Peck, for those of you who aren’t obsessed with Italian food, is a little like a Milanese version of Harrod’s Food Hall, minus the vulgarity – a temple of gastronomy and lovingly-wrapped packages, with a myriad prosciuttos behind the counter, enough teas to shame a Chinese Carrefour and some disturbingly lurid mortadellas. And cheese, obv.

“Don’t worry,” I say, tugging my T-shirt classily down over my expanding muffin top. I’m experiencing another bout of mysterious weight gain, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. It’s not like Italians are fat, Chrissakes! And I’m certainly not going to stop eating, or drinking Negronis, or start taking exercise just for the sake of exercise. “It’ll be fine!”

“OK,” he says, resignedly, with the burgeoning self-consciousness of someone who’s heading into his teens. And in we trundle, trailing the stupid little wheelie suitcases we so ridiculously changed down to because we thought we’d feel better with carryon suitcases than packs in Western Europe.

And… Peck is wonderful. They turn a blind eye to our suitcases. The white-clad chaps don’t mind us pondering. They answer my questions, in abysmal Latinian, painstakingly simply – in fact, one guy speaks good English – and we buy four types of prosciutto, for tasting back home, just to see if anything can compare to the 40-month aged San Daniele that we ate at I Rusteghi in Venice, and some wild strawberries for a snack on the train.

It seems to be running late. But the board doesn’t work. And there’s no one at the enquiries desk. So I’m not sure we’re even in the right place at all. This, I think, would NEVER happen in China.

Said train, the Thello, departs from an implausibly suburban, poky little station in the middle of goddamn nowhere. And it seems to be running late. But the board doesn’t work. And there’s no one at the enquiries desk. So I’m not sure we’re even in the right place at all.

This, I think, would NEVER happen in China.

A babble of tourists meander around, asking each other questions, until we find someone who sounds convincing, and up we head to the platform and wait.

The train arrives, and, after a short pause while police interrogate some dude on the platform, we’re away.

We’re in a mixed, 6-berth cabin, packed with all the diversity of new Europe, which means I can take my schoolgirl French out for an airing it last had when we had dinner with a Roman couple in Rome and found majority French with bits of English and Italian was the best way to converse.

Zac and I are opposite each other. “Perhaps you could swap so that you are close together,” suggests one guy in African-accented French.

“That’s a good idea!” I say.

“You’d need to ask l’Arabe,” he says.

Oooh! It’s the guy the police were talking to, looking not exactly shifty but… well, about as uncomfortable as most people would be if they’d been unable to board a train without an interrogation from Italian police.

I ask him. “Sure,” he says, and swaps bunks with Zac.

“They’ve put me in a carriage full of guys!” she says. “Would YOU sleep in a carriage full of strange men?” “Yes,” I say.

There’s an English speaker in the bar, in a state of high dudgeon. “This train is terrible,” she says. “Outrageous.”

This seems a little harsh. Our second class berths are roughly equivalent to the second class berths on a Chinese train, albeit at approximately ten times the price, and considerably more than the cost of a bucket-shop flight, but at least we’ve taken a few tonnes off our humongous carbon footprints, eh?

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“They’ve put me in a carriage full of guys!” she says. “Would YOU sleep in a carriage full of strange men?”

“Yes,” I say. Of course, unlike Chinese trains, this European train has doors on the second-class compartments. But I think one’s chances of experiencing violation in a six-berth compartment on a European sleeper train are close to zero – and I’ve never even registered the gender balance of the compartments we’ve slept in on Chinese, Mongolian, Vietnamese or Thai trains.

We stare at each other, in mutual incomprehension. This is, I realise, why Thello’s website allows you to book spots in a woman-only carriage.

Perhaps she’s expecting to change into a nightie, or something? I’ve always assumed that on a train one sleeps in one’s clothes. Unless one’s a child. Or has a private compartment, or summat.

A second round of interrogation at the French border – again, all for the benefit of L’Arabe – and we roll into Paris very far from well rested. As I get off the train, my flip-flops bite the dust.

Back to our carriage. I usually sleep well on trains. Not this one.

Sometime in the wee hours, French-speaking police enter the compartment, shine lights in our faces and, apparently satisfied, move on. I assume, befuddled, that we are entering France, but with hindsight it’s probably Switzerland.

Then the lights shine again. A rumble of voices. “What was your original name?”

L’Arabe replies. “Why did you change your name?”

I miss l’Arabe’s reply again. I drift in and out of a fitful sleep, Zac still snoozing in l’Arabe’s original bed, while the poor guy undergoes another 30-minute interrogation.

Odd, I think, drowsily. I’ve no reason to believe the guy is militant – in fact, given the absence of facial hair and his willingness to give up his bed to a boy travelling with his obviously unmarried mother, I suspect he isn’t – but I’m sure this sort of farrago is precisely the type of unpleasantness that turns folk into radicals.

A second round of interrogation at the French border – again, all directed at L’Arabe – and we roll into Paris very far from well rested. As I get off the train, my flip-flop breaks. I change into my heels, which are, frankly, taxi shoes and progress, wincing, stinking and filthy-of-nail, dragging my stupid bloody wheelie suitcase behind me, to a restaurant where we can eat pastries and find somewhere to stay.

The cheeses, I am disappointed to note, are served fridge-cold. Bloody health & safety, I think. The French must be at least as cross about this as we were about our bananas.

For Zac, who has done La Louvre, the Arc de Triomphoe and the Eiffel Tower with his father, and EuroDisney with me as a tot, le gay Paree is all about the food. We scoff some patisserie, find a cheap Montmartre hotel on LateRooms, and establish ourselves in our garret.

First up! Shoe-shopping. Well, flip-flop shopping.

Shopping for mundane stuff – normal, non-tourist things – is a great way to get a feel for any area, anywhere, and we very much enjoy, insteps notwithstanding, our wander past antique shops, into the odd vintage clothes shop (well, I enjoyed this bit, anyway) and past fabulous cheeseries as ripely aromatic as the cheese in Three Men in a Boat into a place packed full of bargain bins of spangly flip-flops.

Satisfied – I with my purchase, and Zac with the fact that I’m no longer whinging – we head down to an absolutely classic French bistro, Restaurant Chartier, for 6 euro foie, 10 euro steaks and buggerall euro house wine. The cheeses, I am disappointed to note, are served fridge-cold.

Bloody health & safety, I think. The French must be at least as cross about this incursion as we were about our bananas.

