattled the old villa, and we even had to take out some mops to push some water away. Was it the birthday I had planned? No. Was it one of the most unforgettable I’ve had? Absolutely. Some of the best community moments are the ones the weather plans for you.

Conclusion

Six weeks earlier we had arrived in Palermo as guests with a new job title. We left with the sense of community, two talks we’re proud of, a storm-flavored birthday, and the certainty that the best communities are not managed, they are cared for.

Marco, Federico, Anna, Ambra, Alice: thank you for trusting us with your community. Palermo, thank you for the food, the chaos and the warmth. We’ll be back. That’s not a promise, it’s a spoiler.

And you? If you want to experience Beet Community yourself, you can find it here. Tell them César and Adriana sent you.

P.S: If you were at Italia Nomad Fest and we shared a talk, send me a message on Instagram. I’d love to hear what the fest was for you.