I think my love for Italy blossomed after watching Letters to Juliet and since then, I've always had a soft spot for books or films set in Italy. I don't know about you, my lovely readers, but I really enjoyed reading this piece written by Kate Furnivall, whose new book, The Italian Wife is out now. I do hope you enjoy reading about Kate's research trip to Italy as much as I did!
The Joys of Having To Travel to Italy for Research
The train slid smoothly along
the bottom of the steep-sided valley, buffeting the wooded slopes with noise
and a cyclone of air, before plunging into yet another tunnel. Here the clamour
of the wheels rebounded off the walls with a rumble that sounded suspiciously
like “Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao ….” I was entering Italy and it was impossible not
to start humming O sole mio!
My husband doesn’t like to fly
anymore, so we experienced the delight of travelling from Milan on the sleek
Fleccia Rossa, the Italian high-speed train that whisks you at 220mph down to Rome,
drip-feeding you dense black espresso and biscotti. All high-tech and
efficiency. I was impressed. And even more impressed when I arrived at Rome’s
new Termini station to find a wonderful bookshop there with two of my own books
sitting there smiling at me. I took it as a good omen.
If you’ve never been to Rome,
let me tell you it’s one of those cities where you need time – just to stand
and stare. There is so much to stare at! Roman, mediaeval, modern – all the
buildings jostle each other in a chummy fashion with colonnades and exquisite
stonework. So much to see. But this time I wasn’t there to visit the tourist
attractions like the Colosseum and the Forum. Nope, this was business. I was
there to be an Italian. To hang out at cafes and bars and ogle the fashion
statements of Roman women and the slim hips and snake shoes of the men.
So I strolled through sunlit
piazzas, had coffee and a pastry in the oldest café in Rome, Antico Caffe Greco
– for which I had to mortgage my house – and over the bridge to Trastevere on
the west bank of the Tiber. This is a higgledy mediaeval maze of narrow cobbled
streets of great charm and dubious reputation, a place for artists, buskers,
alcoholics and people who don’t want to be found. Perfect for my characters
Roberto and Isabella. Everywhere in Rome there is noise – the honking of horns,
the squeal of brakes, the wasp-buzz of scooter, the shouts and laughter, and
the booming of church bells that makes you jump. There is a great blanket of
sound that wraps around you with a wonderful warmth.
But I couldn’t stay here
relining my innards with coffee and prosecco every day, could I? I had other
locations to research, so I was soon reluctantly back on a train heading for
Latina, thirty miles south of Rome. Latina is an extraordinary town with an
extraordinary history. It was constructed in the 1930s under the orders of
Mussolini, to be an exciting modern show-town that would indicate in its
grandiose Modernist architecture the great future that was to be Italy’s.
I quickly realised I needed
help, so this time I hired a local guide who was also a historian – the lovely
denim-jacketed Filippo. He was an Italian gift from the gods. Not only did he
explain the town’s complex history and development in patient detail, but he
also drove me around the area, up into the Lepini mountains to visit the
gorgeous mountain-top village of Sermoneta for a scene in my book, but he also
took me to what must be one of the most beautiful gardens anywhere in the world
– the Gardens of Ninfa which ramble gracefully through mediaeval ruins.
The joys of researching in Italy
are so abundant and so beguiling that I am asking myself would I set another
book there? You bet I would.
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