The boy, for the record, does not like French cheese. I tried him on the stinky stuff when he was far too young, and, pushing a decade later, he’s still averse to that gloriously rotten aroma.

“Shall we go and look at Sacré-Coeur?” I suggest, tentatively. “It’s a very famous church, and it’s walking distance from here.”

“Churches?” says the boy. “Meh.”

And so, we amble through Montmartre and back to base. Cake, steak, and a pleasant stroll. Sorted.

Due to the checkin process now required on entry to Fortress Britain, it’s more like an airport experience than a train experience, except without the smoking pit that enables one to grab a quick gasper ahead of enforced abstinence.

And thence to London, on EuroStar, which is genuinely exciting since it’s a train that goes under the sea and the boy hasn’t been on it before, but also frustrating because, due to the checkin process now required on entry to Fortress Britain, it’s more like an airport experience than a train experience, except without the smoking lounge that enables one to grab a quick gasper ahead of enforced abstinence.

And… there we are. In St. Pancras, to Kings Cross, which still has the builders in around the tube area – in fact, I can’t remember a time when Kings Cross wasn’t having something done to it — and up to Norfolk to the bosom of our family.

The prosciutto, we conclude, is good, though the wild boar is perhaps a little dry. But none of it quite lives up to the flawless ham sandwich we ate at I Rusteghi…

Further, the weather is atypically lovely. In fact, I’m seriously considering spending a month or so in Blighty before we head to Egypt.

Image: Montmartre s’Éveille by Alexandre Duret-Lutz– Flickr Creative Commons.

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Get a Seat in the Sistine Chapel

As befits the headquarters of a wealthy and ancient global institution, the Vatican museum is full of good stuff, from Ancient Egyptian sculpture through to contemporary art. And the Sistine Chapel is one of the things everyone should do in Rome. How to enjoy it? Grab a seat on one of the marble benches along the wall, so you can contemplate in comfort as group tours shuffle through. During high season, go late in the day, when most group tours are finishing up: outside high season, first thing in the morning is also a great bet.

Eat Amazing Gelato

My pick for the best artisan gelato in Rome (and the pick of a bunch of Italian journos, who know rather more than I)? FataMorgana. Organic, contemporary gelatos come in a welter of intense, creative flavours – including specific chocolate varietals, paired with ingredients as unlikely as tobacco. If eating ice cream on the Spanish Steps is on your wishlist, head for their Via Laurina location, just off Via del Corso. My son loved it.

Explore the Capuchin Crypt

Not one for the more sensitive child, or adult, for that matter, the crypt of the Capuchins on Via Veneto is a macabre artwork, crafted from the skeletons of Capuchin monks who lived and died here, as a reflection on mortality. One of a few bone chapels in Europe, it feels half outsider art, half horror movie set-up – and yet, it does also make you contemplate your own mortality. As the cheery slogan reminds you, “What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be…”

Eat a Proper, Four Course Roman Meal

Another thing you should do in Rome? Eat like a Roman. We absolutely loved Osteria dell’Angelo, a traditional trattoria run and staffed (bizarrely) by former rugby players. Why? The prezzso fisso menu, at 25 euros for four courses – antipasti, primi, secondi (with contorni) and biccies, including house wine and dessert wine – is absolutely classic, unfussy, earthy Roman cuisine, packed with big flavours. Or try homefood.it, where you pay to dine at home with an Italian family, often in considerable style.

Check off the Coliseum

You can’t NOT see the Coliseum, where gladiators fought and died, and Christians were martyred. Although the martyrdom thing has led to a series of vandalistic rebuilds by various different Popes, it’s splendid, enormous and iconic. Depending on your level of ruin fatigue, eschew queuing up to explore the inside – the ruins of the Forum, round the corner, are more worth a look, if you are not entertained (sorry).

Talk to a Nun

As a former convent schoolgirl (insert your own joke here), nuns are quite intimidating figures for me. But if you’re jumping on a bus headed Vaticanwards, especially with a child in tow, you’ll likely meet a nun or two. One of the highlights of Rome, for me, was a long chat with a bubbly and politically engaged Filipina nun about how pleased she was with her new pope.

Play Spot the Cinquecento

The Cinquecento (Fiat 500) is an Italian design classic – born in Turin, of course, not Rome – and its myriad iterations make the Mini look, frankly, unimaginative. Italians often keep their cars going for decades, so it’s not uncommon to see models from the 50s and even earlier on the streets.

Catch an Open Air Movie

Open air cinema is popular all over Italy during the summer, and it’s a fab way to enjoy a warm, dark Roman night. Isola del Cinema has screenings on an island in the Tiber over high summer.

Binge on Artichokes

I’m a sucker for artichokes, especially served alla Romana. I’m also a sucker for a cheap lunch buffet. So La Fontanella Sistina, a fairly touristy spot whose 10-euro-plus-cover lunch buffet featured mountains of artichokes, as well as some other stuff, did me perfectly. For budget picnics, Coop supermarkets have a mean deli offer; for more upscale shopping experience, try Eataly or Volpetti; or try Testaccio Market or the touristy Campo dei Fiori.

Wander the Centro Storico

Central Rome is surprisingly compact, which means you don’t need to duck in and out of the metro all of the time. Exploring on foot, taking the time to duck down side-streets, is a great way to get a feel for normal, contemporary Roman life in all its diversity. Want a mission to structure it? Head out to buy something normal, not souveniry – flip-flops, underwear or a notebook.

Looking for places to stay in Rome? Check Agoda for late deals.

Image credits: Capuchin Crypt 1897 by Robert Benner Sr., Time Stands Still by Jon Rawlinson, Artichokes at the Market by Tim Sackton and Cinquecento by neekoh.fi all Creative Commons on Flickr.

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Since Zac’s ruin fatigue and church fatigue has not yet extended to art – he actively enjoyed both the Guggenheim and the Accademia in Venice, though I didn’t want to push the boundaries by taking him to church after church after bloody church in search of Renaissance masterpieces, which is where I lost the plot with Italian art as a slightly older teen – we, therefore, do the art thing.

We also do the sunset cocktail thing, on the terraces below Piazza Michelangelo, in Oltr’Arno. The boy is a little disappointed that they don’t run to Virgin Mojitos, but the views over the river and the old city make this quite possibly one of the most scenic Negronis of my life.

If not the most historic. That would have to be the grotesque pale pink fizzy thing that I drank in the Cave Bar at Petra, Jordan, caringly carved out of a millennia-old rock tomb.

