Italian Travels 1

Day 1: The Adventure Begins

The Alps between France and Italy

The photograph above isn't that much to do with wine tasting but it sums up the drama of crossing from Italy to France and of tasting wine in either country, but this is about Italy and I'm here to explore.

My first stop on this wine adventure will be just over halfway down the Adriatic Coast, at a wonderfully evocative place called Chieti. I've been told that it's a typical Italian town, which probably means that it's got elan to spare and sophistication in abundance, once you get past the usual industrially rough edges. It is here that I will meet wine producer and all round good egg; the ever enthusiastic Stefano of Atomos wines.

A service station in the Alps. Location for my first (boiling) night

Firstly, I've got to travel from the middle of a baking France, across the barely cool Alps and then navigate the detached autostradas of a simmering Italy until I'm there. As I drive and stare out at landscapes to die for I feel as though I'm a prisoner on an endless boring motorway. I'll have to do something about that!

The last time I was in this area was a whole other time. I was a student, and the farthest I'd ever travelled was from Manchester to Oxford. The days when flared trousers were so long they could take your eye out and unkempt long-hair was something a young man aspired to.

It was college holidays, and my friend Charlie and I had flown to Athens and decided to hitchhike back to England. Some would say we were optimistic, others might label us stupid, but what youth doesn't have a

'The days when flared trousers were so long...'

head full of dreams.

His mother was Italian so we decided that, via the ferry from Greece to Brindisi we'd work our way up the coast and stay with his family in the popular seaside resort of San Bernadetto del Tronto.

My language skills were more non-existent than a politician's subtlety and I struggled in the various conversational situations, but I do remember that it was a great time, and the warmth and generosity of Charlie's family left an imprint that warms my thoughts as I write these words.

In honour of these rose-tinted memories of sleeping rough I decide that I will, mostly, forgo hotels, and instead sleep in my car, as a homage to those poor student days when we slept on beaches, shopping malls, building sites, motorway verges, and anywhere free.

I know you think I'm a fool because I'm of an age when my body complains at every moment and I need a stuntman to get out of a chair, but I feel that this is something I need to do, and I pack the car with the sort of preparations usually reserved for minor invasions.

I set off at 9 am and by early evening I'm pulling into a service station just before the Italian border, in a place called Modane. The weather forecast has led me to believe it will be hotter than the Earl of Hell's waistcoat, but I'm hopeful the mountains might add a cool breeze through my open car skylight and this might allow me a peaceful kip.

I'm sorry to report that after an uncomfortable night when sleep and I seem to be going through a temporary divorce, and weather keeps its

A powerful punch from The Alps

promise to be downright uncomfortable I decide that it might be better for my health to stay in one or two hotels after all.

Before all this I have to find the eye-watering sum of 51 euros for the Frejus Tunnel (does this now mean that I own a share I wonder) and then I'm sampling an Italian service-station that seems a little bit more slapdash than its French counterparts (which are designed to within an inch of their lives and mostly a joy to visit). This particular one is a mixture of loud interactions accompanied with a variety of gestures, conducted against a backdrop of towers that contain wine that might be termed at 'rot gut' anywhere else.

As the journey progresses Turin goes speedily past, then it's bye-bye to Bologna, and with a few traffic jams for company I head into the seaside hell that is Rimini.

It's a location where parking is a test you have to undergo before being allowed into a hotel where the air-con barely whispers in your ear, as outside, expectant crowds mill about with desperation oozing from every pore, but I can't knock it really because it's better than sleeping in the car.

'Wine that might be termed as 'rot gut' anywhere else.'

Rimini at 7am. Forgetting getting a spot here an hour later!

I visit the seafront and find the sea harder to find than a bad glass of Franciacorta. There are a plethora of cabanas, organised sunbathing that block me at every turn, and body beautiful Italians who can shrivel English pride with a casually dismissive stare. I mentally raise a white flag, turn and settle for squinting from the distance of a gingham covered table of the nearest restaurant.

A watery beer and large pizza are my only consolation, and I ponder how a nation can make something so basic as a pizza taste so much better than anybody else. I don't have long to think about this because I'm soon speaking to Stefano on the phone. He's going to meet me tomorrow, and hopefully he'll give me an insight into the Italian way of doing things.

Ultimately I find Rimini a desperate place that is one step from heaven and two nudges from hell. The heaving mass of humanity seem to be looking for bargains and good times that evade them at every step, and the place, with it's lovely weather, actually makes me feel melancholic.

At every turn people walk around parading their beauty in a way that tells me I'm long past my prime; in fact their style makes me wonder if I ever had a prime. Let's not forget that Italy is a land where gorgeousness inhabits every sinew of the body and every atom of the soil.

Watching carefully while clumsily stuffing pizza crust into my face, I see that this finesse even exudes from those around me in the restaurant.

I observe a mother encouraging her child to take its first steps while the father watches critically as he debates the merits of his pizza topping with the man at the next table. I'm not sure if it's the steps or slices that concern him the most.

People learn to love life here, or they sink beneath the waves of a cool national identity. Food and wine are an extension of a heritage that the country has proudly given to the world and fully knows that the rest of the world are just onlookers and wannabees who will probably never catch up.

Meanwhile, dad is having another slice as now he chats animatedly on the phone between each chew. Mum continues encouraging a reluctant child into the art of walking. I smile to myself and know that I'm going to enjoy this adventure.

You can see the sea if you squint, but forget getting near!