The Daily Bread - my love story to Italy

Hi all!

This is not a devotional piece, but it is a love story to Italy and Italian food, all brought on because I raided one of my Italian recipe books today and am making Chicken with Basil Cream Sauce tonight. Browsing through the recipes brought me back to my travels in Italy. Many of you know my tendency to wax eloquent on the topic of Paris and France, but for sheer love of life you can't go past the Italians. The French as a race tend to be reserved, while the Italians are polar opposites.

My travels in Italy have enabled me to verify that yes, depending on which region you're in, like France, the food will be different, depending on the local produce. But one thing that doesn't change much is the bread. Got to say, I'm not a fan of Italian bread. The real thing would make an excellent cricket bat if it was a little longer. Why? We got to the nitty gritty of this tough bread when staying in Tuscany on our first trip.

During WW2, Italy, like many countries, suffered terribly. Starvation was rampant, with the food going to occupying forces, leaving the local populace short. They lived on bread, but couldn't afford the salt tax, (salt helps preserve bread and adds a softness.) By the way, the Romans were one of the first to produce salt by evaporating sea water. It then became an export.

The hills of Tuscany today

So, after the war, much like the bells that toll at midday in some Italian cities to remind the populace of the destruction wrought by war--executions, occupiers terrifying the occupied, or the bravery of the resistance, the Italians decided to keep salt out of the bread so everyone could remember the hardships of war every time they ate bread, which they do every day, often three times a day.

The Italians know a thing or two about bread. It has an almost transcendental role in Italian eating habits. Bakers are the high priests of cooking. In the '50s and '60s, commercialism came calling with mass-produced bread. Common sense and the Italian love for tradition defeated the invaders. The bakers, the panettieri, resumed their traditional role.

The popular pasta dura bread, typical of the Emilia-Romangna region, is considered to be the oldest type of bread, going back to Egypt, via Rome. The extraordinary breads originate on the two largest Italian islands--Sicily and Sardinia, but the most unusual bread is the carta da musica (music paperbread) from Sardinia. Made from unleavened dough, this wafer-thin bread was originally used by Sardinian shepherds during their lengthy periods away from home.

In my recently-released Under the Tuscan Moon there is a lot of food and drink consumed. Well, they say to write about what you know, lol! Set during medieval times, the basics were home-grown wine, home-made bread, home-produced cheese and grapes picked from the vines. I hazard a guess that things haven't changed that much!

Here is a brief excerpt from the end of Chapter One and the beginning of Chapter Two of my paranormal romance. The two vampires, Vipunin and Cuchulain watch wistfully as two humans enjoy a picnic in the forest...

  "The male lifted a flagon of red wine and held it in the air, until the moonshine lit its liquid contents like a flame to a candle. It was an ancient, dusty bottle, probably a vintage from the Tuscan vines planted on the hillside overlooking this very forest.  Those vines he intended to visit for the vendemmia, the great harvest feast.
  Those vines belonged to him.
  As did the woman...

  Vipunin gritted his teeth as he recalled the richness of the wine he once drank from his favorite pewter goblet while he watched the sun set over his vines. He could taste it now, wild and musky as he swirled it around his mouth. Once his life had revolved around the pleasures of the harvest, the pleasures of women, and the pleasures of wine-making.
He turned his attention back to the male and female, watched as they sipped from silver goblets engraved with a family crest. A thirst more powerful than his thirst for human blood overcame him. He drank nothing but blood, but now he longed to pour every delicious drop of that wine down his parched throat. Tearing a strip of bark from the tree, he pushed it into his mouth and crunched it to a paste. No one would hear him cry like a newborn. 

  ‘Not now, Master.’ Cuchulain clamped him on the shoulder. ‘Not now. Soon. Now I ask you to wait. I am enjoying this watching.’ 

The female reached into the basket and drew out a red cloth-wrapped parcel. Ah, freshly baked bread. Vipunin inhaled its yeasty freshness, recalling the fragrance wafting from the kitchens below his rooms each morning on waking. He recalled sharing it with his betrothed at breakfast one morning after sharing a night of most delicious sinfulness with her in his secret chamber. 