And, no, I am not making this up. And, yes, you can smoke inside. And, no, the boy did not approve. And, no, I’m not sure I actually put the cigarette out. I probably just waved dismissively and bitched about the quality of the Negroni.

But… to Florence!

Seriously. When you go see David in Florence, take a look at his toes. They’re awesome, I tell you. Awesome.

First up, naturally, David, whose iconic status is intensified by the presence in Florence of no fewer than two copies, in bronze, and rendered positively irritating by the fact that his genitalia, and their very weird pubes – well, how DO you render pubic hair out of marble? Classically, that’s how! You’re welcome! — boast a starring role on everything from aprons to boxer shorts and teatowels.

And, yes, I very much expect that that vague humming you hear at the souvenir stand is, indeed, Michelangelo spinning in his grave.

Top Italian art tip? Go towards the end of the day when all the coach parties and people who prebooked tickets have fucked off, and you won’t have to queue for anything, and will likely also be able to get a seat to contemplate the immortal work of art you’re looking at.

One of the great things about David? He’s in the Accademia (Florence’s Accademia, not Venice’s, keep up at the back there!), not the Uffizi. So he’s surrounded by gallery after gallery of, frankly, pretty darn average sculpture, which makes his magic all the more obvious.

David’s contemporaries support their rocky weight on flat feet, leaden draperies, convenient tables, perhaps even an undisguised buttress: David, despite the fact he’s twice the size of any of them, levitates, his left foot poised, his right foot only supported by a terribly discreet thing-that-might-be-a-tree-trunk-but-also-vaguely-suggests-a-sandal.

The detail is phenomenal. Homosexualist, bisexualist, try-it-all-ist, dissector of corpses or all of the above – whatever and whoever he was, Michelangelo knew and adored the male form. Just the hint of a vein illuminates the muscles of David’s arm; his toes, and toenails, are sketched into solid marble with infinitesimal subtlety.

And, sparing you digressions on the classical Greek attitude to penis size, and sexuality for that matter (yes, they liked teens, yes, they liked small penises, yes, those two attitudes might well be connected, and, wow, isn’t the past a different country?), David is the Platonic ideal of a hawt young man.

Hell! Even the boy doesn’t object to spending twenty minutes sitting on a bench contemplating David. Although, when I start to whisper about the toes, he does say, “Yes, Mum. I think it might be time to go for steak now.”

Seriously. When you go see David in Florence, take a look at his toes. They’re awesome, I tell you. Awesome.

That’s the problem with the Uffizi, frankly. It sends even theoretically grown adults (moi) into full-on school trip mode. By the time we hit room 44 (or possibly room 101 – the Uffizi is, seriously, enormous), I’m on the verge of heading behind the bike sheds for a sneaky fag.

Top Italian-art-with-kids tip? The Gates of Paradise are a very easy wander from the mozzarella bar, and post-lunch is a good time to see them, since most of the coach parties or walking tours seem to do that and the hideously stripy cathedral first thing.

Next up? The Uffizi.

Top Italian-art-with-anyone tip? You can’t see everything in the Uffizi in one day. Or two days. You could spend a lifetime popping in and out and still find something new and joyous each time. So we don’t even try.

We admire Michelangelo’s Virgin Mary, with her remarkably studly arms, the Birth of Venus, a piece of work so deeply ingrained within its own future that it now makes me think of 1950s soap ads, a particularly gory Dürer, a few Titians, a ridiculously bling-bling salon, some more Botticelli, and…

…Oh, yeah, and the Niobe Room. Top Italian art-with-kids tip! Take your kids to the Niobe Room at the Uffizi. Rather in the manner of a Daily Mail columnist taking aim at a celebrity, Niobe had the unwisdom to compare her parenting skills with those of the goddess Leto. And, as anyone who has seen Clash of the Titans will know, comparing oneself to a goddess is NOT.A.GOOD.IDEA. Leto’s daughter, Artemis, killed all her children — horribly. (Jenifer Aniston! Take note!)

What might, in its lifetime, have been a wonderful composite sculpture has now been broken into its component parts, all disporting themselves in inadvertently hilarious attitudes like something out of a Japanese Noh play.

Zac throws a few shapes, Niobe-style, which sends me off into fits of hysteria that make me worry we’re both going to be thrown out.

That’s the problem with the Uffizi, frankly. It sends even theoretically grown adults (moi) into full-on school trip mode. By the time we hit room 44 (or possibly room 101 – the Uffizi is, seriously, enormous), I’m on the verge of heading behind the bike sheds for a sneaky fag. The cafe, though, has a balcony. Praise the lord.

We meet initially for lunch, both get lost en route to a not terribly challenging location and have to phone each other about 17 times, then only have to fence very briefly before ordering a mezzo of vino rosso, then fucking that for a game of soldiers and ordering un litro, per favore.

One of the things I like about blogging, btw, as I mentioned a propos of Amsterdam, is the opportunity to meet interesting people, such as Laurel, who’s based between Florence and Florida, and does photography and tours and, ya know, stuff, when she’s not writing her book about the Costa Concordia disaster.

I like Laurel immediately, not least because we meet initially for lunch, both get lost en route to a not terribly challenging location and have to phone each other about 17 times, then only have to fence very briefly before ordering a mezzo of vino rosso, then fucking that for a game of soldiers and ordering un litro, per favore. Also, she has spawn Zac’s age, and, since her spawn lives with Aspergers, speaks tween nerd as fluently as a native.

“Zac and I were,” I say, in medias vino, “Talking about the street signs. What IS it with the street signs here?” (The term “talking about”, in this context, since Zac is about to embark on his teen years, means “bickering, viciously, with a mutual refusal to back down”.)

It’s very hard to pass through downtown Florence without seeing a lovingly customised street sign: a little man labouring under the weight of a no-entry sign, perhaps, or a man doing the roadworks encumbered by a ball and chain.

“Oh,” Laurel says. “That’s Clet! His studio’s round the corner. We can go and see him, if you want.”

“I TOLD YOU!” I say to Zac, recapping a monologue full of undigested and only-very-vaguely-remembered 70s and 80s critical theory (seriously, those weren’t just bad decades for fashion). “It’s transgression! It’s ALL ABOUT TRANSGRESSION!”

And so off we toddle, pleasantly buzzed, into Oltr’Arno, which is not only great for cheap accom and sunsets, but also a place where locally successful artists hang out. Clet is, Google will later inform me, rather more than locally successful, but, hey, whadda-I-know, right?

