All roads lead to Rome, but they don't necessarily say so.
It was just after I had been relieved of €22 for a stretch of the autostrada that, for the first time since crossing the border near Ventimiglia, I noticed a sign pointing to the capital. It was accurate enough but turned out to be a cost-saving, journey-prolonging instruction since the road in question was the non-motorway route.
Italian road signs function in a parochial fashion. Yes, Genoa or Rome or Milan may well lie in that direction but don't expect their names automatically to appear.
Ten or 11 hours is an awful long time to spend in a car when you only have two full days in between. But - and no, this is not an original thought - what a magnificent city Rome is.
It seems odd to drive past such place names as St Tropez, Cannes, Mougins, Menton, Monaco, St Remo, Cinque Terre, Florence, Pisa, Siena (see comment) and not seriously think of making a detour or stop. That is how it was.
The Flaminio Village camp site, in a picturesque wooded setting a few stops up the suburban train line from the city centre (like on a bus, you have to push the button if you want the driver to stop at certain stations), is reasonably price and has helpful and friendly staff, decent accommodation in well-equipped wooden cabins if you are not camping - ours was €258 for three nights - and an excellent, cheap restaurant.
The walk from the station is not so much pedestrian-unfriendly as downright dangerous, and I could have done without being told after a long trek to the pool, carrying no money, that it would cost me €2 for a cap before I could swim. But I have no serious complaints and would return.
It was also handy for a Sunday morning drive out to the charming town of Viterbo, 80km outside Rome but allowing for quick exploration before getting back in time for lunch at the holiday village and a fullish afternoon of visits taking in the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona and a stiff walk across the Tiber to the Vatican.
The day before had offered plenty of time for the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Colisseum - just like the Stadium of Light really - a spot of shopping and, again, a lot of walking.
We followed two dining recommendations from Mr Bill Taylor, often of this parish. At the Asino Cotto, in the old quarter of Trastevere, I started with the thinnest slices of swordfish I have encountered, with cucumbers and a white wine sauce. Utterly delicious, as was the vegetarian lasagne which I had mistakenly ordered thinking it to be accompanied by, not made of, vegetables. Joelle went for the cevice of cod with peaches, and a fish ravioli with broad bean sauce she declared to be divine; for dessert, we shared another of Bill's suggestion, the chocolate mousse with candied celery.
Our waitress had failed to produce as much as a teaspoonful of rosé, either of the first two beers requested (out of five listed) or the first choice of red. "You're going to kill me, but ... ," she said at one point and all was forgiven.
The next evening saw diners changing tables to escape drops of rain finding the gaps in the loose coverings on the terrace at the Vecchia Roma, on the edge of what I took to be the Roman equivalent of the Marais in Paris. The setting was superb, the food good though not as good as the night before and yes, they had rosé, a Sicilian offering great value by restaurant standards at €18.
Despite the rain, it had been a hot and clammy day and rosé seemed right (though not the only other bottle listed, which cost €75), not that this stopped me treating myself to a sneaky glass of house red. Prices each night hovered around the €95-100 for two mark and, at the Asino Cotto, they did not just offer a sip of Grappa as plonk the bottle - plus another, of eau de vie - on the table and invite refills.
The drive home, with a stop off the motorway having been fleeced at a service station on the way down for disgusting semi-heated sandwiches, brought a reminder of how much shabbier and poorer the Italian side of the border seems than the French. It can also be costlier: diesel was up to 20c a litre more expensive than in France.
But for all that, Italy had again worked its spell; a return beckons, maybe to revisit Siena - now I realise why I misspelt it: the French use two ls, Sienne - or even catch Venice on the way to Ljubljana, fondly remembered from a mad press trip some years ago taking in small chunks of Italy, Austria and Slovenia. I'll give Austria and especially Klagenfurt a miss, having been bitten 20 or more times by mosquitoes in one night in a hotel there.
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