Drawing a dagger-like knife from the folds of his topcoat, the male hacked chunks of the doughy stuff onto a pewter platter. The female reached inside the basket, withdrawing a package enclosed in chestnut leaves. As she unwrapped it, the rancid smell of cheese drifted across the clearing, assailing the vampires’ twitching nostrils. 

 ‘Always hated the stuff,’ Cuchulain sniffed. ‘My parents kept a cellar full of pecorino in various stages of ripening or rotting. I hated it when they asked me to cut a slice for the table. I never understood the appeal.'  

‘You’d wonder at the mortals’ choice of food,’ Vipunin allowed, ‘but it is a good choice to accompany that vintage they drink. Ah,’ he laughed softly, ‘let them have their moldy cheese. And that superb wine. See that perfect bunch of grapes the male feeds the female? Picked from my vineyards, doubtless. Let them enjoy their last meal. They’re only human.’"

If you'd like to read more, check out my book in my sidebar. It's 99c, available from Amazon worldwide. 

Now I'm off to create my Italian meal:

CHICKEN WITH BASIL CREAM SAUCE

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts

3 tablespoons flour

freshly ground pepper and salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

BASIL CREAM SAUCE

1 tablespoon butter

2 cloves garlic, crushed

125ml (4 fl oz) chicken stock

125ml (4 fl oz) cream

60ml/2 fl oz lemon juice

2 tablespoons basil, finely chopped

freshly ground pepper

sea salt

Method:

1. Combine flour, pepper and salt in a bowl and coat the chicken, shaking off the excess.

2. Heat oil and butter in a pan, add the chicken, cook over medium heat for 5-6 minutes each side. Remove from pan and keep warm.

3. BASIL CREAM SAUCE: 

Wipe out the pan, heat the butter, add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock, cream and lemon juice, bring to boil, reduce a little.

4, Just before serving, add the basil, season with pepper and salt, and serve the sauce over the chicken.

SERVES 4 (or 2, depending if you've starved all day doing NaNoWriMo!)

AFTER DINNER REPORT: Absolutely delicious! I'll be making this again with fish next time. The flavours will work well...

Thank you for coming by!

Up! Up! And away! The Write Way to Travel

Hello there!

Tomorrow I'm off to New Caledonia in the South Pacific! I wrote about it here. So excited! Another research trip from which I should glean several travel articles. It'll be fun living and learning about a new country/culture for 11 days while my trusty critique partners review the novel I have been editing forever.

Seeing as I have no time to maintain several blogs, including my dedicated travel blog, I need to include more travel on this blog. I hope you enjoy that focus, as don't we all like to visit new places, even vicariously.

I've been practising using my iPad Air 2 for everything and today was the first time I've tried adding a blog post. As the iPad is my travel notebook--I take photos of everything rather than writing down details--I needed to know if I can leave the laptop at home. Great success with this blog post. Adding photos was a breeze.

I got into travel writing via a competition. Having just returned from a European trip, I wrote about something unfortunate that happened to us--my laptop, which included all our photos of our trip so far, our CD downloads of photos, and jewellery I'd stuffed into the case at the last minute, idiot!--was stolen. You certainly live and learn.

HERE IS MY FIRST EVER TRAVEL ARTICLE--GENOA, ITALY

I love the medieval heart of European cities, and Genoa (Genova), capital of Liguria in Italy, has the biggest--an immense centre of stunning palazzo, theatres, museums, cathedrals and art galleries. Yet Genoa, painted with such bold brush strokes, has a dark side.

I was enchanted by her superb setting--hemmed in between sea and hills covered with terraced pastel villas, but found that in Genoa many buildings are rough around the edges like some of her less savoury characters.


I headed for the Strade Nuove, and marvelled at the Unesco Heritage buildings. I fearlessly wandered the labyrinth of dark alleys (caruggi) with buildings so close you could reach out and touch both sides. I was awed by the beauty of her sun-touched squares where faded noble buildings stand side by side with poor crumbling houses.Fresh food markets overflow with cheeses the size of Fiats, and the memory of earthy Genovese pesto drizzled on silky pasta still has me swooning.




‘You like, si?’

‘Si, I like!”

After a week discovering this city of Christopher Columbus, culture, colour and caruggi, I was jolted back to reality. My laptop was snatched inside the historical and ornate P. Principe Railway Station, where illegal immigrants lurk.

