The Norfolkline ferry from Dover to Dunkerque is primarily for trucks, but the fares are good and it is more relaxing than the regular passenger ferries. The truck drivers have their own lounge and the canteen serves canteen food. Our boat sailed at 8:15 in the morning and we were on the road south an hour or so later. Even with the time difference, this should have been enough time for us to reach our overnight stop at Zug in Switzerland at a leisurely pace. However, road works pushed us off our expected route across northern France onto another course through Belgium, Luxembourg and the Saarland region of Germany. We then got lost at Saarbrucken trying to find our way back onto the Strasbourg road, with the result that the sun was setting when we reached the Rhine with still some 3 hours driving to go until we reached our hotel. Despite having to pay for the no-show, we stopped at a hotel in Strasbourg. There was a pleasant family restaurant next door.

The second days drive was therefore that much longer. First the sprint down the autobahn to Basel, then across Switzerland and through the San Gotthard Tunnel into Ticino, then follow the valley southward to Italy. From Milan we drove east on the autostrada across the Po valley, past Bologna to Rimini and then it’s a run down the coast to Ancona and Pescara. There are fine views of the Adriatic from the road. At Pescara we turned inland on the road that runs back across the Apennines to Rome. Up in the mountains, we turned south to follow the winding mountain road to Pescassaroli.

Our hotel was the Villa Mon Repos (*) on the edge of town. As if often the case when you arrive at a small hotel in the afternoon, you feel almost an intruder on the quiet inactivity of the place. Someone has to be found from round the back to sign you in. But then, as the lamps are lit, there is a transformation. The bar is opened, the barman probably the same person that registered you earlier, and then the kitchen wakes up. The dining room here is downstairs in what may have been once a cellar; each table is in an arched vault. There is no menu; the restaurant serves a 5 course Abruzzo-style supper: antipasti, soup, pasta, carne and desert. It is the perfect arrival.

Pescassaroli is a ski station in winter. Now in May it is an open alpine valley. We stroll round the small town and read in the hotel garden. On the second day we take a drive around the countryside. Just outside the town to the north I climbed up a hill topped by an old tower. There is a fine view looking back over the town. A little further along is the cemetery. The elaborate ironwork gate is set in a small tower in the boundary wall. Just below the pediment is picked out in black lettering the words Domvs Vltima .

From Pescassaroli we drove south. The route off the mountains is a spectacular twisting descent. We skirted Monte Cassino before joining the A1 and heading south, past Naples and Salerno and onto the road to Agropoli which takes us to Santa Maria di Castellabate. The road south of Naples is untidy and lined by caravan parks. The farms sell Mozzarella at the gate and in the yards there are buffalo rather than cattle.

We stayed at the Villa Sirio (*), which is directly on the seafront. Our room overlooks the ocean and throughout the night we can hear the waves breaking against the rocks. Looking left from the balcony is the small port. The hotel has a good restaurant. The head waiter, who doubles as egg chef in the morning, must have picked up from registration that it was my wife’s birthday on the Friday and at breakfast proposed lobster for supper that evening, which would be caught locally, by a cousin I think it was. Impossible to decline, the price was loaded, but only a little.

The reason for choosing to stay here is the proximity of ancient sites. Having checked in, we retrace our path to Paestum, a few kilometres to the north. Much of the walls of the city are still standing. We parked by the road inside the precinct. An old chap came by to collect a parking fee. He may have been an official parking official, but on reflection, he could just have easily been an enterprising local. I still have the washroom ticket he provided in return for the fee. Paestum became a roman town in 273 BCE but was originally the Greek city of Poseidonia and was founded in the 7th century. At the southern end there are temples dedicated, according to the guidebook, though other sources disagree, to Poseidon and Hera. At the northern end of town is a smaller temple dedicated to Ceres, built around 500. The north south road cuts through the site of the amphitheatre. There is also a small museum. Among the artefacts is the roof panel from a burial chamber called the Tomba del Tuffatore, the Tomb of the Diver (*) dating from 470. Most tomb paintings show scenes from banquets but this one depicts a man diving into water. What looks like a diving platform on the right is actually a boundary marker for the edge of the world and the water is the River Oceanus which surrounds the world. The guidebook explains that the symbolism is of the ready acceptance of death, the confident dive into the unknown water. It is also unusual for being Greek rather than Italian.

A couple of days later we visited the site of Elea, a few kilometres south of where we were staying. It was also a Greek city, founded in 535 BCE. There were surprisingly few tourists when we visited. The lower town is now visible only in the lines of the walls, but what is striking about the site is the paved road leading up to the hilltop. There is a small amphitheatre at the top of the hill. The spectators would have watched performances looking out over the sea. At the summit is a tower. Elea was the hometown of Parmenides and Zeno, the two leading figures of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which flourished in the first half of 5th century, and therefore sits alongside the Anatolian cities of Miletus and Ephesus, and Croton on the other side of the Italian peninsula, in the original geography of European thinking, before everything converged on Athens.

