Julia Roberts film floods Italian ice cream shop

Lovelorn single women have flooded the tiny ice cream shop in Italy in homage to a best-selling book which captured the quest for self-discovery and has now been turned into a film starring Julia Roberts.

The Gelateria di San Crispino has been flooded with woman having copies of ”Eat, Pray, Love” by an American author, Elizabeth Gilbert, which is based on the true story of a year she spent traveling in Italy, Indonesia and India trying to recover from a bruising divorce, a rebound romance and a bout of depression.

The book, which was published in 2006, has been made into a film starring Roberts and the Spanish actor Javier Bardem.

“I just got to the part in Rome, so I”m trying to follow in her footsteps,” the Telegraph quoted an Australian tourist, Zoe Moran, as saying.

“We”ve had lots of foreign women coming in after having read the book, or even with it in their hands,” said Pasquale Alongi, who owns the gelateria with his brother Giuseppe.

“Julia Roberts came here last year during filming. She was as cultured as she was beautiful,” added Alongi.

The travel industry is now hoping to cash in on the runaway success of the book, with hotels and travel firms offering tours ranging from do-it-yourself itineraries to 12,000 pounds luxury trips.

The movie would be released in American cinemas on Aug 13 and in Britain on Sept 24.