by Anna Cleary, author of Wedding Night with a Stranger (Harlequin Presents Extra, August 2010)
Research can be a beautiful thing. Especially if it takes you out of your chair and across to the other side of the world. Recently my daughter and I experienced the thrill of flying to Paris and embarking on a sparkling dream tour that took us from Paris to Venice then through the regions of Italy to Amalfi.
I can’t tell you how beautiful it was learning about the history, local delicacies and wines of each region. Our hearts are filled with France and Italy and the people we met there. So much of it will shine in my memory for all time. I’ll just mention a few precious highlights.
Paris, cruising the Seine. Also, every Parisian street, every shop, every salad dressing.
Venice…Oh, Venezia. All of it is divine. One morning we visited La Fenice hoping to be permitted inside for a glimpse of the recent recreation of this legendary jewel of an opera house. That very day the cast were rehearsing Don Giovanni for the night’s performance. To our extreme delight the director invited us into the auditorium to watch. Sheer bliss.
Lake Maggiore. One of many renaissance palaces we were privileged to visit was built on an isle in the middle of this beautiful lake. Isola Bella is still the summer residence of the princely family who own it. Magnificent gardens, white peacocks roaming free…They’ve dedicated a little courtyard there to Princess Diana, who was a sometime guest.
Florence. Wine and pecorino cheese, fabulous, but above all for me the Uffizi Museum and La Primavera, one of Botticelli’s most luminous paintings.
Beautiful Siena. Gelato, mediaeval streets and the head of Saint Catherine. The rest of her is in Rome, but after viewing her head we declined to see any more of the sainted woman.
Roma. I’ve always loved it , every cobble stone, every fountain, every piazza. This time I had my picture taken standing on the very spot where Tosca stood before she threw herself into the Tiber.
Sorrento is the most beautiful place in the world, and I must go back there, I must! However, no one will ever talk me into that chair-lift on the Isle of Capri again. 3,600 feet above sea level is a tad too high for Anna Cleary!
If ever you visit Sorrento, you must make the spectacular drive to Amalfi around the Bay of Naples. You’ll probably see me there, sipping a granita in Positano, perusing the china shops or exploring the enchanting lanes and alleyways of Amalfi.
In the meantime, there’ll be plenty of romantic books to take you to those delicious places, and hopefully, some of them will be mine!
Everyone I’ve ever met who travels in Italy comes away with a subtle new dimension, as if they’ve somehow acquired some mystical enrichment of the spirit. Can anyone suggest what it might be about Italia that has this magical effect?
Tuscany
The sea from the 3,600 foot top of the chair lift.
The view from my window in Venice.
Venice
Me at the Villa Carlotta, Lake Como
The view from my balcony in Sorrento
Diana’s Courtyard, Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore
Siena
Amalfi
Gorgeous photos Anna, thanks so much for sharing!
I loved Rome so much though I was only there a day and a half. Being in a city with so much history right around each corner was magical. In Toronto, “old” buildings are from the 1800s…in Europe, that’s practically brand new
~Amy
What a wonderful post! I am so happy for you that you were able to undertake such magical, marvelous journey! One of my favorite “mindcations” is “Under the Tuscan Sun”. In my version, everything has the beautiful glow of Renaissance reds and golds. Even I am beautiful and glowing. Rustic, yet regal, my villa is filled with light, laughter, gorgeous food and great wine, good times and good friends. Only one thing is missing, the perfect someone to complete the fantasy. Will he be a mysterious Mediterranean magnate? Perhaps a charming, sexy, seemingly carefree Romeo? Maybe he’ll be a fabulous continental chef who loves to feed me and cater to my desires. It’s so hard to choose…I’ll just have to take all three : )
Anna, thank you so much for sharing. I was just in the kitchen cutting up the mass of fruit I’d just bought to freeze and took a break to catch up on email and read blogs. Yours took me with you on your journey, especially the pictures…What a great moment in the midst of a day of simple and ordinary things, which can be nice also but reading your experience was precious.
Thanks again!
Karen
Beautiful pics – simply stunning!!!! Makes me want to go too!
BTW – I loved “Wedding Night”
Cheers, Joanne
I know what you mean, Amy. Australia is young too, architecturally speaking. Rome comes as a shock to us citizens of the New World. I think it was Verona we visited one day and saw where they’d started to dig up a portion of land for some infrastructure improvement and had to stop because they uncovered an entire new layer of civilisation underneath the city. Rome is like that too, of course, which has caused such restriction to building a Metro.
Virginia, let me help you choose! If it were me, I know I’d be going for the chef!
Thanks for posting Karen. Simple, ordinary things are what I am most often engaged with myself. My lovely holiday was a rare time for me, and all the more precious because of it.
And thank you Joanne. I’m so glad you liked Wedding Night!
