Hotel Emilia, Portonovo

It was all a bit like a James Bond film set. A glistening white building surrounded by green, green lawns dotted with sunloungers and pine trees and oddly industrial sculptures: all overlooking an Indian-Ocean-white beach and a pigment-blue sea. Crickets sang from the lavender bushes. The reception staff were dressed in white too, loose white linen tunics and trousers: they moved slowly, as if performing Tai Chi, and smiled alot, inscrutably. The hall and sitting room were hung with modern art, some of it very good, and large French doors opened onto a shaded terrace of smooth pale stone. Our rooms were all cream carpets and billowing curtains, cane furniture and dark wood floors. I half expected Ursula Andress to pad across the lawns, dagger strapped to her still-dripping thigh.

But, like a film set, it all looked better from a slight distance. Upon closer inspection the whitewashed building showed signs of wear, the cream carpets bore stains of spillage and the staff chose not to venture out from behind their reception desk, leaving us to haul our own luggage to our rooms. The art, on the other hand, remained as good close up as it was from across the room.

We spent a happy couple of nights here though, lounging in the gardens and around the pool, sipping cold beer beneath a shady arbour. We took dinner one night, outside on the terrace. Earlier in the day, when we asked to see menus, one of the floaty-linen reception staff felt it necessary to point out that the portions were small: an odd way to entice diners. Perhaps she thought we were gluttons. We were served fish that was overcooked and vegetables that were tasteless, so in the event we were grateful for the small portions. And whilst we ate we knew, could even faintly hear, that down the road in the bay people were eating the freshest of seafood, in the most garlicky, fishy liquor or the crispest of batters, looking out over the inkiest of seas.

But you can't have everything. And taking coffee in Emilia's gardens, with the breeze from the Adriatic wafting over the cliff and the sculptures looming vaguely in the darkness, was very pleasant; until it was too chill, and we moved into the living room: in the dimmed light the paintings took on a different quality. The strange filmset feeling returned. I might have ordered a martini, but I worried it might be stirred rather than shaken...

Hotel Emilia, Collina di Portonovo 149/a, 60129 Ancona

Tel 071 801117

Hotel Emilia

La Mulinella, Ponte Naia, Todi

Vitello tonnato is at once a robust yet delicate dish: cold slices of cooked veal smothered in a smooth, light sauce of tuna, capers, eggs and olive oil. A classic if slightly unusual summer plate. I mention it because the version I was served at La Mulinella was so far removed from this description as to be either a regional variation warranting definition as a sub-species in its own right, or a joke.

A few hundred yards steeply downhill to the south of Todi, a large sports ground dominates the scattering of modern houses that makes up the suburb of Ponte Naia. One house has been turned into a restaurant and sits in a carefully tended garden with shaded tables. This is La Mulinella. On the sunny lunchtime we rolled up, a few local diners - workmen and families - had already taken their seats and were smoking and chatting as the waiter brought bread and water. We ate crostini with mushrooms, a rich chicken liver paté and torta al testo with spinach. Then ravioli with butter and sage and lamb scottaditto. This was all very good, made even better by warm sun and chilled wine. But the vitello tonnato... if I didn't know better, I imagine the conversation between waiter and chef may have gone something like:

Waiter: "He wants vitello tonnato."

Chef: "I don't have any tonnato sauce."

Waiter: "He's English."

Chef: "I have a can of tuna."

Waiter: "That will do."

Chef: "Are you sure?"

Waiter: "He's English."

So the plate put before me was simply two slices of veal topped with with mashed tinned tuna. There may have been a few capers sprinkled on top, I can't remember. Sadly neither my Italian nor my culinary expertise were up to questioning the dish, so I ate it. It was okay, but it was a bit odd. I think I detected a faint raise of eyebrows when the waiter collected my empty plate, which I imagine he returned to the incredulous chef and said "I told you so."

I think (though I may be wrong) that Mulinella means little windmill, though there's no evidence of one. Mind you, there was no tonnato sauce either. But, really, don't take this as a reason not to go: it was very good, and I hope you're luckier with the tonnato than I was.

La Mullinella, Vocabolo Ponte Naia, 06059 Todi, Umbria

Tel 075 8944779

No website of their own that I can find. I don't have a picture of little Ponte Naia, so here's one of big sister Todi.

La Locanda del Baio, Loreto Aprutino, Abruzzo

Imagine the scene, if you will. Two English people with little grasp of Italian save for a few words walk into a small ristorante pizzerie in a remote village in Abruzzo. The staff have even less grasp of English, and why would they? Until the recently converted Castello Chiola started attracting British and American tourists to its new hotel rooms, such foreigners were, I imagine, a rare sight in the village. Perhaps even now they are a rare sight at La Locanda del Baio, as the hotel does its best, understandably, to keep hold of you for dinner as well as for bed.

