Between the Dolomites and the Alps

My next trip to Italy was in the summer of 1980. I'd passed my first year, as I've already said, at the second time of asking and had managed to scrape together a few bob to get myself over to Italy and to spend a few weeks there.

Where did I go? No. You're right. I didn't go down to Campania at all, let alone to Pontone. I went to the other end of the country. A small town called Piovene Rocchette in the province of Vicenza. It was a pleasant little town that benefited enormously from its proximity to the mountains - the Dolomites to the east and the Alps to the west and both equally impressive; equally beautiful.

I love mountains. Fell in love with them the first time I saw them in 1979 when I went to Alife which lies in the middle of a plain surrounded by mountains. Gorgeous.

I went to say with Paola Panozzo's family in a lovely house on the outskirts of the town. They were lovely people. Couldn't do enough for me and that went for all of them - mother, father, two sisters and brother ... and Paola. Paola took me all over the place to some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen.

This was different to life in Alife though. Completely different. This was like Western European but with Italian class. Alife was just pure, raw, stereotypical Italian. Here I was introduced to polenta and a host of other northern ... local specialities that left the taste buds racing. Whenever I was taken to visit anyone, there was always a meal served up in front of me within half an hour of my arrival no matter what time of the day it was. I loved it. I'd never eaten so well, so often and for such a sustained period of time in my life.

These were good people. Good livin' people too and I felt distinctly out of my depth; out of my league. Still, I watched my Ps and Qs and at the end of my stay I was told that I was welcome back any time. I ended up going back twice more.

I have to say that the local dialect here was as opaque as the Campanian dialects I'd struggled with a year earlier. The result was that unless they were talking to me - in which case they spoke standard Italian - I could barely understand a word that was spoken. Some Italian I was turning out to be. Still, I studied every word spoken, every move made, every mouthful of food I ate and every drop I drank. I had to learn to reproduce every tiny detail. It was all part of the learning process. It was all part of the journey towards achievement of the ultimate goal - to release the Italian in me; to fulfil the promise.