After I left the Keats house I went to Babington's, the English tearoom on the other side of the Spanish Steps. It was cool and quiet -- there weren't more than a half dozen people there -- and I lingered over tea and a slice of cake, watching the waitresses in their retro long skirts and white stockings.
When I went back outside, it was even more crowded in the plaza and the surrounding streets, and I was suddenly in danger of losing the positive feelings I had started to develop towards Rome. It was just too much: choked with people, choked with monuments, like something a hack director who thinks "Felliniesque" means crowded and confused might produce. I had planned to go back to the Forum; instead I stayed on the bus all the way to the end of the line, enjoying the gradual thinning out of the obvious tourists, and interested to see if there were parts of Rome that just looked like an ordinary city.
I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks
Saturday, April 16, 2011
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2011
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April
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- Saturday reflections
- Welcome to the working week
- Sunday bird blogging
- Welcome to the working week
- The Alps from the air
- The mind is an ancient and famous capital
- House of Augustus
- Aftermath of the ides of March
- Rubble
- The other Rome
- Spanish Steps
- Casa di Keats
- Saintly voyeurs
- Roman fashion
- Rome, Day 2
- House of Livia
- Never look an Ingresso Gratuito in the mouth
- In which I attempt to visit the Palatine Hill
- Rome
- Arrivederci Venezia
- La vita in rosa
- Say a prayer to St Anthony
- Celebration
- Palazzo del Bo
- Padova
- Why I don't live in Venice
- An evening stroll through the campo
- Campo Santa Margherita
- Living statue
- Dorsoduro dog
- A bracing dose of modernism
- Morning reflections
- My own private Venice
- Grand Canal
- What news on the Rialto?
- Typical calles
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- Venezia
- War zone
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- Master Radovan
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- Trogir
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- From the ramparts
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- Field trip
- Let sleeping ducks lie
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- If you see Morocco, I know you'll go in style
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