But sometimes the hotel restaurant thing is just too much. They can try too hard, the dining room can be too hushed for comfort, the service too attentive and yet the food mediocre. We didn't eat at Castello Chiola so I may be doing them a great injustice and the food may be spectacular... but that evening we just didn't fancy the rigmarole of smartening ourselves up for dinner. So we found ourselves knocking, in jeans and tee shirts, at La Locanda's door. The welcome we received was beautifully, correctly, indifferent: you're not Italian, you're tourists and we can't understand you, but this is what we serve and this is how we serve it, so what do you want? No fuss. We had a very good meal here, and paid an exceptionally good price for it. The same price, I imagine, as the locals who frequent the place. Most of all we felt completely welcome. And relaxed.

Bruschette and pasta and grilled meats later, we left. And as we did, the entire staff, who had gathered anyway at the end of the evening for a chat, bade us a friendly farewell. I hope that La Locanda has, if it wants it, picked up some more diners staying at the Castello. But I hope too that this tourism doesn't go to its head. If our gum-chewing waitress has anything to do with it, I doubt that it will.

La Locanda del Baio, Via Baio 21, 65014 Loreto Aprutino

Tel 085 829 0674

No website I can find.

Caffe Calce, Ravello

Ravello's Piazza Vescovado is roughly square, and dominated along one side by the duomo of San Pantaleone, patron saint of the town. Directly opposite, the square ends in some iron railings, and the ground drops away into the valley. To the left, a café with outdoor seating and a small shop and, beyond, the Villa Rufolo. To the right, a run of ochre coloured peeling plaster on what was once an elegant building. And up a few steps in the corner, between Via Roma and Viale Richard Wagner, a white building with a wooden bench outside. If you peek through the open door you may see behind the bar a chap with greying-black slicked-back hair and glasses pushed back high onto his forehead. If you do, don't hesitate: walk in and ask him for one of his arancini, for this is Signor Alfonso Calce and his are the best arancini in all Ravello; perhaps the best on the Amalfi coast.

For each night of the week we were here, Caffe Calce was our last stop of the evening, after dinner at the Villa Maria where we were staying. We'd wander into the square and, usually, sit under the stars at one of Signor Calce's outside tables for coffee and limoncello. On a couple of nights, when the weather was cool or when spots of rain blew in on the breeze, we sat inside; sometimes the only customers, apart from an odd drop in for a takeaway or a beer. The television blasted out the football loudly on the wall in the corner while Signor Calce watched and cleaned glasses, and his daughter fed her own baby daughter at a table opposite. We'd often call in in the morning too to pick up arancini for a picnic lunch. We became temporary regulars and nodding acquaintances and on our last evening, when we said goodbye and explained we were going home, Signor Calce gave my wife a gift of a small bottle of limoncello. The contents are gone, but we still have the bottle. When we were last, more recently, in Ravello, he was still there: a little greyer, perhaps, but the glasses remained perched where they always did.

Caffe Calce, Via Roma, 16 - 84100 Ravello, Campania

Tel 089 857 211

Caffe' Florian, Venice

"How much?!" Our indignant son could never quite understand, or even believe, that we had paid that much for morning coffee. I can't remember now how much 'that much' was. But it was a lot. More than I've ever paid anywhere for three cups of coffee, a hot chocolate and a liqueur. I told him that we were seated in Venice's oldest caffe', that they had been serving coffee here since 1720, that some of the most influential creative minds of Europe had partaken here and discussed great things. We were just another moment in its history, I said. He told me we'd been had.

So it depends, I suppose, on your take on life as to whether you appreciate Caffe' Florian or not. It's beautiful inside, certainly, and the staff is impeccable. But coffee can only get so good, and in truth I couldn't discern that much difference from the pot I'd had at breakfast in the hotel that morning. Our daughter's hot chocolate disappeared as quickly as a Starbucks version, and the liqueur was, well, alcoholic. Call me a philistine, but what's all the fuss about?

Well, for a start, how many branches of Starbucks will still be here in 300 years time? Florian is unique, a piece of Venetian history, and of its culture. The fact that tourism has also turned it into something of a theme park experience is hardly the fault of the caffe'. "We even tried increasing our prices to astronomic heights", they might say, "and still the tourists come!"

So, I've been, and I probably wouldn't go again. It's a bit like paying to see an ageing rock star who is unique and you know may never play another concert. You just want to say you were there. And then I noticed on their website that they've opened a branch in Harrods, and another in Dubai. Maybe there are some similarities to Starbucks after all...

Caffe' Florian, Piazza San Marco, Venice

Tel 041 520 5641

Caffe' Florian

Ristorante Etrusco, Turin

On our last night in Turin an Italian friend called us to say he had just arrived from the UK, also to visit the Salone del Gusto, and we arranged to eat together that evening. Taking an Italian for dinner, especially in Italy, has something of the double edged sword about it. It's helpful to have a knowledgeable and fluent companion, of course. But what will they think of our choice of restaurant? If the food's not up to scratch will they say so? What if we think it's really good and they don't? The sword has been honed to a sharp edge when your Italian guest is a chef, and threatens to draw blood at the slightest touch when that chef is a Marchigiano. Good job we know him well.

