Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa. Matthew Fort

a revolting low-rent Bolognese sauce followed by a cheese dish of cold mozzarella and melted caciocavallo cheeses, pizza casereccia, bits of pizza base unadorned by anything, and salad, all at the same time, followed by a wretched fruit salad. Another night’s feast was equally bizarre: orecchiette with a good tomato sauce pepped up with chilli; a huge round of something unidentifiable, which reminded me of the watery, claggy scrambled egg we had had at school; bits of roast chicken; and then a plate of burnt peppers swimming for their lives in oil.

      It was all the more memorable for being a rare experience. It was almost reassuring to discover that even Italians produce food quite as disgusting as anything in Britain. The difference was, of course, that in Britain such experiences are still the rule. So far in Italy they were the exception.

      I left La Pergola with few misgivings, and crossed the floor of the valley, climbing the steep road to the pretty hill town of Teggiano in warm sunshine. I stripped down to my T-shirt and looked rather Marlon Brandoish, I thought. Well, perhaps later Brando in terms of girth, but certainly early Brando in terms of dash.

      The road ran from Teggiano to Sacco and Piaggino, climbing between two ramparts of grey rock, surrounded by buttercups and daisies, orchids, carpets of wild thyme, and a host of other brilliantly coloured flowers whose names I didn’t know. I stopped for a while. The only sounds were those of birds, including a most persistent cuckoo, bees and the clonking of cow bells from a small herd grazing serenely just below the bare rock line on the far side of the pass. I could not help thinking that those people who only experience the Italian coast, or the artlessly domesticated countryside of Tuscany and Umbria, have little idea of the astounding beauty of the hill and mountain areas which make up most of the south. With a sigh, I headed for Paestum, and Naples beyond.

      Crossing the fertile, intensively cultivated flat plain between Paestum and Salerno was not too much of a challenge. Things got a bit tricky going into Salerno, and decidedly trickier getting out of it. All the obvious roads turned into autostradas on which scooters of Ginger’s humble power were not allowed. More by luck than good judgement, I finally found myself on the road to Naples.