If you found yourself salivating over the lush Italian countryside and the shimmering pool in Normal People this week, there’s both good and bad news.
The good news is that you can plan a holiday at the property where scenes from the Italian episode – featuring one excruciatingly tense dinner party and many more loaded, lingering glances between Connell and Marianne – were shot. On its Airbnb listing, Il Casale is described as "an old country house with untouched charm, immersed in the Roman countryside", that "has belonged to the same family for over 150 years".
You'll be renting an apartment in one of two farmhouses on the property, which is located in the hills of Sant'Oreste, about an hour from Rome. That is to say, you can rent it – but whether you'll be able to get there any time soon is another issue. The Department of Foreign Affairs is still advising against all inessential travel to Italy – and anybody going to the country currently has to quarantine for 14 days in any case, as well as making themselves known to the disease-prevention department of the local health authority when they arrive. And even if you could get around all of that, the villa is already booked out for all of August and most of July 2020. At the time of writing, just one full week in June is available.
Still, there’s no public-health advice against daydreaming, and there’s plenty of scope for that in the images of the villa, which garners an impressive 4.92 stars in 26 reviews on Airbnb.
For as little as €47 a night, you won't have access to the spacious kitchen that was the scene of a toe-curlingly uncomfortable interaction between Marianne, Connell and Jamie in episode eight. But you'll have a bathroom, dining room, living room, kitchenette, heating, wifi and lots of scope for deeply smug Instagram stories shot around the shimmering pool. There are also two bedrooms at your disposal, one double and a twin.
When you’re not making lingering eye contact with your fellow travellers or having unspeakably tense dinner parties, you can travel to the piazza in nearby Stimigliano, where Connell and Marianne discuss the class divide and income inequality over a gelato.
The Airbnb listing makes no effort to capitalise on the success of the series, which, as well as being on RTÉ here, is on the BBC in the UK and Hulu in the United States, instead noting modestly that "the property is used on several occasions for film and advertising shooting". But then nor does it mention the fact that it featured in Eat Pray Love, the 2010 film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, which starred Julia Roberts.
Instead, the enthusiastic reviews are allowed to speak for themselves: “This is a lovely working farm in northern Lazio. The family is welcoming, but not intrusive. The home is in a dreamlike setting: rolling hills, views of the valley below and San Oreste above,” says one.
“A lovely, dreamlike setting for getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city. This area of Italy is so beautiful and unspoiled,” raves another.
In the novel, the characters actually travel to Trieste, but Ed Guiney of Element Pictures, the Irish production company that made the series, has explained that, for logistical reasons, they decided to set the episode nearer Rome.
"We wanted to find some way that felt like the kind of place where a family might decamp for the summer to entertain people, where friends or other family members might come and hang out for the holidays – but yet to find something that was really quintessentially Italian, that really didn't feel like a villa in France or in Spain, " he has said.
Eoin Holohan, the drama's location manager, told Una Mullally in The Irish Times last week: "We never stopped trying to make it look good. We never took the easy option. It was always: it has to look amazing." The villa does that.
No news on whether its champagne glasses are Jamie-approved flutes or the horrifying old-style "gravy boat" coupes, though.