‘It’s always Australians and New Zealanders,’ sniffed the irritated Polizia, who obviously would have preferred to be sipping a cappuccino to dealing with me. Frantic form filling followed…

I collapsed into my carriage, determined to enjoy the trip to Milan, then focusing on snow falling in Lake Como, our next overnighter.

The evening passeggiata ("little walk") between 5 and 7pm.
Take the funicular up the hill to watch the sunset from the
best vantage point.

Goodbye Genoa! Goodbye laptop! I’d lost hundreds of photos, but felt smug about my favourites I’d loaded onto Facebook! And I still had all those I’d taken of beautiful Genoa!

Look on the bright side of life wherever you are, whatever happens! I just hope whoever stole my belongings needed it more than I did.

© Denise Covey 2008


I hope you enjoyed my travel article. I didn't win the competition, but it opened up a whole new world for me.

• Do you like to travel? 
• Do you have a favourite destination?
• Have you ever been robbed? (Funny how I learned the Italian word for 'I've been robbed!' (mi hanno derubato!)  before I left Paris where I was warned...

Travelling with Denise

Christmas Greetings from Paris. My Write...Edit...Publish entry - Feast of the 7 Fishes (Italy)

Hello everyone!

I am in Paris, enjoying my second Paris pre-Christmas season. Now the Christmas tradition in our family back home is to all gather together and celebrate this wonderful time of the year at the beach. In Australia it's always hot and humid in December, so most, but not all, have given up on the hot roast, preferring BBQ, prawns and cheesecake over the traditional fare enjoyed by those in the Northern Hemisphere.

So seeing as my holiday is mainly in Europe, I'm going to share an extract from a book I finished just before I flew out - The Garden of Evil by David Hewson, a favourite author. Hewson has been described as an author '...for those who like a sprinkling of culture with their crime thriller.' That would be me. I'd never come across this tradition before, so my Christmas Tradition tale is from glorious Italy, a very Catholic country!

The extract is from the protagonist Detective Nic Costa's, point of view. I have rearranged words so it makes more sense for the post. And in case you think I'm crazy posting while in Paris, this has been pre-scheduled before I flew out...

La Vigilia

The feast of the 7 fishes on Christmas Eve.

La Vigilia was already stealing over Rome; Christmas Eve, a pause from the rush and chaos of everyday life. 

The food: seven fishes. No real Roman ate meat at La Vigilia. It was always fish, by tradition seven types, one for every Catholic sacrament. 

On opening the door, a succession of aromas and fragrances wafted out from the kitchen, sending a strong sense of urgent hunger rumbling through Nic's stomach.

"What is this?" a guest asked.

"It's La Vigilia, Christmas Eve."

His invited guests sat around the long table in the dining room. Nic sat at the head, guiding them through the spread of food which his housekeeper had prepared. It seemed to grow with every passing minute; cold seafood salad, salt cod, mussels, clams, shrimps, a small lobster, then finally capitone, a large female eel, split into pieces and roasted in the oven wreathed in bay leaves. 

"This is obsene," someone cried.

He went to the kitchen and came back with a plate of sweet cakes and a bowl full of small presents wrapped in gold paper.

"Choose from the bowl," he said. "Then we take a little wine and go to Midnight Mass."

The cannon fired from the Castel Sant'Angelo.

He refilled their glasses with prosecco. "The cannon means that Midnight Mass is not far away. Another year navigated. Another year to come."

An extract from The Garden of Evil, David Hewson, Part 14, THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

WORD COUNT: extract - 225

I hope you liked my entry for the WEP December TRADITIONS blogfest. To read more entries, click on the names in my right-hand sidebar.

Seeing as I'm in Paris, I will leave you with a classy photo of that gorgeous city.

Next stop...Spain.

A Thousand Days in Venice - #book review for The Cephalopod Coffehouse.

I'm about to head off for my next overseas adventure in a few days, so out of time. Therefore I'm re-posting a book review I wrote for the Reading at Dawn book review blog, for one of my favourite genres - travel memoir. I have quite a collection as you can imagine. Here is just one of my favourites...

