ROME: ON FILM

LOOKING OUT ACROSS Rome from the Giardino degli Aranci, a carefully-tended orange garden at the top of the Aventine Hill, the sun casts a faded, hazy film over the landscape. Its shades and tones are muted, creating the illusion that instead of admiring the undulating terrain of the Eternal City, you’re looking at a beautiful - yet threadbare - stage mural. It’s fitting too, because even up close Rome is like one big theatre set.

A stroll from piazza to piazza may uncover an unexpected stage ‘prop’: a remnant of an ancient marble column here, an ornate fountain there. And the colours of the buildings on winding cobbled streets provide the perfect mise en scène: warm oranges, yellows and every shade of pink from cherry blossom to dusky rose.

VENICE

Usually when I'm going to visit a place, I spend a lot of time researching things to see/do/eat, with the ultimate aim of having an itinerary in place to make the most of the trip (not quite minute by minute, but definitely edging on hour by hour). I enjoy it; it gets me into the feeling of a place, and hey, I like lists. I like to collect snippets from newspapers and store images in my mind of what a place is going to look like; I like to be a 'modern-day hunter-gatherer', a brilliant term coined by the travel writer Barrie Kerper.

On the downside, it means that I'm naturally predisposed to worrying I'm going to miss something. So when I started planning for a trip to Venice in February, out came the books, maps and DVDs  and I formulated a plan to cover four days. My planning skills didn't let me down: we did get to see everything we wanted to see, but this time it worked out that we had a bit of flex to do... well, nothing.  It was one of the best ways we got to discover to Venice.

JUST BACK FROM...VENICE

IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

... and there's some serious planning going down at Travel Notes HQ! Ritorno presto...

ROME

The light in Rome is like nothing I’ve seen before. Whether it’s crisp and cold, hazy and overcast or a bright summer’s day, the city has a unique radiance. As the sun rises behind the backdrop of the Eternal City’s seven hills, the buildings of Rome spring to life in a beautiful spectrum of colours:  a chalky pink apartment block on via Cavour, a creamy yellow cupola peeking through into the Campo de’ Fiori and the warm apricot hues of the shops and restaurants lining the elegant Piazza Navona.

SO MUCH GELATO, SO LITTLE TIME

Travel Notes <3 gelato!  To read my article for The Northern Echo click here