Capture Rome or Paris in your own words with a Moleskine

Susan Spano’s Postcards From Rome

I had my first house guest in Roma, a friend’s daughter who is studying in Madrid but was on her way to see a roommate in Genoa, Italy. She showed me something wonderful, her little black leather Moleskine notebook, in which she keeps her own personal guide to Madrid, with notes, maps, addresses, etc.

You could use almost any sort of notebook for this, but there’s something special about Moleskines (which come in a variety of sizes and for 12 cities in Europe as well as four cities in the U.S.). They have maps of each city’s Metro system, time zone and international holiday information, distance converters, blank pages, calendar pages, a secret pocket and an elastic closure.

Moreover, the Moleskine pedigree is impressive. The notebooks were first made by a French bookbinder and used by luminaries including Van Gogh and Hemingway. You can even take a gander at Pablo Picasso’s notebook that’s now in a museum.

When the manufacturer in Tours was about to close in 1986, writer Bruce Chatwin bought up 100 Moleskines for an upcoming trip to Australia. Two years later, a Milanese publisher brought back Moleskines, hoping that some people would still prefer their own hand-made travel guides to Fodor’s and Frommer’s.

I’m certainly working on mine for Rome. And there’s even a city-by-city Moleskine blog.

[Ed.: Stay tuned for more updates shortly...in the meantime, here's a link to Susan's greatest Travel hits.]

— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Image: From Moleskine's website]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 7:00 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Europe, Italy, News, Tips & Advice, Travel Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.