The Italians have a tolerance or nay… even affection for potholes. The road surfaces can be terrible. For a modern European country many of their roads, including motorways, are simply a disgrace. We crunch along doing our best to protect the car but many road chunks are missing and vigilance is not always successful. On one country lane the surface was so deformed it resembled a ski mogul field: it was astonishing.

There are no three lane motorways, only two lane. A roads as dual carriageways don’t exist. Single lane roads with bad surfaces, undulations or adverse cambers are common. You also may recollect when a bridge collapsed in Genoa killing 43 people in 2018: the Italians have got ‘previous’ on this type of thing. In the U.K. we’re blessed with much better quality, design and engineering.

Oh yes, and speed limits are discretionary.

First stop was Gubbio in Umbria. Another ancient hilltop town with dramatic buildings and vistas.

We drove on to check in at our night’s accommodation. The remarkable Castello Di Ramazzano.

Anna found this amazing £130/night establishment on the internet. The original castle dated back to the 12th Century and swapped hands many times until it fell into a ruinous state. After much investment the castle has been partially refurbished and has a suite of rooms and facilities for hosting grand weddings. Alongside this they offer bed and breakfast when not booked out. The costs of restoration must be mind boggling. Certain legal restriction were applied to its rebirth including no lift. There are 62 steps to carry your luggage up to your room! We did rattle around in it as the owner lives off site but in the morning we discovered three other guests.

However, after checking in we went to Perugia. Whilst it meets the ‘grand city built on a hill top’ specification with some dramatic ancients buildings it just had a lot going for it than other cities we visited. It was dirty, busy and rather uncared for. There was a lot of graffiti. 

This seems even less acceptable on antique heavy wooden doors or ancient stone walls: a couple of local youth beheadings would end it immediately I suggest. We had a look round and then headed back to Ramazzano for a bite at a local restaurant. Maybe typically for Italians as we left at 9.10pm there were families turning up with dogs and young children! For us it was about returning to the castle to sleep like a king and queen.

(Anna fell over on the steps from the car park up to the castle. She wasn’t impaired by local vino but attempting to flee from a toad she saw on the steps. The countryside eh?)

There was happiness at breakfast as the Italians celebrated the victory of Ferrari in the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. The castle in bright sunlight still amazed yet it was time to go.

Down the narrow lane from the top we squeezed past cars and church goers attending worship. Many were clutching olive branches and Anna opined it was Palm Sunday. The church was nearly a mile up this steep hill and it had been there for a couple of centuries. I imagine getting to and from Sunday worship was a workout for the village before spontaneous combustion came to the rescue.

We were off to Assisi, a well known tourist spot and another place I’d reached by bicycle with the intrepid Jim.