Io una volta stavo alzato a lungo la notte.

English Translation

I used to stay up long into the night.

I am not sure about una volta ( once, one time, once upon a time) to be translated here as used to (facevo, ho usato per). As always, happy to be corrected.

I take it to mean “There was once a time when I used to …”, as you suggest with the “once upon a time” meaning.

As you probably know, children’s stories often begin “C’era una volta …” for the equivalent of “Once upon a time”, so the una volta can be used in this context.

In fact, it isn’t only children’s stories, as demonstrated by the Spaghetti Western film by Sergio Leone which we know as “Once upon a time in the West”, and in Italian is C’era una volta il West

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Great reply @zzcguns. Helpful as always!

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