In between these visits to Paestum and Elea, we had been to see the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Pompeii was an Italian city, founded in the 7th century BCE, which became Roman in 80 BCE. Herculaneum was originally a Greek city founded in the 6th century which became a Roman town a few years earlier in 89 BCE. Both were destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Although there are some substantial remains at Herculaneum, much of the site is buried under the modern town and it does look something like a hole in the ground. Pompeii on the other hand, does have the feel of a town. There are enough of the walls standing in some streets to give you a sense for what is must have been like, and enough other tourists to recreate a crowded street scene. The small courtyards and gardens convey an impression of what these houses must have been like to live in. After visiting Pompeii, we drove up Mount Vesuvius as far as the road allows, then walked the final section to the summit and looked into the crater. Wisps of smoke vented from some of the rocks.

From the Campania we headed south to Apulia through Basilicata. Although our destination was near Mottola, we headed further north to see the Castel del Monte. The castle dates from around 1240 and was built for the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. It is in very fine condition, so perfect that the initial impression is that it must have been re-built. So much of the ancient is in ruins that we form, I think, a false picture of the past.

We stayed at the Casa Isabella (*), at a cross roads near San Basilico, on the road north from Mottola. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and a very large wedding reception was in progress and unfortunately the staff were distracted. We were told that restaurant wouldn’t be open for supper or for breakfast in the morning; something of a problem as the nearest town was ten kilometres away. In fact the restaurant did open for breakfast but we had by then taken a dislike to the place. As it turned out, we had suppers at the restaurant on the lorry park opposite, which served very good local food and wine. And for breakfast we had coffee and pastries at a filling station. This is where Italy ranks first in the world I think; every cafe, restaurant and service station will have a proper espresso machine.

The following day we drove down to Otranto and then followed the coast road to Leuca at the bottom of the Salento peninsula. On the way back we drove up the coast road past Brindisi and along to Bari. Apulia is a poor region with economic indicators much lower than the national average, and it shows in the untidiness of the countryside: unfinished houses and the carcases of buildings litter the countryside. But there are also fine groves of old olive trees behind sheltering walls.

Our final destination on this tour is Ladispoli, on the coast north of Rome in the region of Lazio. We don’t need to drive into Rome, but skirt the city from the south through the vineyards and hills of Frascati. At the Tamarind Tree, Alle Tamerici (*), the rooms open directly onto the central garden. The hotel has a very fine restaurant, confirming my view that Italian restaurants are the best in the world. I also learn at breakfast here that the best caffelatte should be served with the coffee and the hot milk in separate ceramic jugs and then mixed together as they are poured into the cup. Ladispoli is a pleasant enough though not particularly interesting seaside town. The sand here is black.

This is our base for a couple of trips into Rome, taking the train into the city each time. On our first trip we visited the ancient roman sites around the Palatine Hill, including the Colosseum and the Pantheon. The Pantheon dates to 126 CE and was completed under the Emperor Hadrian. It is ugly to look at. The front is out of scale with the rest of building but it is, to my knowledge, the oldest proper building in the world; proper here meaning something like a building with an intact roof that is still in day to day use. The dome is still astonishing.

On our second day we drove out to Tivoli to visit Hadrian’s Villa. It is the pools here that are the most striking feature of the site: the long pool at the Canopus, which was intended as a representation of the canal that linked Alexandria to Canopus in the Nile delta; the Pecile, which contains a rectangular pool surrounded by a garden and high walls which were once part of a colonnade, and was intended as a representation of the Stoa Poikile in Athens; and the so-called Maritime Theatre, where a private retreat in the middle of this private estate is surrounded by a small moat which could be crossed by two wooden drawbridges. The ruined stones and brickwork do not really evoke the place, but these pools of water do. You have to look at the model in the museum to really appreciate the scale of the estate and what it would once have been.

On our final day we took the train back into Rome in the morning, intending to visit the Vatican and the Sistine chapel, but the queues were too long, so we walked down to the Castel Sant’Angelo instead. It was built in the 130-139 CE as a mausoleum for Hadrian. There is a good view of the Tiber from the walls. In the afternoon we drove up the coast to Tarquinia. Until 1922 the town was called Corneto and neighboured the original Etruscan town of Tarquinia, which had dwindled as Corneto had prospered. On a hill overlooking the town is the necropolis. The tombs have been cut into the hillside. Around the walls and on the ceiling there are scenes painted, typically of symposia, or banquets, depicting times of leisure and enjoyment. There is also an excellent museum of Etruscan artefacts housed in the 15th century Vitelleschi Palace. There are no written sources so it is difficult to know how to understand Etruscan culture, but what is depicted here is voluptuary and occasionally erotic.

We had the saved the best until last. The next day we started the drive home, heading north from Rome then inland to Florence and then north again to Milan. The tunnel at San Gotthard was blocked for some reason, maybe an accident, so we took the more spectacular road up across the pass. The delay meant we arrived late at our overnight stop at a hotel on the Colmar bypass. It turned out to be in a lorry park, with only a few pot plants forming a boundary between the trucks and the outside dining area. But it was a warm evening, and though we were the last arrivals and the kitchen was closing, they graciously put a supper together which we were able to enjoy under the unclouded night sky, overlooking the pot plants and with a fine view of the trucks pulled up for the evening.