“I’m going to Italy… I used to have this appetite for food, for my life and it’s just gone. I wanna go some place where I can marvel at something. Language, gelato, spaghetti, something!”
The Italian stage of Elizabeth’s trip, which lasts four months, is dedicated mainly to pleasures of the palate, with the centre of Rome providing the backdrop for this chapter of the film dedicated to food.
Liz stays in via dei Portoghesi, near Via della Scrofa. The external façade of her building is actually that of Palazzo Scapucci, the tower of which is also known as the ‘Tower of the Monkey’. From Villa Borghese to the narrow streets of Trastevere, where Liz spends a day with her new friends, the film portrays Rome in all its vitality. But there’s no shortage of solitary strolls through via del Corso and piazza Navona either, and piazza di Spagna, via Condotti and Campo de' Fiori also feature. Liz is particularly moved by her visit to the Mausoleum of Augustus on Palatine Hill, a tomb dating back to the 1st century B.C. and built on the orders of Augustus.
Liz’s trip to Naples instead begins with a walk along Via dei Tribunali with her friend Sofi, as they take a turn around the Forcella district.
“I’m going to Italy… I used to have this appetite for food, for my life and it’s just gone. I wanna go some place where I can marvel at something. Language, gelato, spaghetti, something!”
The Italian stage of Elizabeth’s trip, which lasts four months, is dedicated mainly to pleasures of the palate, with the centre of Rome providing the backdrop for this chapter of the film dedicated to food.
Liz stays in via dei Portoghesi, near Via della Scrofa. The external façade of her building is actually that of Palazzo Scapucci, the tower of which is also known as the ‘Tower of the Monkey’. From Villa Borghese to the narrow streets of Trastevere, where Liz spends a day with her new friends, the film portrays Rome in all its vitality. But there’s no shortage of solitary strolls through via del Corso and piazza Navona either, and piazza di Spagna, via Condotti and Campo de' Fiori also feature. Liz is particularly moved by her visit to the Mausoleum of Augustus on Palatine Hill, a tomb dating back to the 1st century B.C. and built on the orders of Augustus.
Liz’s trip to Naples instead begins with a walk along Via dei Tribunali with her friend Sofi, as they take a turn around the Forcella district.
The Rome experienced by Julia Roberts is a pleasure-loving one, from the ‘Italian’ coffee she has with a diplomat to her dinner in Via della Pace with Giovanni, when she tries fried courgette flowers. Her stay in Rome is characterised by a never-ending quest for traditional dishes, starting with the simple plate of spaghetti with tomato and basil that Liz has at a restaurant in the centre.
It is a varied menu with which Liz puts her Italian to the test during a lunch with friends: “to start we have a nice plate of deep-friend artichokes, ham with melon, aubergine parmigiana, and smoked ricotta. Then we have spaghetti all’amatriciana, pappardelle with wild boar ragu and linguine with clams, followed by Roman-style tripe, even though it isn’t Saturday, and saltimbocca (veal wrapped with ham and sage)… all washed down with Genzano wine, nice and chilled of course!”.
For pizza, real pizza, which Liz declares to love, she heads to Naples and Da Michele, a historic pizzeria on Corso Umberto I, where you can only order margherita and marinara pizzas.
Columbia Pictures, Plan B Entertainment, Red Om Films, Syzygy Productions
Elizabeth Gilbert is unhappy in spite of her apparently perfect life in New York. So she decides to embark on a journey to find herself, which takes her to Rome and Naples in Italy, India, and then Bali in Indonesia.
