Eventually the train was announced. I had to fight my way aboard along with many other people. This train looked as if it could do with sprucing up. The seats were wooden, not upholstered. The windows were horribly dirty. And the carriage was crowded with what were clearly country folk. Some of the women wore shawls over their heads. The older women were all in black, their hair hidden under black scarves. One had a live chicken in a basket. Noisy children ran up and down the aisle. Babies cried. A priest in a broad black hat looked at me disapprovingly, almost as if he could read my past sins. I turned away, uncomfortable under his gaze.

The route led us between cultivated fields and old farmhouses. Sometimes I got a glimpse of a wide river. As I looked ahead I could see the first of the forested hills rising on either side of a valley. Now the track ran closer to the river, and I saw that it was fast-flowing, spanned here and there by ancient bridges. We stopped at a couple of little stations that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There were vineyards now planted on the hillsides and olive groves. Much sooner than I had expected, we arrived at Ponte a Moriano.

Only one couple beside me got off. They were met by adoring relatives with many hugs and kisses on both cheeks. The station was a simple square building, yellow with green shutters, the paint peeling and pockmarked. I came out of the station to find myself standing in an empty street with no indication where the centre of the town might be. Flies buzzed. It was hot and I was now thirsty and hungry. I went back into the station building, and in my fumbling Italian I asked where I might find the bus to take me to San Salvatore. The man in the ticket booth let out a stream of Italian at me that was quite incomprehensible. Eventually, with gestures, I thought I understood where I would find the bus to take me into the hills. It was on the other side of the river. I picked up my suitcase and set off down a long, tree-lined street. There were houses with gardens on either side. Still, I had no idea where the centre of the town might be. The street ended at a bridge over the river. I asked an old woman dressed all in black and working in her garden where I would find a bus, and she pointed across the bridge. I trudged across, too tired and grumpy to admire the view of the hills rising on either side of the valley. The other side was clearly the centre of the old town. There were shops, all closed for a midday siesta, and old, crumbling buildings. And in a small central square, joy of joys, two buses were parked. A man was leaning against one of them, smoking. In my best Italian I asked where I could find a bus to San Salvatore.

“Domani,” he said. “Domani è sabato.”

For a moment I didn’t think I’d understood him. “Tomorrow?” I asked. “Tomorrow and Saturday?”

He nodded.

So I was faced with the prospect of staying the night in a place where I didn’t want to be or finding another way to the village. “And if there is no bus today,” I went on in my painstakingly correct Italian. “How do I reach San Salvatore?”

“Why do you wish to go there?” he asked. “Lucca, Pisa, Florence . . . these are what the tourists like. Nothing of beauty in San Salvatore. No historic buildings. No castle.”

“I know,” I said, fighting back impatience. “I am visiting friends there.”

“Ah, friends.” He nodded as if this was approved of. “You have friends in Italy. This is good. So—you can take the bus to Orzala and then it is maybe five kilometres and perhaps someone is going that way and can drive you.”

“Okay,” I said. “And the bus to Orzala goes when?”

“When I start the engine,” he said, giving me a grin.

Passengers arrived to join us. We drove out of the little town, and the road started to climb immediately, zigzagging up the hill in a series of switchbacks. At this time of year everything was bright green—the grass beside the road, the leaves on the grapevines and the oak trees in the forest. And dotted among the green were bright splashes of red. Poppies were everywhere—among the lines in the vineyards, between the olive trees. Amid this riot of colour were old farmhouses, either built of rough stone or faded red stucco, their shutters bright green, their roofs tiled. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of a tower, either a church belfry or a castle. We stopped in a small village, then the road climbed again until it was running along a ridge. On either side of us the land fell away into deep valleys and then rose again to even higher peaks. The mountains seemed to go on forever until they faded into the blue distance.

We came to a halt in a village that was little more than a row of houses and a couple of farmyards. The bus driver turned to me and told me this was where I needed to get off. I found myself all alone in the street as a church bell far off tolled midday. Nobody seemed to be about apart from a black cat stretched out on the yellow gravel outside the houses. The sun was now hot and there didn’t seem to be a café or any shade. The bell went on tolling and I wondered if it was someone’s funeral.

I stood for a while trying to decide what to do. It seemed I was destined to walk the last five kilometres, but I had no idea which direction to take. I could hear the sound of a radio coming from inside one of the houses, so I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Another woman in a black dress—clearly the obligatory uniform of women over a certain age—opened the door and glared at me.

“Buongiorno,” I said in my best Italian. “Where is the way to San Salvatore?”

She took in my foreign appearance, my jeans, the duffel bag on my shoulder. “A destra,” she said. “To the right. Up the hill.” Then she closed the door again.