Balls deep in bolognese

Italy – 5 guys, 4 nights, three drivers, two emotionally scared Italian women, one car and 600 farts.  

Intro

In 2018 I promised myself I’d never go to Italy again. 
I had been on a work project, driving around Europe installing music systems in retail stores. I drove through 8 different countries. The only country I got a driving offence in was Italy. In fact, I got three. Three different fines for three different offences, two of which were the same day and the same offence just 20 minutes apart. Then there was the morning I went to fetch my car to find not only was the car no longer in the car park I left it in, but instead there was a huge bustling food market. As I later discovered, there was a sign (in Italian of course) saying not to stayover Wednesday nights as the car park was used on Thursdays for the market. All in all, I was quite peeved off with Italians and their love for sucking money out of road trip tourists. I’ll never go back, I promised myself. 

I’ve been back to Italy twice since then. The most recent of those trips was 5 days, 4 nights travelling around the Northern part of Italy with 4 friends from secondary school. It had been about 10 years since my last “lads trip” abroad. That trip involved briefly stealing (and then returning) a boat and one of the lads drinking puke as a prank. I was hoping I (and everyone else) had grown up since then. The trip was supposed to take place in 2023. But, went to shit when just one of the lads, Zac, actually turned up on said trip. On that occasion, wae spent a few scenic days driving across the France-Spain border coast. It was largely lovely and sensible. This time, we wanted the others to join us and experience a bit of Europe. The only time the lads left England was to go on a hot country holiday with their families, spending a week in a hotel complex full of other English people and eating English food. Horizons needed expanding.

We were initially a group of 4. That somehow became 6 before long. And then 5 again. When Keeton decided quite late that he would join us, we had already made our first mistake. Keeton won’t mind me saying this, but he isn’t a small bloke, and despite upgrading the size of our hire car it clearly wasn’t big enough to comfortably (or at all) fit 5 middle-aged English blokes. 

The first rule of the trip was therefore one dictating seating structure, including driver and passenger seat rotation, ensuring that the two big lads weren’t ever in the back at the same time and that everyone had an equal amount of time in the passenger seat where they wouldn’t be subject to a slow, organ squeezing death. This system failed on many occasions, but was a taste of things to come.  

Pre-trip planning

But before we get into the farts and the car issues and more farts, let’s talk about the planning stage. After the 2023 mini-failure, we actually got off to a good start by deciding on a week where we’d do the road trip. We didn’t know where, we didn’t know how, we didn’t even know who. But we had chosen a week in June and taken that week off work. Winning.

After that point, we quite quickly decided on the where: Italy. Italy has the scenery, the weather, the food, and most importantly, the “I’m not in England anymore”. We had a couple of WhatsApp group calls where we ideated. We got a little ambitious at times, speculating about trips to Croatia via Venice, or driving down both coasts with a little visit to Sicily, or visiting San Marino to buy a fridge magnet, but in the end decided democratically and happily on pretty much nothing but flying into Bologna. 

That decided, and 45 Google Maps route ideas later, we had a plan (chosen route in Google Maps). We would:

• Day one – Fly into Bologna, Pick up the mid-sized and far too small rental car, drive to and lake Garda for lunch, drive to and spend a night in Dervio, lake Como. 
• Day two – Very slowly make our way around Lake Como, take the west coastal roads towards the Cinco Tierras, have lunch in Santa Margherita Ligure, sleep in Cernobbio.
• Day three – Explore some of the Cinco Tierras towns that are almost too pretty to believe, sleep in Monterosso al Mare
• Day four – Fiumaretta di Ameglia
• Day five – Head back towards Bologna airport, stop in Lucca for lunch.

From there. Things started magically getting organised. Most friendship groups have the one person who, thank the lord, was born with a talent for planning. In our case, we thank the lord for Littler. 