And before I get underway, I must advise you that I use Grammarly for english proofreading because I really like the idea of Grammarly as a metaphor for sentinels standing guard over my writing, slashing and burning all those typos, spelling and punctuation errors and grammar mistakes, but obviously kind enough to overlook my mixed metaphors.

A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi - a travel memoir

Travel memoirs are charming books that tell the often-enhanced travel stories of people just like us but who get to travel, then write about it, then travel some more...and write about it. Now that's Utopia...to me! 

Another much-loved fiction author is the effervescent Italian, Adrianna Trigiani, who has this to say - "The great Marlena de Blasi writes fairy tales for grown ups." Well, this book, and others that Marlena has since written, are my kind of fairy tale.

A Thousand Days In Venice is a charming story about love found late in life and straight away the story will resonate with many readers. Marlena is a divorced American chef who decides to leave her material possessions and America behind and travel to Venice, Italy, and lo and behold she finds love with a "blueberry-eyed Venetian." At first she thinks she is too old for romantic love and intimacy and wants to run away, but is inexplicably drawn into a romance which would seem to most, utterly impossible. 

Marlena chooses to take a risk, to follow her heart and venture out into a world of new possibilities. She leaves her well-established life in the U.S, two grown children and a beautiful home in St. Louis to begin a new life with a Venetian she calls "the stranger..." 

...which I thought was a bit strange. It bothered me how she called this man, Fernando, "The Stranger," not just when she first met him, but throughout most of the book. Maybe she thought it added to the strange allure of Venice, a city where the idea of meeting and making love to a stranger is folklore, especially during Carnavale.

Fernando, "The Stranger" is at times demanding in his wishes, which was strange since it was Marlena who was making the big changes, not him. He really wasn't the one giving up anything. He was also rather controlling in day-to-day living, just as you would expect of the stereotypical pampered adult male Mumma's boy used to getting what he wants. He imposes his wishes on her and expects her to conform, yet you can tell Marlena isn't the type who would usually be pushed around by a man. I'm glad I gritted my teeth at his at times mincing habits as he did change later as the relationship developed.

As you can imagine, this is a mammoth crossroads in Marlena's life and she turns to her best friend Misha for advice. As Marlena is struggling with her feelings about this new-found love and discussing the ramifications with Misha she receives some poignant advice:

"Now that it has presented itself to you, could you dare to imagine turning away form it for anything or anyone?" 

Misha tells of love she has once known:

"I was afraid that the sentiments would change. I was afraid of some form of betrayal and so I walked away. I betrayed it before it could betray me. And maybe I thought life inside that intensity would suffocate me. So I chose a sort of pleasant, safe compromise, an emotion less than passion and more than tolerance. Isn't that what most of us choose?"

Don't most of us more often than not choose the "safe road" in our lives?  Doing a Robert Frost and choosing 'the road less travelled' can be a scary thought and there are not many of us that have the stomach for it. I've read other memoirs of 50-somethings who run away from their life, find another country, find another man, and live either happily or confusedly ever after (check our the Australian Mary Moody's books on escaping to France. Hot. Hot. Hot.) Marlena's story was bringing up conflicting emotions for me as I both admired her for it, and felt maybe she was a little crazy for it too, especially with 'The Stranger' who I know I couldn't live with for a minute! But, ah, Venice I could live with forever!

Marlena de Blasi has a very descriptive writing style which is beautiful and lush. She takes you right into the streets of Venice. You can smell and see the foods that she describes with her chef's eye and palate and I could visualise myself walking down those same fascinating streets or sitting by the Adriatic Sea. (I've since visited Venice and followed in Marlena's footsteps but I took my own non-'stranger' with me.) There were many thoughtful and insightful paragraphs that grabbed me in this book. Marlena. de Blasi makes you ponder choices in life and imagine wonderful worlds of possibilities that might just be in reach after all. But possibly more so in Venice than anywhere else, seeing as it is one of the most fascinating and romantic cities in the world.

This was the first book of Marlena de Blasi's that I had read. I've since read all her travels through Italy - Tuscany and Umbria. Beautiful. Exciting. Being a chef, she has written at least two cookbooks on regional Italian food. 

• Would you like to be swept off your feet by an unexpected romance?
• Would you give up your home country for your new love? 
• Do you enjoy reading travel narratives? Tell me about them...