Western Europe’s answer to Banksy is hard at work plotting out a new addition to a street sign, using tracing paper on what looks suspiciously like a stolen street sign (though at least he hasn’t turned said street sign into a table, Bedouin style).

In Clet‘s studio, Western Europe’s answer to Banksy is hard at work plotting out a new addition to a street sign, using tracing paper on what looks suspiciously like a stolen street sign (though at least he hasn’t turned said street sign into a table, Bedouin style).

There are little street-sign stickers: hilariously transgressive violations of the routine instructions that barrage you every day. I especially like the man sawing through the no-entry sign, but that’s probably because I’m shallow.

There is, further, a large, rotating artwork featuring a copulating couple who fall into new and impressive positions with every degree of rotation, an art form that reminds me oddly of that sub-genre of Victorian pornography where you poked your fingers through the holes in the pop-up books.

I look at Zac. Zac looks at me. Neither of us are going there, so the pair of us look at Clet, unassuming and, ladies, frankly kinda hawt, below his glasses. “Can I buy a street sign sticker for my dad?” asks Zac.

He gives him one for free. And poses for a photo, in which it’s difficult to tell who looks the more awkward, the great man or the boy. Probably fortunately, my 80s critical theory deserts me.

In fact, as so often when confronted with interesting/famous/talented people and unprepared with interview questions, I can’t think of much to say at all. Hey-ho.

It’s a meditation on time. In 2000 years, it will all be gone, and only the mercury will remain from the failed attempt to turn base metal into gold. “Oh!” says Zac. “It’s an alchemiser!”

Next up? An alchemist-cum-pharmacist-cum-art-jeweller, Alessandro Dari, who’s at work in his studio with one of his triplet sons, doing something complicated to a gold baby’s head. The jewellery is impressive. Sculptural.

Yet it’s less this that takes my eye, and Zac’s, than the cabinets with incredible machines. “What’s this?” he says, peering into what looks like a Rube Goldberg contraption, yet one that’s gradually rusting away, as it rotates, with liquid mercury dropping steadily through the centre.

Laurel’s partner, Tomasso, translates. It’s a meditation on time. In 2000 years, it will all be gone, and only the mercury will remain from the failed attempt to turn base metal into gold.

“Oh!” says Zac. “It’s an alchemiser!”

And, as Tomasso drops us at the station en route for Rome, we feel that Florence has been a great success.

Well, apart from the bit with the buses when we got there, where I almost punched a wall. And then the bit where we got a taxi and they lost our reservation. And then the thing with the slugs.

But I’m behind on my life. Critically behind on my life. And, unsurprisingly perhaps, it’s the highlights that remain and the whines that disappear. There are, gentle reader, advantages to hindsight.

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Her farm, Podere San Giuliano, is no longer a farm. It’s a restaurant and agriturismo, a hybrid farm and tourism business, where folk can come and stay for a few days, or a week, and learn about the soil of Emilia-Romagna, or, of course, learn to cook.

We’re here, as Federica’s guests, to learn to make pasta. And, in particular, tagliatelle, the pasta with which the classic Bolognese sauce, ragú alla Bolognese, is served.

“Not spaghetti,” says Federica, definitively. “Spaghetti is from the south. It’s made using grano duro – durum wheat – and it’s never fresh, always dry. Tagliatelle is always fresh.”

There are olive trees, still young. “I won’t see the harvest from them,” Federica says. “But maybe my son will.”

First up, though, a wander around the farm. Asparagus season is past, sadly, and the plants are sprouting feathery leaves and tiny flowers. There are olive trees, still young.

“I won’t see the harvest from them,” Federica says. “But maybe my son will.”

And there are tomatoes! A myriad tomatoes! Zebra tomatoes, with green and orange stripes, plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes… Zac scoffs them fresh from the plant, and pronounces the zebra ones the best.

Federica makes her own passata on the farm, sun-drying the tomatoes first, to reduce the water content and make the sauce thick. The soil is amazing: thick clods of bright orange clay, packed with nutrients, it benefits from the runoff from the surrounding hills in winter, and the parching sun in summer.

“That’s what makes the tomatoes good,” Federica explains. “There’s very little rain in summer, so it concentrates the flavours.”

I think of our watery, mass-produced tomatoes back home in Blighty, spherical but tasting of nothing, and realise that our producers really don’t stand a chance.

There are so many different pasta variations that the polymath foodie Crosby Gaige once wrote a “Macaroni Manual”, trying to sort them all out.

Back to the kitchen, and aprons on. A table is set up with all we need to make pasta. Wooden boards, bowls of flour, eggs, a flat metal spatula, a blade, a rolling pin and a slicer. All we need to do, apparently, is whip the egg into the flour using a fork until it makes a dough, then knead it and roll it.

Making pasta, like making cakes in the UK or cookies in the US, is one of those things that pretty much every Italian mother or grandmother does with her children. Can’t be hard, right?

Yet in an Italian restaurant kitchen, making pasta is a task important enough to require a specialist. And there are so many different variations that the polymath foodie Crosby Gaige once wrote a “Macaroni Manual”, trying to sort them all out.

In Italy, the right pasta is an extremely particular choice – I recall the restaurant in Ravenna where it was solemnly explained that the spaghetti for the vongole was finished, but perhaps I could try it with spaghettoni?

“There’s no real reason why one pasta goes with one sauce,” Federica says. “It’s just that it’s always been done that way.”

Zac decides that he can improve on many decades, and possibly many centuries, of Italian tradition by turning his pasta and filling into a brick. “It’s an experiment, Mum,” he says.”

Zac has crafted his pile of flour and egg into a sticky golden lump. Most of my sticky golden lump, however, is clinging to my fingers with the tenacity of an action hero hanging off a cliff. Although, when I knead it, it kindly transfers itself to the board.

Enter the palette knife. I scrape the sticky bits off, flour my hands and board again, turn back to the dough, and knead, and knead again.

This is, I realise, considerably harder work than making bread.

Now to the rolling part. As I strain and press, biceps bulging, I can’t help notice that Federica’s sheets of pasta are both infinitely more symmetrical and very significantly thinner than ours.

20 minutes or so in, we, umm, give up… We slice our irregular, wibbly pasta sheets into differently sized strips, one for tagliolini, one for tagliatelle, and reserve squares for the tortellini (not tortelloni) we are making, which we fill with a mix of ricotta, parmesan and only the slightest hint of garlic.

Neither of us quite get the hang of the pinching action. Zac decides that he can improve on decades, if not centuries, of Italian tradition, by turning his pasta and filling into a brick.

“It’s an experiment, Mum,” he says.

