We picked up the car and headed to our first night’s accommodation “Palazzo Rosa” in Torrice, about 90 mins south of Rome. If we had any doubt we were no longer in Australia, the Palazzo Rosa confirmed we were definitely in Italy. Narrow, hilly streets, lack of road signage, tourism brochure views, this was our first taste of the real Italy.

Our young host, Mike, spoke decent enough English and checked us in. He asked us if the price was correct – surely he knew how much his rooms sell for? Anyway, we were all pretty happy to get out of our travelling clothes, get through the shower and head downstairs to the café for dinner.

Neither the chef nor the waiter spoke any English, but we got by with a bit of help from Mike. We ordered 4 serves of pasta; 2 x mushroom fettucine, 2 x bacon/tomato spaghetti. We were given bread with cherry tomatoes and what looked like ham fat, drizzled with olive oil. Delish. The pasta was also lovely. Hamish started to lose the plot somewhat, so we hurried upstairs and all went to bed.

I’d woken up with a pounding headache at 4am and hit the Panadol. Still had it when I woke again at 8am – realised I hadn’t had a coffee for near on two days. 1 x espresso = headache gone. Breakfast (included in our price) consisted of breads, ham, cheese, yoghurt, fruit and lots of sweet bakery treats. Hamish had Nutella on pikelets, both Jess and Rod had some sort of cake; they were pretty happy to be able to legitimately be eating sweets for breakfast!

We headed off feeling pretty good to be going to our rental property in Campagna, for the next 6 days.