NEVER having met anyone called Golf, or MX-5, or 320i Touring for that matter, it is cheering finally to come across a person who shares a name with my charabanc. The fact I have just spent six hours getting from Scotland to the heart of Italy mean it is doubly uplifting, since I’m tired and in need of a boost.
“Aha – very good!” he says, looking at my iPhone as I hold it before him, his broad smile the only thing ruining an otherwise peachy impression of a dwarf Bryan Ferry circa Avalon crossed with Lou Diamond Phillips’s dad. “You are a Corrado,” I have just said, before pointing at the screen, “and this is a Corrado – my Corrado!”
It breaks the ice. (Confused? See On the Road, June 3.)
Into his car I slump before we haul ass out of Bologna airport and head to the small city of Reggio-Emilia. This is my second visit to Italy in six weeks, having been to Tuscany for my brother-in-law’s wedding at the end of April before hiring a car and visiting Venice, Treviso and Bologna.
As usual, driving and motorcycle riding are never far from my thoughts on this June afternoon, and with nobody in the Jaguar XF Sportbrake but me and Signor Corrado I fumble metaphorically in my pockets and locate, amid the fluff, something which looks very much like The Banter, or at least Man Chat.
“Why did you buy a British car?” I ask. Signor Corrado’s response would fill this page, but the short answer is he didn’t want a big German estate like everybody else, so he bought a big British estate instead.
We natter about Fiat, about Alfa Romeo, about the dreaded Dacia. I tell Signor Corrado that during my last visit I was initially unenthused by the predominant driving style of his countrymen, which amounts to veering this way and that and never indicating, a system which is rapidly gaining ground in the UK.
At this point one-third of the Jag is in the middle lane while the other two-thirds are in the fast lane, as they have been for half a mile. We are a gnat’s eyelash away from the Fiat 500 in front (90% of vehicles in Italy are Fiat 500s) and travelling at 85mph.
Pressing hard on an imaginary brake pedal with my right foot, I tell my chauffeur that my misgivings about Italian drivers soon gave way to approval for three reasons.
Firstly, everyone strays between lanes in precisely the same way, meaning you can predict how other motorists will behave. Secondly, the lack of indicating is entirely consistent – nobody indicates, not even nuns, so you quickly stop getting angry about it. Thirdly, everybody is trying to reach their destination as quickly as possible, whereas in Britain there is every chance of getting stuck behind a retired librarian in a Kia Piccanto with a passion for hypermiling. If not swift, progress here is at least brisk most of the time.
As soon as you accept these conditions, driving in Italy is a cinch, I tell Signor Corrado. “Hmm,” he replies inattentively, absorbed by the complexities of his Bluetooth phone system, two wheels in the fast lane, mere feet from the car in front, barrelling along at 80mph.
I look out of the window across the plain and breathe deeply. When in Rome …
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