Myths abound. Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China. Tagliatelle was created for the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia, or as part of a competition between two noble families who lived in the twin towers of Bologna.

To the kitchen, where Riccardo Facchini, a celebrity chef who handles the kitchen at Podere San Giuliano, as well as delivering professional level cooking courses, is hard at work making a jus from charred bones, while a sous-chef runs some of the evening’s pasta through the machine..

“There’s a big dispute as to where tortellini comes from,” he says. “Some say Bologna, others Castelfranco.”

One of the things which makes Italian food both so rich and so confusing is the history of modern Italy, which arose as a series of competing city states, eventually divided among multiple rulers, then finally reunified around 150 years ago. (Wealthy Venice and the surrounding region, the Veneto, recently informally voted to secede from the rest of the country.)

This has its pros – even tiny places like Pisa and Modena are home not only to incredible architecture but their own food specialities. And it has its cons.

Myths abound. Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China. Tagliatelle was created for the wedding of Lucrezia Borgia, or as part of a competition between two noble families who lived in the twin towers of Bologna. Tortellini are a homage to the bellybutton of Venus…

Zac gets to work with the pasta machine, which makes life one hell of a lot easier, while Riccardo explains about the professional-level cooking courses he runs. “A lot of it’s about the business side,” he explains. “How to run an Italian-style kitchen efficiently and profitably. We get people from all over the world, especially Russia.”

“You know,” says Zac, with the confidence of youth. “I think my brick was a real improvement.”

And, finally, to eat. “We call this oro e burro,” Federica explains, whacking a slab of butter and a splurge of passata into a frying pan, and shaking the tortellini in it to mix. “Oro means ‘gold’, but it’s also the end of pomodoro. And burro is ‘butter’.”

Pomodoro, Italian for tomato, might even mean pomo d’oro (apple of gold). Or, of course, it could mean pomo d’amore (apple of love), or pomo di Moro (apple of the Moors). As always in Italy, nobody really knows.

Even slathered in sauce, it’s painfully easy to tell which tortellini are ours (the lumpen, over-thick ones) and which are Federica’s.

We eat our tagliatelle and tagliolini with a pre-prepared ragú, the rich, thick sauce of bacon and beef, which is a million miles from the sloppy sauce we serve up as spag bol in the UK.

And then we sit on the sunny terrace chatting about food. “You know,” says Zac, with the confidence of youth. “I think my brick was a real improvement.”

We were guests of Podere San Giuliano, which offers custom cooking classes and courses for small groups including families, at levels from child-friendly through to professional, as well as rooms, in the country outside Bologna. To learn to make not only pasta, but sauces, and to eat the results with wine-matching, costs 90 euros per head for a minimum group size of two: click here for more details.

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Why? Because I’m named for a woman who grew up among the bears of the circus, and possibly rose from being a child prostitute and stripper — her exotic act involved geese pecking corn from her, umm, person — all the way through to Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire.

And, once there, she worked to protect her former peers — she banned brothels, tried to ban pimping, and set up homes where sexworkers could retire in peace. Here she is, in the Basilica di San Vitale, in Ravenna, complete with saintly halo and no-messing expression — go her!

Even with a tween grappling church fatigue, Ravenna is absolutely stunning (parenting tip from the department of the blindingly obvious: gelato and granita bribes go a long way in a place with as many religious monuments as Ravenna).

These mosaics were created around 1500 years ago, when this little town loomed large on the world stage, and no trace of the artists who made them has survived (unlike the artists behind the Valley of the Kings, they didn’t create tombs for themselves). But their art is extraordinary.

Look at Judas the Zealot, in the Baptistery in Ravenna. Brow furrowed, full lips pursed, eyes ultra-wide with the lies he is telling, his face has an expressiveness that’s incredibly rare in early art — but is also quite unreadable.

And they did this, these unknown artists, with little bits of coloured stone on a curving wall.

In the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, an emperor’s sister, light floods through alabaster panels onto mosaics that seem as bright as the day they were made. They have been cleaned, over the years, but never recoloured, an attendant tells me.

On the ceiling of the Arian Baptistery, the apostles parade in a riot of bling as beautiful as Istanbul’s Aya Sofya.

As we trundle up to the Basilica of Classe, out in the country outside Ravenna, the rain stops, the thunder pauses, and a rainbow shimmers down to touch the very peak of the bell tower.

It feels, in its way, like a tribute to those unknown artists — and the narratives of piety and power that supported them.

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We stop for lunch in Lucca, a walled, medieval city so ludicrously pretty and so thoroughly Year In Provence-ified, that it feels, from the posh delis through to the antique stalls, more like Disney Goes to Tuscany than anywhere Italians actually live. (Speaking as someone who adores Venice, that’s, frankly, pretty Disneyfied.)

And on we trundle.

The SS12 winds past gorges, one crossed by a natural stone bridge, through pretty stone hamlets, and up, up into the Dolomites, cypresses giving way to the flowers of late summer, and flowers fading into dark pine trees, alpine chalets and chairlifts.

I’m wishing, now, that rather than book a night’s accommodation in Modena, I’d chosen to roadtrip this slowly, and stop at any one of a number of gorgeous little pensiones on the way.

But I didn’t. And so, by the time we wind into Modena, it’s 9pm, I’m frazzled and scratchy, and we’re both desperate to eat and get out of the car.

The only sign is a flashing light in a sex shop – or, rather, since we are in Italy, a “SEXY SEXY SHOP” – across the way.

It takes us a while to find our hotel, not least because our satnav keeps insisting we’re right in front of it, when we’re clearly not. We’re on a grim, busy road in the outskirts of Modena, with the only sign a flashing light in a sex shop – or, rather, since we are in Italy, a “SEXY SEXY SHOP” – across the way.

Round we go. And round we go again.

And round we go again, for our third pop at the same complex-when-you’re-tired-intersection, until I nearly jump a red, and figure it’s time to park or hit something.

We park up opposite the sexy sexy shop which is, mercifully, closed – from the billboards advertising said destinations, they appear to be places one stops in at en route from work, rather than late at night – and I ring the girl from the hotel back to double-check the address.

She speaks no English, so I pull my Italish out of the hat, and, after some confusion, not least because I begin my Italish by inadvertently speaking Chinglish, we establish that the number’s correct, and she’s on her way to let us in.

At least, I think that’s what she said.

“What does BDSM mean, exactly?” asks Zac meditatively, perusing the sign on the “sexy shop” door. “It stands for Bondage, Domination and Sado-Masochism, I think,” I say.

