Crickets leaping round our feet. A butterfly at the rim of my hat. Burrs on our socks. Smells of fern and pine. The rhythmic rasp of the cicadas. And, ranged around us, a never-ending green. Cypress and cedar. Peaks and parched pastures. The combed vineyards and the dark oak thickets. Moving through it all, feeling right inside it, sticky with it even. Like any other animal. This is what we love and why we do these summer walks.

We set off from the railway station in Ravenna. Heading for the coast. Not the Adriatic, just five miles away. But the Tyrrhenian, on the other side of the Italian peninsula. The remote bay of Cala Martina to be precise: it’s in Tuscany, about halfway between Genoa and Rome.