All Roads Lead (Back) to Rome
13/05/13 17:56
A few years ago I spent a blissful, and exhausting, summer in Rome, living in Marconi’s old and beautiful apartment in the via Giulia, overlooking the Palazzo Farnese while researching a guide to the city. This summer I’ll be back there -- though perhaps not in quite such elevated (literally and metaphorically; the rooftop terrace was spectacular) surroundings -- to research the next novel in the Laurence Bartram series. Laurence finds himself in Rome at the time of Mussolini’s seemingly inexorable rise to power, where he discovers that the British Foreign Office is perhaps not quite as detached about things as they would have liked us to think.
This is, of course, the fun part of writing: a long way removed from sitting hunched over my MacBook, weeping quietly because the thing just won’t come out right (and, of course, because of the pains in my neck and shoulders from sitting hunched over my MacBook, weeping quietly because....)
But one thing is certain: no €16 gelati for me from the Tredicine ice-cream mafia. It will be a large granita at L'Angolo dell'Artista, right by the church of Santa Barbara dei Librari (patron saint of booksellers and of death-by-lightning), built on the ruins of Pompey’s Theatre in the Largo dei Librari -- and right opposite Dar Filettaro, possibly the most unexpected, and elegant, fish-and-chip shop in Europe. I can hardly wait (or perhaps that should be “weight”). Sometimes business and pleasure really do combine...
This is, of course, the fun part of writing: a long way removed from sitting hunched over my MacBook, weeping quietly because the thing just won’t come out right (and, of course, because of the pains in my neck and shoulders from sitting hunched over my MacBook, weeping quietly because....)
But one thing is certain: no €16 gelati for me from the Tredicine ice-cream mafia. It will be a large granita at L'Angolo dell'Artista, right by the church of Santa Barbara dei Librari (patron saint of booksellers and of death-by-lightning), built on the ruins of Pompey’s Theatre in the Largo dei Librari -- and right opposite Dar Filettaro, possibly the most unexpected, and elegant, fish-and-chip shop in Europe. I can hardly wait (or perhaps that should be “weight”). Sometimes business and pleasure really do combine...