And if you'd like to share your Christmas/Holiday Traditions with the writers at Write...Edit...Publish, go here to sign up! Or you can sign up in my right-hand sidebar. All entries most welcome! 

Selfie Travel Interview -- tell me your travel stories...

Hi friends!

I'm more than a little under the weather with an end-of-winter flu, so my usual Monday post time came and went. I decided to post a travel post I've had sitting in 'drafts' for such a moment. Relax and read...

How exciting to see Baby Lit!

One of my little routines is to go for coffee at Avid Reader on the weekend -- a combined book store and cafe -- the perfect business! It's a welcoming little cafe in West End in Brisbane (a short walk down the street from where I live). I read the Sunday papers, eat a freshly-baked muffin, then browse the bookshop. Bliss! The first liftout I reach for in the newspapers is the Escape (travel) section.


One of the other things I do when I'm not writing flash fiction or sweating over novel writing, is write travel articles. Such an enjoyable process, collating all those travel notes from exotic and not-so-exotic journeys and pitching to papers and magazines.

Today I thought I'd post about travel by using the interview found every Sunday in the Escape liftout of the Sunday Mail.  I've jiggled it a bit to create a selfie interview, of course accompanied by photos. Once you've read it, would you answer some/all the relevant questions in comments? I'm addicted to all things travel, so I'd love to hear what you have to say...

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO VISIT IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY?

Home made vanilla ice cream, espresso
 coffee and ice cubes. Ahhh. 

In my case that would be the wonderful world of Oz. My favourite place is the Sunshine Coast, particularly Peregian Beach where husby George (now a popular name again!) and I have a beach house. The beach is amazingly unspoilt, with long stretches of golden sand sparsely populated, so you can always find a private cove. Peregian Village is built in a courtyard square like in Europe, with cafes and boutique shops around the perimeter. The best iced coffee ever is found at my favourite hang out, Baked Poetry Cafe.


WHAT ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE OVERSEAS?

Anyone who knows me knows my love affair with Paris. Geo and I have walked, bussed or trained just about every square kilometre, but Paris always delights and surprises. Once you've got all the museums and famous landmarks out of the way, you can really enjoy strolling aimlessly, the best way to enjoy the architecture, the cafes and the history, especially the literary history. We usually travel in the northern winter. It doesn't snow heavily, but sometimes in late winter you get caught by surprise!



BUT if it wasn't Paris, it'd be the medieval hill towns of Italy.

WHAT'S THE BEST THING YOU'VE EVER EATEN OVERSEAS?

I've got to be honest and state that our food in Australia is AMAZING and it really is hard to beat our fresh produce, seafood, beef and fabulous restaurants, so we've lowered our expectations when travelling and amaze ourselves with Paris street food like yummy crepes filled with what passes for chocolate (Nutella!) and banana or a savoury ham and cheese for Geo. All taste pretty good freshly made. Picking up all the makings for what we call a Paris dinner on the way home from a day walking the streets is awesome -- going from shop to shop picking up a fresh baguette, then runny cheese, duck pate or fois gras,  fresh ham, grapes and a bottle of wine. Why does it just taste so good when you're over there? But that duck (canard) at Bordes de Seine (near Monet's Garden) was to die for! Best regional food in France IMO.

WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO NEXT?

Looking up to the kasbah in Tangier

Five weeks in Dec/Jan -- beginning with a few days in Amsterdam, then 2 weeks in Paris north this time - staying at Euro Disney, but our days will be spent in Paris, returning to the Champagne region and Belgium (Bruges). Then the fast train to Malaga, Spain, with a short stint across to Tangier in Morocco, then Portugal. Not at all exhausting, lol!


DO YOU HAVE A BUCKET LIST DESTINATION?
Many. On the agenda is an extended tour including Alaska, Canada, the East Coast of the US. Scandinavia is another drawcard...well, anywhere we haven't been is on the bucket list.