Before we knew it, apartments were booked, cars were hired, and, for a moment, I expected calls to be made to potential lunch spots asking ahead to make sure they served chicken nuggets and chips with ketchup. 

But to be fair to Littler, he let us leave in an element of spontaneity for the trip. The morning we all arrived in Bologna, we had only two nights’ accommodation guaranteed. We left the others open so we could be flexible. And we were happy for it. I was certainly happy for it. 

In the year I travelled around South America, I rarely knew where I’d be sleeping two days away. Often I wouldn’t have anything booked the same night. I loved it. But now, admittedly, with age, I like a bit more security. Just last year, Zac and I, on our mini trip, managed to book our accommodation within 24 hours of needing it. That worked lovely, apart from one day, where we got so desperate we booked an AirBnB in a farm which didn’t have enough beds. That was one of our favourite stays. 

All this to say, stability balanced with flexibility is the best way forward for our group. And meant Littler wasn’t chomping at the bit the whole time. 

Day one – Arrival – Bologna > tiny-ass rental car > Lake Garda > Dervio, Lake Como

I arrived at Bologna airport first, having flown from Barcelona on a rather early, 7am flight. I sat down in the arrivals lounge, drinking my first Italian coffee and croissant – the calm before the storm. Before long, Zac, Keeton, Littler and Gibbo waltzed through arrivals trying to hide their excitement. Thankfully, there was no drama on their flight. Apart from Keeton breaking the rear seat window in Zac’s new car on the way to the airport, everything had gone smoothly. 

Given my history with driving cars in Italy, I opted to sit out of the whole car hire and driving situation this time. Which went unnoticed, given 3 of the other lads wanted to be the drivers. It already felt dodgy when our car hire company asked us to sign blankly before we could even see the documents we were signing. So, we signed our lives away and went to pick up our Volkswagen T-Roc from the airport car park. Picking up the car turned out to be the hardest part. We walked past an angry tourist who was looking for the car hire representative to fetch his car, unsuccessfully. Given his facial expression, he looked like he’d been there a few hours. When we finally found someone from the car hire company, we collared him over and he immediately gave us the keys. 

This is where things got uncomfortable. Littler was the chosen one to drive first. Which meant, according to our crucial car seating arrangement rule, either Zac or Keeton had to be in the passenger seat. Well, despite following our well calculated arrangement, it was a struggle in the back to say the least. So much so, that we had to keep one of the back doors open to fasten our seatbelts and then suck in our bellies to close the door. 

With some questionable driving skills from Littler, we were off. Like a bunch of excited kids about to visit Alton Towers for the first time. We passed the poor tourist bloke as we left the car park. With his rental contract screwed up in hand, he really looked defeated. 

I knew we were in for an intellectually stimulating exchange about Italian culture when Keeton gasped with amazement and said “Italian road cones are small”. This was supplemented with a further comment about the size of Italian lorry bays being more spacious. 

Life in the car

After a few days, we had discovered the driving styles of our three drivers and started making comparisons and derogatory comments.

1. Littler. Littler drove in a very sensible manner, doing his utmost to follow all rules and be convenient to all other road users. His most regular question was “what’s the speed limit on this road then?”. These days, Google Maps has this covered, but Littler needed external validation. He got us to our location eventually, and safely, but questions started to be asked. Questions like, “are we there yet?” and comments around adding extra Littler time to the Google maps ETA. 

2. Zac. Zac had somewhat the opposite driving style to Littler. More aggressive, faster round corners, not so interested in being convenient to other road users. And rarely, if ever, asking about the speed limit. This got us places faster. But it got us places uncomfortably. After one particular mountain pass where I was trying (and failing) to have a siesta in the back of the car, I dreamed of Littler in the driving seat once again.  

3. Keeton. Keeton’s driving style was somewhere in the middle of the other two. Which was reassuring, as Keeton drives lorries for a living. And with lorries, one can only imagine that both timing and safety are of the utmost importance. Apart from his left field comments about cones, bays and other road-related articles, Keeton drove well. 

