Ice cream was invented in Sicily. Probably adapted from Arabic Sharbat, the Romans used snow from Etna to extravagantly cool themselves in Summer. It was a good way to piss off the Ioneses next door. And ice cream is excellent here today.

But unfortunately, modern-day Sicilians are responsible for an unholy bastardisation. Ice cream in a bap.

They like sweet foods here, like cannoli. They like putting odd things in baps here too, like chick pea fritter (panella). But can you imagine a soft white bap mountained with ice cream, and the sight of a fat man slurping the soggy flaps of lardy bread at the end? I was so alarmed I hid behind a plant. I forgot to take a photo.

This way of eating ice cream seems to be all the rage in San Vito lo Capo, which is Sicily’s equivalent of Blackpool. One thing the town could learn from it’s English counterpart is that speedos on men are highly distasteful. But the men here, of all shapes and sizes love to gently peacock around town in nothing but a skimpy pair of swimming pants, licking the remains of an ice cream-in-a-bun. It was fearful when I got caught in a crowd of them in a café. Being crushed in the clammy throng made me feel like I had been thrust into the midst of a hectic frog-spawning session.

But these things aside, I love Sicily. It may not be as refined as northern Italy, but it is wild and rugged and real. I feel like I am driving into a western, cruising the flower-lined coastal motorway between mountains and the turquoise sea. Sergio Leone knew what he was doing when he made his spaghetti westerns. Sicily feels lawless, dramatic, and cinematic.

After 2500 miles, we have reached the furthest point in our grand tour. It feels further than that from Britain in terms of culture. Fewer constraints, less stress, more sun, more freedom. A good place for people to find their individuality. I miss quite a few things about London and Britain- family, friends, idiotic sports, complaining, fine queuing practices. But more than anything I miss a good curry.

A lot is said about Italian driving. The clichés are generally true, especially around Naples. There is a lot of breakneck tailgating; you make as many lanes as you can fit into of the carriageway; you only follow the laws you can’t get away with breaking, which are very scant; you drive as though you are drunk even if you aren’t. But I actually feel quite comfortable on the roads here. Not because I’m drunk. Because it is a system which hands responsibility to the individual to negotiate other individuals, rather than an abstract set of laws.

The south of Italy is fundamentally different from the north, it is often said. I have a suspicion that it even shuns the metric system in favour of imperial miles, having seen the way they interpret the speed limit signs. Driving is indeed chaotic, I would probably even say combative, in character, but in some ways it is simpler and more natural.

Your responsibility is to those in front of you, you keep your wits about you, and drive like the aliens have landed. You expect the car in front to do anything at any given moment, so you are prepared. Many cars here drive around with their wing mirrors folded in (they only get in the way, and why would you want to see behind you anyway?). If you want to overtake someone, you simply nudge their rear bumper and they move over. No problem. Unlike Britain, where moving over for someone defers status to them, and is considered an admission of abject wimpiness, like letting them torture your dog for giggles. Not so in Italy, where getting somewhere fast is highly respected and condoned. Why else was a car invented?

A good tip for the foreign driver who finds themselves in the midst of a shit-strike on the Neapolitan roads is to go offensive or snort some ether. I personally like to throw everyone off guard by using my indicators when manoeuvring. This really confuses them in Naples. “What the fuck is this crazy English bastard doing with those funny little lights on the side of his car? Hang on, is his car about to blow up? I’ve heard those English drivers take driving really personally! Get down!’ Don’t worry about driving on the wrong side of the road either, it won’t really get you in trouble unless you are on the motorway (I genuinely heard some Italian holiday-makers discussing driving in Sicily, saying the Sicilians must think they are in England, driving on the left all the time!).

Pizza is excellent is Naples, as might be expected in the city which created it. We ate in the restaurant which apparently invented Margherita pizza. I actually preferred the Marinara myself- simply tomato, garlic and basil and no mozzarella it is nice and light. Like espresso coffee, it is much better suited to 35C summers.

We stay in an agritourism guest house, with a memorable view over the whole bay of Naples. Producer/hostelry establishments such as this are growing in popularity. They produce lots of their own food. They have groaning olive groves, and they pulverise basil for pesto and tomatoes for passata in the mornings.

Check out these Mafia who ate at the table next to us one evening. There are lots of villas on this side of the bay of Naples, their gates guarded by dodgy looking crews who dislike having their pictures taken.

The Amalfi coast is one hell of a natural beauty spot. You have to see it and breathe it for yourself- endless uncurling coves of flowers, grottoes, and cliffs. The sea is crisp turquoise, the mountains are lush, the lemons are as big as melons. I could lounge here for a while.

Rome is stuffed with cultural sights. A turducken of archeological, artistic, and anthropological marvels accrued whilst serving as the heart and soul of two of history’s greatest empires. Both ancient Roman and Catholic power have found their nemesis in Germany. So maybe it is with an element of smugness that hordes of goths, visigoths, and vandals still pour into the holy city by the bus load.

