For Tangobaby: a picture I took some years ago in Rome.
If I remember correctly, this is in the Piazza di Spagna on the left hand side of the steps as you look down.
On the right hand side is a place called Babbington's Tea Rooms. I didn't go in, but I couldn't help imagining that when Patrick O'Brian's Mr. William Babbington retired from the sea, he and Mrs Wray (or by that time, Mrs Babbington, presumably) went to Rome and opened a tea room at the bottom of the Spanish Steps.
I just can't help it. They'd have had such fun.
I haven't read "21", and can't quite bear to, so please don't tell me if anything happens in there that means this can't.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Roman Colour
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Oh, to live in such colorful places. I love that photo! Thank you for sharing!
I wish I could also spell colour with a "u" like you do because it looks so much better that way.
I haven't read "21" either, but now I think I should...while I'm flying to Rome. *sigh*
Ooooooh you read P O'B! Did I know that?
The speech on the Polychrest.
The sinking of the Waakzaamheid.
The crowd scene at the pillory.
What, at last, happens to Ledward and Wray.
The mango Jack eats in the Indian ocean, while waiting for his moment in Surprise.
The trial of the ape's head in Lively.
All the things that happen to people you never ever thought they would happen to.
What a writer!
I don't know why it is, but I am infatuated with stories of sailors and sea adventures. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, then I must have been a seaman at some point. Not a Jack Aubrey, just a regular guy. ;-)
Right now my current bedside reading is more pirate-related (Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, by Marcus Rediker) and recently read books are Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail by Stephen Bown, and In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.
All excellent books, those. Now you have helped me choose what will go on the reading pile next.
Ohhh, I'm liking this influx of pix into blogs. The every-day-ness quality of looking into a scene.
Post a Comment