I stare, darkly, at the wrought-iron gate that guards a marble hallway full of potted palms, and the hooker patrolling across the road. She is blessed with the stellar, gazelle-like legs that seem to be god’s gift to women who were born as men.

“What does BDSM mean, exactly?” asks Zac meditatively, perusing the sign on the “sexy shop” door.

“It stands for Bondage, Domination and Sado-Masochism, I think,” I say, preparing an erudite disquisition on Venus in Furs and 120 Days of Sodom. Who said travel didn’t broaden the mind?

“Oh,” my Google-generation spawn says calmly. “I thought that’s what it meant.”

At least, I think hopefully, at least it’s shut, eh. And there’s a pizzeria across the way that doesn’t look too bad. And – well, at least we’re out of the sodding car.

And, well, you can’t really expect to roadtrip Italy in high season, alternating between the cheapest places to stay in Italy and whatever you can find with an ensuite for under 50 euros on Agoda or LateRooms and come up trumps every time, can you?

Italian-style Lambrusco is a sour, fizzy red wine that, while infinitely preferable to the sugary stuff sold under that name in the UK, is still, IMO, best reserved for balsamic vinegar.

A tired-looking brown estate car pulls up by the Sexy Shop, and our saviour emerges.

In we go, and up the stairs. And…. It’s lovely. Some genius has converted the apartment opposite his own into a little pensione for travellers and called it La Casa del Viandante.

There’s a kitchen, with washing machine; an espresso machine fully stocked with good coffee; and our room is enormous, with exposed brick peeking through artfully sanded plaster, timber beams, handpainted fleamarket knickknacks and a very slick en suite.

He’s even, god bless him, posted a list of recommended restaurants on the door.

And, no doubt because of the location, we have the place entirely to ourselves.

We pay up, dump our stuff, ignore his recommendations on the grounds that we can’t see them in the dark, and toddle across to the pizzeria for pizza Margherita and spaghetti vongole, washed down with Italian-style Lambrusco, a sour fizzy red wine that, while infinitely preferable to the sugary stuff sold under that name in the UK is, IMO, best reserved for balsamic vinegar.

As always in Italy, food makes everything better.

Lead image: Sicily 2008 148 Palermo Sex Shop by David Holt.

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Why? Well, for the Leaning Tower, obviously. And, in particular, to get that picture postcard shot of the boy holding it up (for the ultimate selection of said shots, do pop over to Capturing La Vita, who did it so much better than I…).

The boy, in the way of the boy, is less than enthusiastic about the Leaning Tower. He considers it touristy. In which he is, of course, right.

The Piazza dei Miracoli, home of the Leaning Tower, as well as the Baptistery, the Duomo and the Churchyard, is a seething mass of tourists and tat shops – like the Forbidden City during Golden Week, except with Italian tour guides sporting headsets instead of Chinese tour guides brandishing whistles, and without the military to maintain order.

Visitor after visitor is balanced on the railings, pretending to hold the tower up. We can barely squeeze ourselves in.

And, unlike the last time I visited, when the tower was a) unfenced b) unrepaired c) free to climb and d) open to all ages – oh carefree days before health and safety, when you could take a small child to the edge of a downward-sloping drop five storeys high and not even contemplate suing if it tumbled to its death – it’s going to cost the price of a carpaccio at Harry’s Bar to climb it.

We resolve, instead, that we’ll look at it from outside. Weirdly, I find it more impressive seen from outside the square, its oddity truly revealed in the manner of the Pyramids emerging from the skyscrapers of suburban Cairo, than in its natural context.

I’ve decided that we’ll spend the night in Pisa. Most of the crowds are daytrippers, who evanesce ahead of nightfall. The town itself, wrapped in cypress-lined walls, stretches along the Arno very prettily, and we’ve lucked out in the Agoda lottery with a room in a seventeenth century converted convent for under 50 euros.

The sheer diversity of Italian cities is one of the great things about the country. Italy grew up as a collection of savagely feuding city states, and was only unified in the nineteenth century – in fact there’s even a Tuscan independence movement today.

So tiny little places like Pisa – whose population doesn’t break six figures even today — are home to splendidly grandiose monuments, legendary works of art and their very own culinary specialities.

And, no, when you think about Italian history, it’s probably not a good idea to think about the peasants whose short, hard lives funded these effusive religious monuments, or the poor sods who laboured over decades in brutal conditions to erect them.

But I just did. Dayum…

Anywise, there are several grandiose monuments in Pisa. And, weirdly, lots of the daytrippers seem not to go into them at all.

We start with the Baptistery, where the teen side of the boy is super-pleased to find the font where Galileo Galilei, who he considers an icon, as an atheist, was baptised. His pre-teen side, meanwhile, appreciates the whispering gallery up top.

I’m just gobsmacked by the flawless Romanesque architecture. In a country studded with beautiful buildings, the Baptistery’s one of the prettiest I’ve seen: seamlessly symmetrical octagonal white marble, with a muted elegance that makes me think more mosque than church.

In high season, in the heart of Pisa, there are precisely five other people in there with us.

Church fatigue is almost inevitable in Italy, and I’ve really been trying to keep our church quota to the absolute minimum (after Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, the boy is pretty well off “ruins” for good, and I can feel that churches won’t be far behind).

Still, we amble around the Duomo, wondering how on earth Pisa could ever have filled a space this size, and check out the churchyard, a splendid, if rather sterile, affair encased in chilling white walls.

A quick gelato, and then back to base until the crowds die away.

As a general travel principle, any food sold within a hundred metres of an international tourist attraction is almost guaranteed to be over-priced and under-par.

Still, as all the Pisan food places listed in Osterie d’Italia, Italy’s foodie bible, are shut for August, I ask our host for a recommendation. He proffers both a discount and directions to the ominously named Il Toscano.

“Do they have trippa alla Pisana?” I ask. I’ve done my research, and I’m keen to try a local speciality.

“It’s tipico,” he says, utilising that untranslateable Italian term that means both “local” and “good”, but ducking my tripe request.

And, boy, is it tipico. The boy starts with carpaccio, made from a specifically Pisan cow, neatly alternating slices of veal and slices of beef; I go for antipasti, made from the Cinta di Senese, a medieval Tuscan pig that’s returning to fashion.

Zac defaults to his current favourite dish, steak in balsamic sauce, and I devour wild boar in a spicy ragu, swirled on polenta cooked to the consistency of potato puree.