Today, Germanic excursions to Italy are more toned down. Gone are the cruel axes and wicked war-thongs, gleaming helmets and scarves made of human meat. Now the uniform of the Hun horde is a brightly-coloured, print-your-own t-shirt and a practical sun hat (the same for every member of the platoon). I can see the practicality in this. In the seething crowds of the Vatican or the Trevi Fountain, it is easy to lose one of your school children or church group (the two main types of German gang I could discern).

But if I were a sixteen year-old on a trip to Rome and my teacher offered me ein ‘sehr cool and funky team shirt und hat it’s very nice and hipsterkatten ja’, I would feel like a bit of a wally to accept. Anyway, I have included some pics of crowds in Rome so you can play ‘Where’s German Wally?’. See how many different clans you can spot. You get extra point for finding an act of rape’n'pillage, and special prize for macabre moustache plaits.

Oh and here’s something puerile, a wry graffito, and some excellent gnocchi.

Florence shall forever be known as the home of artistic genius, the cradle of the Renaissance, the fountainhead of western thought and culture. So I thought I should write about the way they do beefsteaks here.

Thick. Crisp on the outside, bloody as a Primark sale on the inside. Served simply without any sauce, no bullshit. Perhaps you could have some lemon juice, oil, or pepper at most. Fantastic t-bones and rumps allowed to show off their natural flavour, not stifled by any pretensions to improving on nature’s work.

I first had bistecca Fiorentina when I was a kid, and my dad laughed that it was bigger than my head. It is still the best way of eating steak, in my opinion, but never quite the same outside of Florence.

Florentine food is quintessentially unpretentious. They try and show off the natural quality of their produce with almost an arrogant minimalism- as though they don’t believe they need to do anything fussy because they simply have the best ingredients available to man in their city. They might well be right.

Their cannellini beans, for example, are served boiled with just the addition of salt and olive oil, and can be plumper and sweeter than grapes. Why piss about with seven layers of stock preparations like the French grand style cuisine? More important to eat healthy, delicious food every meal as standard.

So go and try the bistecca, let the blood run down your neck like a prancing cannibal in orgy of blood and wine with beans on the side. Which is coincidentally the context originally described by the phrase ‘La dolce vita’.

The drive from Emiglia-Romana to the Tuscan hills is dramatic. The northern plateau stretches behind you as you climb twisting mountain roads through boar forests and porcini country.

Around every twist in the valley a picturesque hilltop town appears. It was a land of constant war and strife between city-states for hundreds of years so towns were developed with defence in mind. Cultural propaganda also always seems to go along with war and economic contention, and in Italy it took the form of artistic and grand architectural projects. This has endowed her with a global treasure trove and ensured a lucrative tourism economy indefinitely. Well, just compare the David and and The Colosseum to 50m high statues of Lenin or Mao, and you’ll probably agree the Italians have done pretty well out of their history. Perhaps if the Chinese had done Mao naked with a little masonry penis then things might be different. At least they could be flogging comedy Mao-statue aprons to tourists.

Lucca is small but perfectly formed. Pretty streets and excellent food (which is not saying much in Tuscany). There are towers, like Bologna though not as alarmingly high. One of them does have trees growing on the top terrace though.

There is a great little place to go for lunch if you ever visit – Trattoria da Leo – small and easy to miss, but busy. Their reddish brown spelt minestrone is fairly popular – they do like their grains in Tuscany. The tripe was first rate- it melted on the tongue. Lots of locals were eating there which is always a good sign.

Bologna would be a fun place to live. It is studenty and has a strong history of socialist activism- it reminds me of Bristol, although with less middle-class embarrassment.

The city is striking. Nearly every street is porticoed- the characteristic feature of Bolognese architecture. I don’t know why we don’t have more in England where it usually pisses down all the time. One thing our countries do have in common is a bounty of vacuous graffiti. Ahhhhhh kids…

We cruised around the city on Saturday night pretending we weren’t lost in the treacherous one-way nest. There seemed to be a pretty good night life. There are about 100,000 students in the city.

We ate at a trattoria where the ragu was excellent and the atmosphere was Bohemian. The walls were covered with pictures which diners are invited to scrawl on their placemats. My effort was the shittest thing I have drawn in a while. But I was tired and drunk, and I have included a photo of it for completeness.

Northern Italy is clearly the economic and industrial engine of Italy, probably why it was the socialist stronghold. In the main square of Bologna is a photo wall of everyone who died in the Socialist resistance to Nazi occupation.

We dropped by Maranello on our way out if Emiglia-Romana. There is really nothing there apart from a Ferrari sign and a gift shop. And… erm… a municipal building. I have included a photo but again, only for completeness.

La Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore, and the view from Bellagio on Como.

Italians have been coming to the lakes for thousands of years whenever they fancied a break from flaying Goths, besieging Ghibbelines, or reinventing art. Warm, clean air, cool water and majestic scenery.

The town of Stresa on Maggiore is a monument to old school Grand Tourism itself – pleasant, faded glory. La Isola Bella is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen: world class gardens with backdrops of the lake and the alps.

Como is surrounded by dramatic, craggy hills as opposed to mountains. It feels extremely affluent here – probably explaining the number of yachts on the lake.

Driving is sketchy around the tight, fast roads of the lake hillsides. It takes ages to get anywhere too. I imagine the celebrities use choppers.

Although Lombard motorway driving is slightly hair-raising during rush hour, it is far more sane than Sicily where they make three lanes out of two, and they do have a minimum speed for the fast lane which I consider highly civilised.

We’re off to Bologna now. Gastronomic bliss awaits in Emiglia-Romana.

We leave the motorway at Besançon and start the climb into the Jura mountains. The road to the Swiss border snakes through pine forests and steep mountain cliffs, topped by the occasional mediaeval fortress. Although we had already driven hundreds of miles across France, it was only when we reached her eastern borderland that it felt like we were really on a voyage. It is a beautiful warm evening and now we are off the motorways we can wind the windows down and smell the countryside around us, rather than a German air conditioning unit. The air smells of thick grass and pine resin, of things which have been drenched in sunshine.

The drive is dramatic and beautiful, a pleasant contrast to the sprawling flats of northern France. I think that motorway driving across France is better in winter. The countryside seems glacial and pure, like a sci-fi landscape inhabited by the colossal wind turbines they so love in Gaul.

As we race through the forest we listen to music randomly ranging from Trentmoeller to Keith Jarrett. It really feels like you are away when you travel by car. You feel the road passing beneath you, you take in the smells and details, you feel the culture slowly changing as you go. This is why I like to take the car across the channel by ferry. The tunnel is quicker, but I miss the sea-air, and watching a coast disappear as another grows larger. Also,there is nothing quite like returning to your home port at night after a long journey – the cluster of gold lights surrounded by black are cosy like the embers of a coal-fire in a dark room.

Emerging from the Jura border mountains we see Lake Geneva framed by the Alps in silhoutte. The plush residences around the lake shimmer like a constellation. It feels like we have  stolen our way into a hidden valley of the rich and glamourous. We stop for dinner at Bavois in the farmlands overlooking the lake. The food is great, but there are many flies inside, which are vexatious.

I notice that petrol is cheap in Switzerland, and much higher grade: 100 RON, which makes the V6 purr happily. I clean the flies from the windscreen at the petrol station only to find the most obscenely massive bug-squash on the front grill. I think at first it was a small plant. I realise it is actually a stick insect, its disguise just as effective after its humiliating demise.

We drive up the twisting mountain roads above Sion, surrounded by  looming, black mountains. When we awake the next day the view of Valais is familiar and stunning, and hardly marred by the big, fat, red crane doing its business. It used to be a quiet town here, but now it is becoming built-up. We shall take the cable cars to the high peaks and see what they look like without snow.

On the other side of the mountains is Italy. I am excited by the prospect of a drive through high mountain passes and the descent to the great northern lakes. There the long-established elegance of Italian civilisation is set against the mighty serenity of the Alpine backdrop. This combination makes for one of the most beautiful locations in the world, as I remember. I have not been there for years.

I never thought I’d see the day that London would have a beach. Now it has beach artists with their take on the sand-castle. Of course.

There are many fabric shops on the Goldhawk Road, heaving with all sorts of bizarre and bling reams of textiles. if you like glittery fabric, I recommend a visit – you will have never seen such wonders. Walking into one of these plush emporia is like entering the royal harem of Babylon (if Darius had had a penchant for polyester and was looking to save a few quid). I have absolutely no doubts that MC Hammer’s trousers were cut from Goldhawk Road cloth.

Now I know these places can be a bit natty, even sketchy. I once saw one of them being raided by the rozzers – it was the front for a (quite surprisingly large) drugs operation. So I expect the fabulous and the gaudy but my heart skipped a beat when I saw what one unhinged window-dresser has created. Evidently after a good bucket of PCP.

Hang on a second… Is this serious? Is the merchant psychotic? Am I psychotic? Or is this some perverse parody of the film Mannequin?

Henry VIII squatting in a yurt of spangled drapes… Look at the elegant pose, the jaunty cap, the sparkling jewelleries, the butter-stained ruff, the arrogant lust in the eye of the king! The vignette was created by a craftsman so skilful, it would take Shelley to capture his majestic eye for detail.

You have to wonder what they are hoping to achieve, who they are hoping to attract to their wares. Probably the queen. I am sure she likes MC Hammer.