I have to admit that I didn’t make a great passenger on this trip. The moaning about lack of space aside, I mostly moaned about how often bowel movements were made. I decided to make myself useful and put together a road-trip playlist on Spotify. 

The front-passenger was responsible for navigation. This mostly worked okay. When I got in the front, and discovered that one could connect their phone’s navigation to the car’s entertainment system, it enabled the most comfortable siesta opportunity that one could have in the car. 

Lake Garda
Lake Garda was our first tourist stop on the trip. The part we stopped at was certainly worth seeing. A small town, set inside a castle wall sunk into the water. We had a little walk around, and after taking a photo or two, and admiring just how vast the lake was, set out to find some lunch. As touristy as this place was, we did find a lovely spot overlooking the lake. After paying about 6 euros each, this is where we realised that ordering beer may not be a good idea for the duration of the trip. But, thankfully, we convinced Littler not to ask for chicken nuggets. With our first Italian meal digesting, we headed toward lake como. 

Lake Como
Our experience in Lake Como was quite different. Well, actually, it was equally beautiful and large. But we’d hit the jackpot when we booked our AirBnB in a tiny town called Dervio. And Dervio, had not a single other tourist in site. In fact, it was so quiet, we were a little apprehensive about sitting in the local bar and spoiling the local-vibe. We got over it fast, and ordered more beers. Not quite as expensive, but still something wasn’t quite right. Our apartment had a gorgeous view of the mountains, and we made a promise to wake up for sunrise.

Before sunrise, though, there were things to check off our list. We were already hungry, and found a lovely, if not a bit too fancy restaurant overlooking the lake. The waiters didn’t seem too happy too have us as customers – but did seem very happy doing little but having a natter between themselves. We did order, finally, and ate well. Despite being stuffed, we couldn’t resist topping up our bellies with an authentic tiramisu. By the time we got the bill (we virtually had to go to the till, log in, and print it off) It was late, it had been a long day, and we were ready for bed.

But, the world had other plans for us. On our way back, we walked past what must have been the only late-night bar in Dervio. And what must have been the only English born waiter on the whole lake. A few of us were unsure about “one for the road”, but of course, we immediately changed our mind as soon as we learned that there was a bit of home here. Why does that happen? Why, when all one wants to do is sleep, are we tempted a bit extra by the prospect of another overpriced beer just because the person bringing said beer has a little something in common with us?

One for the road became two, two became three. It was lovely, though. We spent the whole time reminiscing about our school days. That was, of course, the one thing we all had in common. We all went to the same secondary school. Talking about school was rolling back the years that perhaps shaped us into who we are today. We talked about favourite teachers, least favourite teachers (to put it nicely), and most importantly, school crushes. Pushing the boat out, we even discussed our first kisses and most embarrassing “first time” moments. It was the type of conversation you could only have with people you shared such a big part of your early life with. Lotes of laughs were had, and we’re still waiting for Gibbo to tell us his childhood crush.

Day two – Lake Como > boat hire > Cinco Tierras > Santa Margherita Ligure > Cernobbio.

As expected, the sunrise wake-up didn’t happen. But Zac and I, feeling motivated enough to carry our coachto5k challenges into the vacation, managed a run in the morning. Gibbo joined us, too. As someone very new to running. It was by far my favourite run to date. It took me 33 years to understand why people run. I would see them, daily, running around the city, sweat on their brow and screwed up faces of suffering, and the only question I’d ask myself is “why do they do it to themselves?”. I get it now. It’s a continuous challenge, a competition against yourself. Self-love for your body and mind, mindfulness. Many more things, probably. But running that morning around the quiet and glorious views of Lake Como, I totally got it. The only thing I regret is not stopping to have a cheeky espresso in one of the cafes over the lake. But, check-out time was nearing, and Littler was quietly losing his shit at the prospect of checking-out late.