And then we head out to the darkened square where the Leaning Tower, the Duomo, the Baptistery and the Churchyard are delicately illuminated against an aquamarine sky, and Zac poses for a pushing-the-tower photo.

“I wonder,” I say, “Whether we should stay in Italy a bit longer.”

“Hell’s yeah,” says the boy. And so, we downgrade Barcelona to plan B if Egypt has turned into something out of 28 Weeks Later, and prepare for our little Italian road trip.

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So, given our agenda for Venice included a trip to Harry’s Bar, regional wines, gallons of Spritz and plateloads of cicheti, we found ourselves in what I firmly believe to be the cheapest place to stay in Italy, the deliciously named Camping Jolly.

And, at under 20 euros a night for the two of us, with a pool, this is what I call a steal.

Camping should, of course, in theory, be a highly cost-effective way to travel. In practice, however, since it usually requires a tent, sleeping bags and a vehicle in which to transport yourself and said paraphernalia to the campsite – or fronting up thousands of euros on a campervan plus insurance and gas – it usually isn’t.

The beauty of Camping Jolly is that it comes with tents. And, not only that, the tents come with electricity, beds and bedding – and they’re lockable. They’re pretty much like mini-cottages, with one bunk and a single.

Mini-cottages packed like sardines, mind you. But mini-cottages, all the same.

And this particular Camping Jolly – there’s a chain of them, with branches in Florence and Rome – has not only a pool, but a pool with a giant orca. Which is easily sufficient to compensate for Zac’s utter contempt for the onsite discoteca, a form of entertainment for which he is around four years too young and I am at least ten years too old.

That’s not to say we exactly economised in Venice. My “budget” for Italy ran roughly as follows – “If we can keep under 50 euros a night for accommodation, then we can have one spendy meal a day and see the stuff we want to see.” (Even in August, using late bookings on Agoda and laterooms.com, we stayed in decent, en suite rooms for under 50 euros every night we weren’t camping.)

But, in actual fact, Venice doesn’t have to be as eye-bleedingly expensive as you’d believe.

Provided you stick to the back streets, Venice is one of the world’s best cities for walking around – Peggy Guggenheim once observed that you can get from any point in Venice to any other point in Venice in no more than twenty minutes. And most islands can be accessed by bridge.

A 24-hour pass for the vaporetti waterbuses costs something obscene like 35 euros – but a single ride on vaporetto number one, which takes you all the way down the Grand Canal in considerable style, runs a mere seven euros.

Zac had as little desire to ride a gondola as I did, which was nice, though if we had we’d likely have gone for the stand-up ferry gondolas called traghetti which cost a couple of euros a pop.

Rather than drop six euros a pop on espressos on Saint Mark’s Square, we opted for spendy event eating at fabulous places or snacks in back street and back square cafe bars.

And rather than invest in a card that bought us entry to a tonne of attractions, we picked the non-food places we wanted to go – the Accademia, the Guggenheim, Saint Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace – and did just those few places.

It was, frankly, absolutely splendid. And, yes, the food rocked, too…

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“Yeah,” says the boy, with frankly limited enthusiasm. After ferrying from London to the Netherlands – “Look, son! Windmills!” — and wandering the canals of Amsterdam, I’m beginning to wonder whether he’s hit his threshold for beautiful European cities already. Which would be a shame, given we’re in Italy for a while.

Through the train goes, and into the bowels of an ugly, provincial railway station, its fascist architecture shrouded in scaffolding, the usual scungy station shops scattered about, ticket booths, postcard stores, mass brand advertising and tired-looking tourists.

We disembark from the train, fend off a token porter, and wind our way up an ugly grey ramp into an ugly faux-granite passageway. And then… we’re out.

And a few paces ahead of us is the Grand Canal, water taxis whizzing by, sunlight sparkling off the water, the oxidised dome of San Simeone glistening across the water, a network of bridges winding away to either side, stucco palazzos lining the waterfront, and the boy emits an eminently satisfying “Wow.”

Venice, I think, is going to work. It’s going to work absolutely fine. And, unlike when I was last there, over 20 years ago, there’s not even a whiff of drain from the canals.

If your approach to the city is to knock off Saint Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto and the Accademia in a single day before hopping onto your next flight, you’ll likely spend a miserable day of queues and crowds, relieved only by insanely expensive gelatos and espressos.

I’m constantly irritated when people list Venice (as, for that matter, when people list Bali) as one of the world’s worst tourist traps.

Sure, Venice is busy. Even when Henry James swung through, over a century ago, the notion of a holiday in Venice was very far from original.

And if your approach to the city is to knock off Saint Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto and the Accademia in a single day before hopping onto your next flight onwards, you’ll likely spend a miserable day of queues and crowds, relieved only by insanely expensive gelatos and espressos.

But you don’t need to go far off the main drags to find deserted alleyways, tiny canals with motorboats parked like the family car, crumbling palazzos, minuscule bridges leading to a single house, old ladies gossiping on quiet squares, and quirky stores.

Not that, on our first afternoon here, we’ll be doing any of that.

We’re staying out of the old city, in what’s almost certainly the cheapest accommodation in Venice, so our main priority is to grab a bite to eat, soak up the canals, and find out whether my bargain booking is a genius wheeze that spares us tonnes of cash for food or a recipe for utter misery.

We drag our suitcases up and over bridge, after bridge, after bridge, bumping them up the stairs, and bumping them down again, handles torquing and flexing, cases slewing wildly from side to side in a rattle of wheels.

For this jaunt around Europe, we’ve traded down from our customary backpacks to a pair of wheelie suitcases which have been gathering dust in my loving parents’ attic since we left the UK in 2010.

This is primarily because both of us feel like twats lugging backpacks around Western Europe – I remember, as a resident, how very annoying it was to have someone’s backpack in your face on the Tube — but also because we’ll be taking bucketshop flights and these suitcases were bought to fit the hand baggage allowance precisely.

However, as we drag our suitcases up and over bridge, after bridge, after bridge, bumping them up the stairs, and bumping them down again, handles torquing and flexing, cases slewing wildly from side to side in a rattle of wheels, this feels, to be frank, like something of a miscalculation.

I’m simultaneously pleased and embarrassed to note how very many guys take pity on Zac’s invisible musculature and physically take his suitcase from him and lug it up the stairs.

Priority number one, however? Food.

He cuts a neat slice of tomato, splits a mozzarella ball exactly in half, spears the pair, and pops it in his mouth. And then he reaches for the cruet, and drizzles his plate neatly with olive oil.