WORST PLACE YOU'VE STAYED?
Chuisi in Tuscany, Italy. Geo liked the idea of a rustic 16th Century fishing hut beside Lake Trasimeno (Where Hannibal ambushed the Romans), and close to a couple of hill towns we'd read about. Not a good idea in winter! The hut was owned by an Aussie who was cosily warm back home. We arrived after dark to find the only heating was from a little wood stove, but there was no wood cut down to size, so our first task was to ring the agents and the best they could do was drive over with a tomahawk. The bedroom was so cold the ceiling dripped condensation all over us. That said, the position was fabulous and we have lots of fond memories. No bad travel experience ever feels bad when you look back on it. There's a story in that one but I haven't written it yet.

BIG CITY HOTEL, BnB, IGLOO, TENT..?
When I travel, I like to go like blazes all day, and really appreciate a hotel at the end of the day to fully chill. I've stayed in BnBs, but don't like being met at the door and asked to report on my whole day before being allowed to head for my room to relax! (This happened to us in the Loire Valley -- horrendous!)

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN'T TRAVEL WITHOUT?
Comfy shoes that feel like runners, but are stylish enough not to be frowned on in Paris, lol!!

WHAT HAS TRAVEL TAUGHT YOU?
That the world is populated with people who are much the same everywhere, and language isn't a huge barrier. We shared a railway carriage back to Chiusi from Pompeii one night and as well as we Aussies, there was an Italian, a German, a Spanish family and a Bulgarian guy, yet we communicated well somehow and it was fabulous! I don't have horror stories -- nearly everyone we've met has been lovely (well, except for that nasty ticket seller in Rome's Termini (main railway station). But Rome's Termini is best avoided! Being chased by totes is pretty challenging, especially when your eyes are smarting from pollution and cars are parked anywhere and everywhere across footpaths and 'pedestrian' crossings! LOL!

But my travel philosophy is that it's not about arriving somewhere new, it's the journey to somewhere new. Enjoy every moment, or if that's not possible, laugh about it later!!

• So I hope you enjoyed reading my travel post. Please tell me about your travels or your dreams of travels...or do you have any travel questions?

A huge thank you to all the awesome people who posted for August's  Write...Edit...Publish  inaugural blogfest. What a lot of super entries to read. The September linky for MOVING ON will go live early September. Please consider joining this group of enthusiastic bloggers.

Does travel make our stories better? Paris, Italy, Hugh Jackman...er...Outback Queensland anyone?

Ah...ever since a family friend kept me supplied with cartons of Mills & Boon novels when I was about 13, I've been hooked--on exotic places. At 13 I wasn't so much thinking about boys, but the M&B stories certainly made me hard to please on that front, (not too many Italian Counts or French Dukes in Oz), but I was more hooked on the novels' settings.

SETTINGS! Yes! These handy little books took me to islands in Greece with sparkling white houses and brightly-painted blue doors dazzling in the sun--took me to lakes in Italy, chateaux in France bursting with vineyards, castles in England, haciendas in Spain. All of these were very exotic to a teenager who'd grown up in country Queensland. My state was only 100+ years old--we'd never build chateaux, our vineyards were well in the future, our 'haciendas' were plain old cattle properties with falling-down homesteads where women cried over lack of water to grow flowers.

So...I couldn't wait to finish my education and hit the road to places unknown...and that's a journey that never ends for me. But coupled with my love of soaking up new cultures, new lands, I find so much inspiration in exotic places that it turns up in my stories, it often is my story. I've just sent off a micro fiction hoping it will be one of 14 chosen to be printed on a cushion at the Queensland Writers Festival. It was influenced by Paris. My LETTERS story still under construction for the current RomanticFridayWriters challenge is set during the war on the Western Front near Ypres, Belgium. (Yep, been to the Flanders Fields, what a privilege!)

No! No! No! I can see you shaking your head--you don't have to travel to find exotic settings--your homegrown setting is exotic to everyone but you, and no one can write about your local area like you can, and I love reading your stories set in the places you inhabit. Look at Kittie Howard and her Louisiana stories. Roland Yeomans and his New Orleans' stories, Joy Campbell and her Jamican stories, just for starters! Love them! Now Harlequin Escape is actually asking for stories set in Outback Queensland! So my state has finally become exotic enough for readers! Nothing like dust, horses, snakes, with a few handsome, rugged stockmen and station owners thrown in, is there? (Think Hugh Jackman in Australia, the movie --okay, had to get him in somewhere. Much better than a foppish French Duke IMO).

