I live in Trastevere, at the part where it rises up as the Janiculum hill, about a fifteen-minute walk from the Tiber (or the Tevere, from which it gets its name, as over the river from the "centro storico".) It's a lovely area, and my regular beat each day takes me down to a favourite cafe for a read of the International Herald Tribune, and an attempt (such is my fledgling Italian) at La Repubblica, and then on across Viale Trastevere to the easynet cafe in Piazza in Piscinula where, amongst many other things, I pen this webpage.

My small studio would be also fine to work in, but I prefer to get out each day. Besides the internet cafe always has a good feel, and if I need a break, I walk up to the Tiber and imagine old Trastevere. Recently I'd been wondering who lived in a fabulous, and ancient, terracotta eyrie facing the river, its garden sprouting like a rook's nest.

My French landlady, Vinciane, who has lived in Rome for 30 years, has always been fascinated by my routine, and where I go when I leave the comfort of home to write.

The other day she asked me if I would show her the place where I work.

So we took the route down the hill to the cafe and crossed the Viale Trastevere. She mentioned that she and her husband used to live nearby, and as we walked towards Piazza in Piscinula, she pointed out the shops that she used when her daughters were tiny, more than 20 years before.

As we entered the piazza she indicated a large terracotta building: "We used to live there". At the front, she pointed out her former windows facing the Tiber.

The other side of the same building contains the internet cafe where I work.

This home-from-home established, Vinciane now populated with memory the houses I had only gazed at: not just the names of inhabitants, but the look of the interiors. The characters. The dramas. She recalled her own life at this same place - heading just minutes across a bridge to the hospital island of Isola Tiberina to give birth, marvelling at a neighbour's fabulous collection of paintings in that same terracotta eyrie with which I was fascinated.

One of Vinciane's oldest Roman friends - her daughters' Italian "godmother" - still lives in the apartment directly above me as I write.