'I don't know why one feels it to be so much superior to other cities - partly the colour I suppose. It is a perfect day; all the flowers are just out, there are great bushes of azalea set in the paths; Judas trees, cypresses, lawns, statues, among which go wandering the Italian nurses in their primrose and pink silks with their veils and laces and instead of being able to read Proust, as I had meant... I find myself undulating like a fish in and out of leaves and flowers and swimming round a cast earthenware jar which changes from orange red to leaf green - It is incredibly beautiful - oh, and there's St. Peter's in the distance; and people sitting on the parapet, all very distinguished, the loveliest women in Europe, with little proud heads...'
from a letter by Virginia Woolf (1927)