Just by Piazzale Roma, where all the out-of-town buses disgorge and pick up, and where the Peoplemover monorail system carries folk from the islands to the mainland, we find a pretty, canalside bar that looks like it’s not going to break the bank (it’s Grecia & Oriente, if you care).

I order a Spritz, the national drink of Venice – Campari (or Aperol, if you wish) and Prosecco with ice and perhaps a splash of soda – and a tagliere. Zac goes for an insalata caprese, limpid mozzarella and ripe, juicy tomatoes scattered with a little dried oregano.

He cuts a neat slice of tomato, splits a mozzarella ball exactly in half, spears the pair precisely, and pops it in his mouth. And then he reaches for the cruet, and drizzles his plate neatly with olive oil.

“No balsamic?!” I ask. (Zac’s obsessed with balsamic and, left to himself, has been known to dress salads using balsamic and salt alone.)

“No,” he says. “I think it would spoil the flavour of the tomatoes.”

My god, I think. He’s learning! He’s already learning!

The post Venice — Woot! appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

This copout galls me. I mean, it really galls me.

Not the Milan bit, but the flying bit. I don’t like sitting on planes. I don’t like hanging around in airports. And I don’t like pumping out emissions. But nor do I have the courage of my convictions to pay several times the price of a flight for a train ride, or the organisation to book tickets the infinity in advance that’s required to make choo-choos even remotely affordable.

Heyho.

Still, since neither of us have been to Milan – and Zac, in fact, was only a few months old when he went to Italy, so may as well have never been – we’ve decided to spend a couple of nights there on the basis that we might as well take a look at it.

Plus, I want to eat ossobucco (slow cooked veal shanks complete with marrow) with risotto alla Milanese, and we’d like to go to Peck, and we suppose we ought to see the Duomo and the Galleria and all that.

And, further, there’s a science museum in town with the world’s largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci models – Milan, like Florence, takes a proprietary interest in Leonardo da Vinci, who spent the bulk of his career there, and have even called the museum after him.

“You should not drink coffee,” our neighbour informs me, in charitably elementary Italian, bracelets rattling. “Coffee is with pastry: for breakfast. You are eating tagliere. You need to drink wine – Italian wine.

Mission “eat Italian food in Italy” doesn’t get off to the best start, it has to be said. I had forgotten that, like Paris times about a thousand, most Italian cities shut for August as folks retreat to the beaches to lie packed like sardines on loungers, blackening all but the small triangle left by their spangly G-string, or relax at their country retreat, or bugger off to Sharm-el-Sheikh, or whatever.

Further, it’s Sunday.

We amble up to our nearest “bar”, past block after block of elegant and firmly shuttered apartments, and endeavour to navigate the menu. Zac orders a panino. I order, by pointing at what the two glitzy Milanese ladies behind us are sharing, a tagliere, AKA a veritable porkfest of cured meats.

“Shouldn’t this be toasted?” Zac asks, dubiously.

“No,” I say. “That’s an English thing, or an American thing. I think in Italy ‘panino’ just means ‘sandwich’.”

I take a sip from my cappuccino. “You should not drink coffee,” our neighbour informs me, in charitably elementary Italian, bracelets rattling as she brandishes her glass of fizzy tap wine. “Coffee is with pastry: for breakfast. You are eating tagliere. You need to drink wine – Italian wine. Or beer. Not coffee. You like Italian wine?”

“Yes,” I falter, slipping into my finest Latinish, a language which is closely related to my Spanglish. (I studied Latin at university, have reasonable French and some pidgin Spanish and, push comes to shove, by mixing them all up, buggering around with the endings and stabbing randomly for cognates I can make myself vaguely comprehensible to a willing listener.) “But…”

It’s 11am! Lord knows, I am not a model of restraint when it comes to matters liquid, but I don’t think I’ve drunk alcohol before noon since I gave up drugs and clubbing many moons ago.

Zac saves me. “This,” he says. “Is actually pretty good.”

By putting my hand reflexively to my bag when a lady approaches to “help” me buy a metro ticket, I avoid spoiling our sojourn in Italy with that traditional Italian tourist experience, ye olde subway pickpocketing.

Off we toddle, tourist map in hand, to do the sights of Milan – well, our idea of the sights of Milan. The city’s blessed with an eminently simple public transport system – trams and a metro – and, by putting my hand reflexively to my bag when a lady approaches to “help” me buy a metro ticket, I avoid spoiling our sojourn in Italy with that traditional Italian tourist experience, ye olde subway pickpocketing.

Jolly good!

Time for exhibit A: the Duomo.

“Wow!” I say, as we emerge from the metro to a blaze of fiddly-diddly pointy marble that makes Versailles look like an absolute model of restraint. “That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

“No,” says Zac. “I think it’s one of the ugliest churches I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh,” I say. “So you don’t like gothic architecture, then?”

Apparently not. Even though Leonardo da Vinci worked on the design.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, however, with its stunning domes and arches, its glorious neoclassical facades, and its painstakingly Italian mix of tat shops and masstige brands, pleases both of us. They really don’t make shopping malls like they used to.

Gelato time! Zac opts for lemon and chocolate, and finds it good.

There’s a submarine! Hall after hall of models of Leonardo da Vinci’s amazing machines. A robotics lab (currently shut)…

Next up? The Museo Nazionale della Scienzia e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci which, much to my surprise, given the surfeit of science museums I’ve experienced over the last few years, I actually enjoy.

There’s a submarine! Hall after hall of models of Leonardo da Vinci’s amazing machines. A robotics lab (currently shut, but you can play with the robots anyway). Early prototype helicopters you can sit in and pretend to fly. Triumphs of Italian design from Marconi wirelesses to Vespas.

Oh, yeah, and there’s a spot where you can build towers out of bricks, which my lego-deprived child proceeds to do.

Zac picks our dinner spot, and tagliatelle al ragù, the original of our much-bastardised spaghetti bolognese. He pronounces it good. My ossobucco? Less so.

“I think Milan’s a fantastic city,” he says, adding a little accusingly. “I wish we had more time here.”

I’ve made the mistake of booking accommodation in advance, which means, unusually for us, we’re tied into a schedule. “Well,” I say. “We can always come back.”

I really hope he’s going to like Venice. I haven’t been to Venice since my parents took me as a teen, and I remember it as a constant cavalcade of wonder, although I’m not sure how much magic the canals will hold after Amsterdam.

Come to think of it, I really hope I’m going to like Venice, too… I mean, it’s got to have changed a bit in the last 25 years, no? And it is August, after all…

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