On the way back to the apartment, we all met at a bakery. After a lot of pointing and saying Spanish words like “eso” and “si por favor”, we left with a huge bag of almost all types of delightful Italian pastries. Breakfast was going to be lush.

The Boat
One of the shared highlights of the trip was hiring a boat for a few hours on Lake Garda. After a very serious 30 minute safety lecture, we were ready to roll.

Cernobbio

We arrived in Cernobbio quite late. Everyone was dying for a beer. But, our apartment that night was quite far up the hillside. Zac took us on a mini tour around the town only to find that the bar he found on Apple Maps, didn’t exist. Like a bunch of hungry kids in summer who’d been denied ice cream, we sulked as we walked down the hill into the town.

Finally, we did get a beer. And, to our amazement, they arrived with a freshly stone-baked margherita pizza. We got comfortable. 3 or 4 beers later, we stumbled out as the quality of the food declined with each round. Until, on the last round, we were given a bowl of those curly crunchy biscuits which look like dog treats.

There is no evidence anywhere as to what we did after. Not a single photo. Somehow, despite us having 450 photos in our shared Google photos album, nobody took a single photo between those very expensive beers and an end-of-the night pic of us back on the apartment balcony.

We stumbled across something quite brilliant. It was an outdoor bar and disco, overlooking the lake. The music was booming. Young Italians were everywhere, dressed in style. Makeup had been applied. Italian Primark had been emptied. Beats were thumping and the drink was flowing. We were hungry, but food could wait.

We spent a good 10 minutes queueing for the bar. Only to find that the queue to the bar only allowed you to order a drink if you had first queued in a different line to buy drink vouchers. The Italians, not entirely known for their efficiency, had struck again. Begrudgingly, we queued another 10 mins to buy rather expensive drink vouchers (usually known as cash in other countries), and rejoined the actual bar queue again. After ordering, somehow we had one token left over. This token became the magic token. The bar staff didn’t ask us again for it. We took it in turns, making it a competition of who can get the most drinks and still keep the token.

Eventually, we’d had enough drinks and took the magic token home. It became the only evidence we’d spent a night at the outdoor disco with a bunch of Italian teenagers. Naturally, by the time we’d finished playing the token game, no restaurants were serving food. We found a little shack with some random left over snacks and ordered what we could. A taxi journey back up the hill was inevitable.

Day three – Cinco Tierras > lots of driving and coffee stop offs > Monterosso al Mare

The towns – Cinco Tierras
Before we get onto the wonderful, so pretty as hard to believe your eyes, Cinco Tierras, there’s the small matter of Keeton’s restaurant choice to discuss. In line with our fair-passenger-seat-exchange-system, on the way to the West coast it was Keeton’s duty to find us a lunch spot. Our plan that day was to get up early, get to Monterosso al Mare around midday, and have a lovely time on the beach relaxing and throwing stones at each other. Keeton well and truly ruined this plan for us, by choosing (inadvertently, I suppose) the slowest lunch service the world has ever seen.

We arrived an hour before they started serving lunch. Naturally, they turned us away. So we took ourselves for a lovely little walk around the town and had some ice cream. Arriving back at the restaurant, they sat us down at a table. The place was still rather quiet, but people kept piling in. Cute couples, an older father being taken for lunch by his son, a huge party of about 12. It took us some time to Google Translate the menu, but even so, by the time we’d ordered, we ended up waiting a good hour for our first course. Another hour passed before we got our second. And what felt like another before we got the bill.

All in all, it was slow service, reasonable food, at a ridiculously low price. For a three course meal and a drink, with bread, we paid less than 10 euros each. Was this abnormal or typical for a middle of nowhere Italian town lunch spot? We’ll never know. Keeton got the blame anyway.

