In 2013, I stood in John Keats’ bedroom at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome. The air was heavy with history and longing as if his presence lingered in the faintest echoes of the walls.

I remember gazing out the same window he once did, his view of the Spanish Steps perhaps unchanged even to this day. It felt surreal to be in the room where he spent his final days, far from his beloved Fanny and the England he cherished. The frailty of life seemed so tangible there, yet his immortal words—reminded me of the enduring beauty of the human spirit.

Even now, a decade later, that moment feels alive in my memory. It was more than a visit—it was a quiet communion with a poet whose heart still beats through his verse.

Left to right: Outside the building, inside the museum dedicated to the British Romantic poets spellbound by the Eternal City, the Spanish Steps

The Keats-Shelley House at 26 Piazza di Spagna is the final dwelling place of John Keats, who died there in 1821, aged just 25. Keats’s bedroom is preserved as a shrine to his tragic story and extraordinary talent.