Now, what's that picture of Paris bits and pieces doing here?

Those who travel a lot have their favourite places, and as most of you know, mine is Paris. If I see 'Paris' in a book title, or it's mentioned in the blurb, I must have it. Murder in Paris, Lunch in Paris, Rats in Paris Sewers...whatever...Browsing one of the excellent indie bookshops in West End on the weekend (Avid Reader), I see a little gift from Edward Rutherford.

Italy comes a close second to Paris--why do I devour each of Donna Leon's Commisario Brunetti books? Because Venice is the main character. Once you've been to Venice and have lost yourself in the backstreets, the canals and the bridges, reading about these in a great story is the next best thing. I've just picked up her latest, Jewels of Paradise. Looks like Brunetti doesn't feature for once. Okay, how come I can read so much? Well, I don't sleep much, sleep is over rated.

But be prepared to cop flak if you add objects to your settings that aren't actually there. Tourists to Corona, Italy, (the setting for Under the Tuscan Sun), complain vehemently when they can't find the fountain which featured in the touching La Dolce Vita scene in the movie. I've been to Corona, and nup, it's not there! But the villa, Bramasole, is.

So...where is this going? In future posts, I'm going to hopefully snaffle some authors and get them to tell us all how travel has enriched their stories or how they've played their local setting for all it's worth. Hope you'll pop by to hear what they have to say.

Meanwhile, you can also make money by selling your travel stories to magazines. Sometimes they pay money, sometimes they pay with a subscription to the mag, sometimes they gift you with travel-related gadgets or luggage. All good.


What do you think?

• Do you often/sometimes choose books just because of the setting? 
• Do you write books as a result of your travels? Or do you think of a preferred setting then travel for research?
• Do you prefer settings that no amount of travel provides -- sci-fi land, fantasyland, steampunk??

A WRITER'S LIFE

Just reading a news article by a local writer who points out that yes, it's hard work writing a book, quite miraculous to get it published, but the real slog begins as you try to get your work reviewed and sold. She told horror stories about out of a crowd of 20,000 at a writer's event, only 2 turned up to hear her speak about her book on Italy. Turns out they just wanted info on the trains from Milan. Bit hard to take.

So obviously those of us who've chosen to write have chosen a pretty tricky ride. But we can't help ourselves ourselves, can we?

Still working on my article for gonomad online travel site. I'm so verbose. Just cutting it down from 4,000 words to the required under 2,000 is a task and a half.

Happy writing everyone!

An Aussie Loses it in Genova, Italy

I love the medieval heart of European cities, and Genoa (Genova), capital of Liguria in Italy, has the biggest--an immense centre of stunning palazzo, theatres, museums, cathedrals and art galleries. Yet Genoa, painted with such bold brush strokes, has a dark side.

I was enchanted by her superb setting--hemmed in between sea and hills covered with terraced pastel villas, but found that in Genoa many buildings are rough around the edges like some of her less savoury characters.

I headed for the Strade Nuove, and marvelled at the Unesco Heritage buildings. I fearlessly wandered the labyrinth of dark alleys (caruggi) with buildings so close you could reach out and touch both sides. I was awed by the beauty of her sun-touched squares where faded noble buildings stand side by side with poor crumbling houses.
Fresh food markets overflow with cheeses the size of Fiats, and the memory of earthy Genovese pesto drizzled on silky pasta still has me swooning.

‘You like, si?’

‘Si, I like!”

After a week discovering this city of Christopher Columbus, culture, colour and caruggi, I was jolted back to reality. My laptop was snatched inside the historical and ornate P. Principe Railway Station, where illegal immigrants lurk.

‘It’s always Australians and New Zealanders,’ sniffed the irritated Polizia, who obviously would have preferred to be sipping a cappuccino to dealing with me. Frantic form filling followed…

I collapsed into my carriage, focusing on snow falling in Lake Como, my next stop.
Goodbye Genoa! Goodbye laptop! I’d lost hundreds of photos, but felt smug about my favourites I’d loaded onto Facebook! And I still had all those I’d taken of beautiful Genoa!

Travellers must always look on the bright side!

© Denise Covey 2008