Monterosso al Mare
After driving what felt like a whole day to the West coast, we decided to take it easy the next day and spend some hours on the beach. But first, a trip to the supermarket. We did buy some food, but also bought wine and beer and vodka and limoncello.
Boy, did we cook one hell of a pasta dish that night. With Zac’s signature garlic bread and the pasta, we went to bed with very happy bellies. And some of us slept very, very well.

Some towns gave us total relaxation. To the point where our minds would wander to the most curious of places. To make my point, consider another rather random observation from Keeton, when at the moment of glorious silence, over an open viewing point, we were all looking into the abyss of sparkling blue sea and rocky cliffs, Keeton turned to Zac and asked  – how much steel do you think you’d need to build a road around the Cinco Tierras?
Bloody hell. I don’t know Keeton! – Zac replied. It summed up all of our feelings perfectly. 

Day four – Fiumaretta di Ameglia

To tell the truth. I have no idea what we did this day. Not a clue. Nothing comes to me. So, instead, I’ll give you a little inside look on what it’s like travelling with a bunch of middle-aged English men.

Travelling with a bunch of middle-aged English men
There is one thing you learn about men, only after spending a few days in a cramped car with them. Men smell. Okay, it was hot in Italy. We were sweaty most of the time. We only had a certain amount of clothes to reuse. But it wasn’t just the sweat and yesterday’s underwear. There were farts. There were so many farts that I sometimes forgot what oxygen was liked. I started to question life itself. Is it normal for there to be so many farts? Is it okay that, an unnamed friend of ours (Keeton), would purposely fart about 30 seconds before we all get out of the car, and then turn to us and say “thought I’d leave that one hanging for you” before closing the car door?

Perhaps some things that happen in Italy should stay in Italy. But, as farting was such a big part of this trip, it had to be mentioned here so that us, or anyone else planning on travelling with men, can get a full picture before making the final decision.
Then there was the snoring. Don;t get me started on the noises that came out of some rooms. Noise which you’d be reasonable enough to think came from an army of tractors and chainsaws. To be fair to him, I shall say so here that Gibbo didn’t snore much. Or, come to think of it, fart much. But the others….

Stench aside, there’s a special connection created when old friends get together and hang out for a few days. I spent so much time laughing on this trip. There’s always a funny spark in the air, always an opportunity for humour, usually directed at someone in the group. The truth is, laughing is a beautiful thing. It’s healthy, it puts us in a better mood and it builds connection. I don’t think we laugh enough in our serious, adult lives. There was a particular moment that guarantees a laugh every time I think of it. The phrase “finger blasting” will go forever down in history, at least in our memories.

Day five – Lucca > Bologna airport

This was basically a day of driving back to the airport. A strange feeling was in the air, and it wasn’t just to do with the digestive process of 5 blokes. It was more than that. It was sadness, deflatedness. That feeling you get when good things come to an end. But it was also nice. When you get to a certain age, you get excited about returning to routine after a stint away. The early nights, the bedtime routines, the home-made food and that feeling of falling softly on your own bed after a hard day. Bittersweetness was around. But it wasn’t over just yet, according to Littler, we had to visit one more place.

Lucca is a nice town. It has a square which is famous for something very important to Italy, which I’ve forgotten. It was also just pleasant to walk around. You felt as though you were entering a castle as much as you were a town. And more importantly, Ed Sheeran was playing a concert there the very week we were floating around. So every bar cafe and restaurant, and I mean every one, had an Ed Sheeran playlist on which went on a loop constantly. If I’d had seen Ed himself, I’d have wanted to strangle him a bit.

We passed time by playing Shithead in the famous square. Littler lost, as usual, and to make things worse for himself, tripped over the rather lovely old cobbles in the street and sprained his ankle. Never a dull moment with this lot. After eating one last delicious serving of pasta and listening to Ed Sheeran screech his annoying little voice for another 90 minutes, we crawled back into the car and started to drive back to Bologna airport.

