Have you ever been to Rome? If the answer is yes or if you would like to go, I have some tips for you. I am not talking about a list of attractions, but I want to suggest to you a book that will guide you into the real city. You will live your love in Rome. No, nothing about finding a new partner, but deeply fall in love with the city. This is what already happened to me.
I was 8 years old when I went to the Italian capital for the first time. Just a few hours tour before to catch a flight connection to Asia with my parents. From that moment I started my love story with the city. It was love in Rome. In the years, I went there many times and I consider it my favorite city. Because of art, history, and an attraction coming from the atmosphere. There is something special hard to explain. When I saw the book “She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome” by Mark Tedesco I thought it could explain what happens to people who visit or live in the city.
Love in Rome: a love story with the city
Maybe you watched movies like Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck e Audrey Hepburn or To Rome with Love with Woody Allen, or La dolce vita by Federico Fellini. I could continue the list and the reason why those movies celebrated love in Rome is not by chance. But I want to focus on the feelings people can feel for the Eternal City. It’s hard to explain it if you still didn’t try, but the book written by Mark Tedesco, thanks to some interviews, can explain it very well.
It is a different book about Rome, but I think it is a must for those who already love the city or those who want to discover it.
She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome
It isn’t a history, art, or travel book, but it contains all of them. The author of the book tells the stories of people who are living in Rome, telling about their life and explaining connections with this magical place with its historical facts, monuments, and so on. That’s why you will like it, it is a good way to explore Rome, but also to go deep into the real city.
“She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome” includes all types of experiences because the author interviewed street artists, restaurant owners, expats living in Rome, and many other Ethernal City inhabitants. Mark Tedesco is giving a view of the Italian capital through the eyes of who is there every day. This is the best way to see a place, to visit it and to learn more about culture and traditions. Then his writing is pleasant, even with jokes to keep high the attention of the reader and scraping from each meeting the most interesting aspects.
The tour of Rome
Love in Rome comes when you go out of the tourism pathway because the city is full of things to see, but if you go just to the Vatican or Colosseum and you stay in a queue all the time and then you listen to the guides telling about the history made in centuries in a few minutes you will only see monuments and artworks like in any other place. They are different but saw in that way there is nothing special. Traveling I learned that to know a city or a country, you have to talk with people and explore the way of living. This book is written in this direction. The writer had chats with them and he gives a good overview of Rome.
When I go abroad I usually stay away from restaurants for tourists, the ones that host hundreds of people giving them bad food that has nothing to do with the local one. At the beginning of the chapter on eating he describes this type of experience in a restaurant close to the Vatican. But going where only locals eat, the same pasta was wonderful, as he tells. Just to give you an example of the spirit of this uncommon guide.
The author then goes around Rome starting discovering the less know places, sometimes just behind the main attractions. Getting lost in this city can reserve pleasant experiences because in every corner there is something to see. Art, history, curiosities are almost everywhere. But the most important part concerns interviews with locals and I want to share something about them. Of course, I suggest you read the book and I won’t reveal the content.
Exploring Rome with inhabitants
The beginning of the book gives an overview of Rome through some history and poems to share the main facts concerning Christians and Roman emperors. It is not boring, on the contrary, it looks like a meeting with ancient important characters of that age and it introduce you to the place starting from origins. Then you start to make a virtual visit to the Eternal City reading page after page. The stories of singers, musicians, Americans living in Rome, painters, and many others are giving the real shape of Rome.
Some of them face economical and social difficulties for their stay in the city, but they are proud to tell their activities and also their relationship with Rome and some specific places around it. Their strength and enthusiasm are engaging and they share hope, fears, and their love story with the Italian capital. Art is a huge part of the book not only thanks to the description of certain less-known attractions but also because of the artists who are showing their work every day on the street, drawing, dancing, making entertainment for travelers and locals.
Each story is written in the book “She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome” takes you to learn something about the city and its development. I appreciate a lot also the idea to include a great variety of people, from the ones who spent their entire life in the city and others who went to Rome for business or personal reasons and then they stopped there. This is giving the chance to have a lot of points of view. Love in Rome is exactly what they share telling how and why they decided to establish themselves there or why they never moved out.
The author
Who wrote the book? You already know his name. Mark Tedesco is an educator from Los Angeles he is also a history teacher and a mentor for new teachers to help them to start with their job. Maybe some of you have already read one of his other 7 books. They are not about Rome but about memories, poetry, and historical narrative. He has a big passion for the Eternal City, like me.
This love was born when he was 19 and he went to Rome to study in a seminar. He lived there for 8 years and in that period he graduated in philosophy, Latin letters, and historical theology. He goes to the city from time to time to meet friends and also to visit it again and again.
During one of his tours around Rome, he got the idea to tell the city through the people’s stories. That’s how he started to write “She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome“. Residents have a story to tell about corners, monuments, attractions, less known streets. This is what makes special the city and this is maybe something that created my love in Rome, for a marvelous city unique in the world.
The human element is the added value of Rome and every traveler should know it to know better the city and understand it.
Conclusions
I am so happy that I have read “She Seduced Me: A Love Affair with Rome” that I would like to tell all the stories, but it is surely better if you read them by yourself. Maybe before to go to Rome, or even while you are there. In case you have already seen it, read it and it will be helpful to get a more clear idea about what you saw during your trip. The book contains the reason why people find love in Rome, or better why they fall in love with the Eternal City. Inside you can find the real soul of this marvelous and magical place.
I am pretty sure you will like it and I invite you to share your impressions using the comment space below. Share also this post, I think some of your friends will be interested in it.