Roman holiday How do Italians feel about Emily in Paris' big move

Standing in the shadow of Rome's most famous monument, Gabriela Sirtoli, a tourist from Brazil, confessed that the Italian capital was not quite living up to her expectations.

- Ashifa Kassam

She had arrived the day before with her partner and their mothers, partly lured by the beguiling scenes of the city she had spotted in the cult TV series Emily in Paris. "When Emily started in Paris, I went to Paris," said the 35-year-old, as scores of people milled around her, all searching for the perfect snap of the Colosseum. “Now that [Emily in Paris] is in Rome, we're here."

This month the upbeat Netflix series, centred on an American who moves to Paris for work, hinted at a change of scenery as it eschewed sweeping shots of the Eiffel tower and Montmartre's Sacré-Coeur for a Vespa tour that whizzed past Roman sights such as the Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps and the Colosseum.

The show's creator later confirmed that plans were in the works to have the fifth season of the series play out between Paris and Rome, building on the surprise cameos the Eternal City had made at the end of its most recent season.

In a handful of episodes, it had showed a Rome with little traffic, scant crowds and plenty of space for tourists to contemplate monuments with a history stretching back millennia. Sirtoli's first day as a tourist in Rome, however, had proved to be very different, as she and her family fought their way through crowds and spent hours queueing.

Still, she was hopeful that the show - and the magical glimpse it had offered of Rome - would pull through.

"We came to the Colosseum today and we're starting to like the city much more," she said.