My knowledge of Italy came from a school atlas. The capital city was Rome, and I could envisage roughly where Venice was. But the north-west coast was uncharted territory to me. Aidan mentioned a place called Livorno – Leghorn in English – and told me that Pisa, with its famous leaning tower, was not far from where we were going. In fact, we would be changing trains at Pisa station. But I was unable to imagine it until he retrieved a large book from the bottom shelf of the bookcase and flipped through it until he found the page he wanted.

“There,” he said, placing the open book on my lap. “This picture is of Lerici, the place where the poet Shelley lived a hundred years ago.”

The book was called In the Footsteps of Poets and Artists: A Traveller’s Guide to the Mediterranean. I stared at the picture he had pointed out. It showed a painting depicting a scene in a village. There were small houses and a dried mud track scored by carriage wheels. People went about their business: a woman with an armful of washing, a man with a fishing net. It looked to be a port about the size of Aberaeron, but any similarity between the two places ended there. The sky was painted in Della Robbia blue – the colour of the virgin’s robe – a blue so intense it was almost purple. The light seemed to come from a brighter heaven than the one above us here in England, turning the buildings and their shadows to chessboard blocks of white and black. In the corner there was a glimpse of a sparkling sea decorated with small fishing boats.

I looked up. “But this is only a painting,” I said doubtfully. “It can’t possibly be like this in reality.”

“I assure you it is! Why else would poets and writers and artists adore it so? Italy, the French Riviera, Greece, Spain … the light of the Med is quite different from our northern light. It warms not only the skin, but the soul, I can tell you.”

“No wonder David likes going there.”

“Quite. And not only David. Places like Italy and Greece are good for making films, for the very same reason: the sunlight. There was a community of artists fifty years ago in Castiglioncello, but now it’s more a community of film-makers. They’ve all got their villas there, not just Giovanni. It’s rather a fashionable place, full of Americans. Hence the language school.”

I read the caption beneath the picture. “Ler-iss-ee, on the Lig-oo-rian coast, by Sir Henry Fox, R. A., 1911.”

“Not bad.” Aidan twisted his neck to look at the picture too. “It’s Ler-ee-chee, but you did well with ‘Ligurian coast’. Liguria is the part of Italy where Castiglioncello is situated. South of Lerici, but still on the coast, in a little bay.”

I imitated his pronunciation. “Casti-yon-chello?”

“Bravo! Someone told me once that Welsh and Italian have a historical affinity. Or was it Spanish? At any rate, you’ll be speaking Italian like a native before you know it.”

“With the help of Signor Lingo, of course.”