Can one write about Venice without having been to Venice?

Unlike many of my other doubts, this is a thought that needs to be thunk. So far, I have not travelled overseas very much in my life. I have been to Fiji on our honeymoon and spent some time studying in America, but I have never been to Europe. The other unfortunate thing about this particular point of trepidation, is that sadly for me, I don’t believe Agatha would tell a tale about a terrian she had never traversed.

Agatha Chrisite was quite the traveler. She went all over; trained from Paris to Instanbul, boated along the Nile, excavated in Iraq and drove around New Zealand and Australia, all with Poirot and Miss Marple in her suitcase. Although they may have been tucked away in little notebooks, they had exciting adventures and solved many murders along the way. 

But then I thought, that was many years ago. Perhaps with the invention of the internet, it is possible to write by arm-chair these days? Afterall, there are maps, photographs, films, books, art and music all at my fingertips and I have become fairly technology savage as I like to say.

So as I wondered about the harbour this afternoon (which incidentally Agatha has also visited), I contemplated whether my leather lounge expeditions (in absence of an arm-chair) were preparing my character for life abroad. I spotted a building that looked almost Venetian and admired the tall ship that could have felt at home in the Grand Canal and I thought, perhaps it would be enough? Afterall, Joan in “Romancing the Stone” had written a number of books before she was hurled into Jack Cotton’s arms in the Columbian jungle... 

Who knows, but all that thinking gave me a craving for Venetian biscuits.