“On a regular basis Colette and Godot were taken past the American Academy where I fantasized Gore Vidal was studying at the library doing research for Julien. This weekly sojourn took us to the seventeenth century Villa Pamphili located in the quarter of Monteverde. This is where Via Aurelia begins with her dramatically high, dark grey walls stretching up to the sky until a tiny world opened up for us alone. We’d enter the gardens and stroll by the pitch where Italians kicked a soccer ball around with their kids or Indians played cricket.

Villa Pamphili is one of Rome’s largest landscaped parks but I felt destined to roam far beyond the manicured bits, below the glamorous gardens and gazeboes. Once we reached the shady area where dozens of giant pine trees with extra long trunks provided shelter from the heat, I let Colette and Godot off their leads. There were numerous paths and I took a less traveled one to our secret garden. I never saw anyone here. We were surrounded by headless statues, or women in repose on low beds of ancient marble, forgotten long ago. It was so quiet. Everyone appeared to have gone to sleep leaving the air clean and serene.”

Excerpt From A European Odyssey: How A Boxer’s Daughter Found Grace Bailey Alexander