Anna,
I absolutely adore Italy!
Thanks so much for bringing my memories alive again
Anna,
What an absolutely wonderful trip it must have been, a special time to share with your daughter. And I can almost feel the magic just looking at your pictures. I know you’ll create some equally magical stories for us with the inspiration.
Anne
Thanks for dropping by, Nic. I’m not sure I’ll be happy to live on my memories. I really have to go there again!
And thank you Anne. I’ll certainly be doing my best to make those stories happen. You’ve no idea how lovely it is travelling with your daughter, as opposed to your partner. Daughters let you do what you like–spending time in patisseries, and shopping, shopping shopping!
Oh Anna! This is why your special gift is writing. I’ve always wanted to see Italy. After reading about your experiences, I MUST go! And did you mention where your next book unfolds..? =)
So glad you had a fabulous time!!
Robbiex
Oh Robbie, yes you MUST go. You’ll love it, truly you will.
By my ‘next’ book did you mean Wedding Night With a Stranger by any chance? Wedding Night is set mainly in Sydney’s beautiful beachside Bronte, though Ariadne, the heroine, hails from the Greek Isle of Naxos. Of course she does. Where else could an Ariadne be from?
However, the NEXT one, titled Do Not Disturb and not due out for some months, is actually set in Monaco and the south of France. While my NEXT book is set in glorious Positano!
THank you so much for asking, Robbie. And where might your next fabulous book or three be set?
x
What a wonderful trip! I haven’t been to Italy for ages – your photos are giving me v. itchy feet. xx
I’ve always wanted to visit Italy, and your post has just bumped it to the very top of my list Anna. It sounds and looks just beautiful.
You’ve definitely a way with words Ms Cleary. And those beautiful research pictures too. Love you for sharing.
Lucy, I suspect you are looking out on a lovely vista right now that is equally beautiful and would be thoroughly exotic to us Aussies. Our problem is being too far away from the places you European gals can just pop over to for a weekend. It takes us a weekend to fly there.
Joanne, it IS beautiful. And if you ever happen to go, visit Baveno. There’s a restaurant there with the most gorgeous young guy at the heart of it who’ll bring you his own special version of limoncello if he likes you, (especially if you happen to have a rather beautiful daughter along) and he’ll even present you with a long -stemmed rose. Oh, those Italian boys. What heart- breakers.
Thank you Ms Hunter, though really, after reading about Luke and Madeline’s story, my hat is permanently off to you. I suspect you’ll be quaffing champagne come Sunday morn.
Ah, Italia! And the limoncello is to die for!
Thank you Anna, you’ve brought it all back in glorious technicolour detail. What a fabulous trip to share with one special daughter. And thank you for sharing it with us. Love the pics and look forward to the books!
Thank you for dropping over, Trish. It’s lovely to see you here.
Wouldn’t life be just perfect if we were able to visit Italy every year? Perhaps keep a little pad in Positano or Amalfi? Something simple would do for me, just a few rooms with white-washed walls, vaulted ceilings, hand made floor tiles and a terrace overlooking the bay.
Limoncello in the fridge and a nice pinot grigio from the Piedmont region.
Imagine that.
Oh, Anna, what a beautiful post. Just as I was thinking ‘A private viewing of Don Giovanni at La Fenice – it can’t get any better than that!’ It did. And those lovely photos…thank you for a few minutes of sunshine on a cloudy day!
Anna, what glorious pictures!!! Boy did that take me back. I spent two weeks in Italy, travelling to many of the places you described in such romantic, vivid detail. But the pictures, oh the pictures. They gave me hapy warm chills!
My husband and I came away deciding that one day we would buy ourselves a tiny apartment in Lake Como where we’d live for a eyar. Then another in one of those delightful hilltop towns in Tuscany where I could look out over the hills and write.
You’ve taken me away from packing boxes to move interstate – not nearly so exciting
– my love! For that I thank you.
Ally
Christina, it really DID get better. The following day in Venice we wandered into that little church you see below in the rear of our hotel. It used to be the private chapel of the Gritti family. As one might perhaps expect, there were a couple of Tintorettos hanging inside. (Well of course! It’s Venice!) But we were completely swept away when we discovered in a little side chapel one of the most precious treasures on earth. Just hanging there at eye level a metre or so away, without massive fortifications of steel plated glass, was this utterly breathtaking Rubens portrait of the Madonna with two bouncing babes on her lap, one of them St John. I wish I could express how richly sensuous and exquisite this painting was. For that experience alone we considered our entire trip worthwhile.
And thank you Ally for dropping by. I know what you mean. It’s impossible not to dream of living in Italy once you’ve visited. Como, Tuscany, Sorrento…I think it must be that Italians know how to live. They’re passionate about beauty and really care about doing things excellently, even simple things like baking bread.