Is it just me or are goodbye hugs kinda awkward? One minute you’re having a laugh about some curious thing like small cones, and the next, you’re in the sweaty pits of one of your friends saying goodbye. And just like that, it’s all over and you’re already thinking about having to wash all your clothes when you get home. Well, we passed this awkward moment in the carpark of the airport and said nice things to each other like “good, that”, and “see you on the other side” and then we were gone.

That is, until I got a text from my airline kindly informing me of the 2 hour delay on my flight which meant I saw the lads once more in a very, very long security gate queue. This time, just awkward smiles were exchanged and Littler suggested we should pass the time by playing chess against each other on our phones.
I won, in case you were wondering.

Lessons learned

In what can only be described as the best possible evidence that we have truly grown up into full-functioning adults (that or some of us spent too much of our lives in the corporate world). Toward the end of the trip, Littler asked us what lessons we’ve learned from the trip, what would we do differently next time? 

Here’s a couple:

• How to drive a boat
• To always knock on a public toilet door before entering
• Knowing how to interpret Gibbos awkward face
• Roast beef isn’t roast beef
• Men fart a lot
• Zac has a snoring problem
• Our school year was full of bell ends
• Italians don’t speak English
• Gibbo and Littler suck at Shithead
• Laughing a lot is beautiful

In terms of Italian culture. We didn’t learn much apart from the toilet thing. But there was one interesting take away. Italian’s are generally known as rather relaxed people. They like to not do things. or, do them spectacularly late, or slowly. But that doesn’t apply to everything. It turns out Italian’s are fast at one thing. They make pretty aggressive drivers. So, our final takaway being that Italians love to drive fast, but do everything else slow as fuck.

Things we did well:

• All arriving, on time.
• Not entering any cities 
• Cooking a delicious pesto pasta dinner with Zac’s signature garlic bread 
• Not actually trying to order spaghetti bolognese or chicken fingers
• Choosing to spend a night in lake Como

Things we didn’t do well:

• Deciding to drive about 14,000 kms in a couple of days
• Choosing a “mid sized” car for 5 blokes 
• Allowing Keeton to join despite his bowel tendencies  
• Ordering beer every day, despite remember how expensive beer is every day, and noticing every day that Italians drink wine which is delicious and Italian and cheap

Italian culture questions I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer to:

• Why don’t Italians put locks on their bathroom doors?
• Why is beer so expensive? 
• I know that you love using tourism to fund the economy, Italian government, but let’s be honest here, when will the road traffic fines arrive? 
• Why did our boat instructor spend 30 mins telling us how to get back into the harbour but not make a single mention of the British couple who drowned just swimming in the lake a few months ago?

Post trip

In the build up to the trip, we had learned that Littler didn’t like Italian food. We therefore spent the 5 days trying to convince Littler not to order chicken nuggets. 

In the aftermath of the trip, it seemed our efforts had been successful, as he later admitted he had “definitely warmed to Italian food in Italy” and that his new favourite food was sausage ragu. Seems like Italy had quite the impact on our plates. 

Meanwhile, Gibbo was trying to convert his “not a fan of Italian” wife. Zac sent almost daily pictures of his Italian chef endeavours, namely pesto. On absolutely anything. Whilst Keeton was asking about how to make Gin and Lemoncello cocktails. I managed to find the very same pasta shape (like small, squiggly lines) which we ate the day we made kick-ass home cooked food, and started buying Burata like there’s no tomorrow. One thing we almost all had in common was that we’d each found an authentic Italian food shop to buy fresh pasta and sauces from for the rest of our lives. 

A month or so after the trip. Our WhatsApp group was still going strong. We had already started planning the next trip. Ideas were flying around. Montenegro, perhaps. Let’s do Croatia this time. Can we go to San Marino to get a fridge magnet? 
But the most popular idea? To book a flight to Bologna, hire a car, and drive to lake como.
If nothing else in this blog shows how much we enjoyed our trip, that certainly does.