We chose Etrusco on some recommendation or other which I can't remember now. We were already in the restaurant when our friend arrived, like the whirlwind that he is, ushering in cold air from the crisp November night outside, then much shaking of hands and kissing of cheeks. We toasted each other with a bottle of prosecco and threw ourselves upon his mercy with the menu. He enquired politely of the hostess some things we didn't understand, but with a directness that clearly put her on her guard, which is exactly what our wily friend intended. Instead of the easy evening she was expecting with the two British know-nothings who had booked, she was clearly to be tested to the full by this knowledgeable Italian guardian. Her initially cool approach to us rapidly melted into eager-to-please fawning.

We shared three dishes of pasta: tagliolini with walnuts and speck, tagliatelle ragu and agnolotti. We thought the pasta was fine, but our friend was carefully non-committal. In the meantime our hostess attempted to ingratiate herself by recommening a fine bottle of barbera, which our friend tasted and merely nodded (I thought it was fantastic). Then osso bucco for the three of us, accompanied by roast potatoes. It wasn't outstanding.

The woman breathed a visible sigh of relief when we drained the wine, paid the bill and left, our friend bidding us thanks and farewell in clouds of breath on the night air. Tentatively I asked him if everything had been okay. "Oh, yes," he said, "it was all fine. But you have to keep them on their toes, don't you?"

Ristorante Etrusco, Via Cibrario Luigi, 52, 10144 Torino

Tel 011 480285

Didn't have my camera with me that evening, so here's a picture of the old Fiat building instead. Etrusco has no website of its own. Think they're worried in case our friend might contact them.

Aristocampo, Trastevere, Rome

The slogan on the blackboard outside reads "We are against the war and tourist menus". Well as restaurant slogans go, it's more profound than "I'm lovin' it". They have a point about the tourist menus: why do so many restaurants offer them? Perhaps they think that tourists will be confused by a free choice of dishes, so have to be told what to eat. Maybe tourists are attracted by the security of a set menu and a fixed price. We took a look at the odd menu turistico in Trastevere and found that that they're pretty much all the same: same dishes, same prices. So whatever else they may offer, it's not choice.

Anyway, Aristocampo's little rebellion drew our attention. In the July early evening it was still too warm to eat outside, so we settled into the spartan interior. Woven through the menu was an unexpected common thread: pecorino. We started with pecorino with pears and pecorino di fossa with fig marmelade. We could have gone onto pasta with sardines and pecorino but feared we'd have nightmares, so sidestepped the cheese and ate pasta with clams, and chicken with lemon and milk. And some of those oven-roasted potatoes that are pleasantly burned on the edges. All good.

We thought a quiet stroll by the river would finish the evening off nicely. So did about two thousand others. Crowds thronged both banks of the Tevere, and the bridges, carrying tiny lanterns and waiting expectantly. We joined them and waited too, without knowing what for. From somewhere upriver singing started, like a monastic chant, and through the crowds we glimpsed a boat on the river. The singing swelled and applause rippled through the audience as the boat docked and a wooden statue of the Madonna, adorned with precious clothes and jewels, was lifted onto the bank and carried up the steps by Ponte Garibaldi. The Madonna-bearers disappeared amongst the crowds as they carried the statue back (we later learned) to the church of Sant'Agata, signalling the end of an eight-day local holiday.

We wandered back to our little hotel past brightly lit stalls selling porchetta and sweets and candyfloss; the final fling of the festival. We finished the day against tourist menus, and very much in favour of local festivals.

Ristorante Aristocampo, Via della Lungaretta 75, Trastevere, Rome

Tel 06 583 35530

No website of its own I can find. Try searching for pecorino.

Hotel Berchielli, Florence

The main thing I remember about the Berchielli is the motorbikes. I'll explain. The hotel sits directly on the Lungarno Acciailuoli, a long street that runs alongside the Arno between Ponte Amerigo Vespucci and Ponte alle Grazie. It's a busy road, by Florence standards. (By Naples or Rome standards it would be a quiet backwater, but here it's a pretty well-used thoroughfare.) And the traffic that uses it most seems to be motorbikes, scooters, mopeds... all of which descend in weaving waves of determination as soon as the traffic lights turn green. And sometimes, perhaps, slightly before. And when the Amerigo Vespucci lot's lights are on stop, it's the turn of those who have come across the bridge from Via Maggio, thus ensuring an endless two-wheel tide. A single step out the the Berchielli's front door and you're amongst it all, cheek to cheek with the passing moped rider, toes just inches from the motorbike's tyres, a whiff away from the scooter driver's perfume. The other side of the road becomes seemingly unassailable, yet something to be conquered, like the north face of the Eiger. The first time we attempted to cross the road took us maybe half an hour. We got worried, because we were only in Florence for two days.

Surprisingly, once inside the hotel, no hint of this mayhem pervaded its serene ambience. All was calm. The hotel was efficient and tidy rather than personable and friendly. Our room was pleasant enough, though probably identical to the room next door. Breakfast was okay, from what I remember. There seemed to be no quirk, no personal touch. I do remember though that one of the coffee table books in the lounge displayed paintings of a highly erotic and explicit nature, which came as a bit of a surprise as we thumbed through it over coffee one evening.

So maybe the hotel does have a trick or two up its sleeve, after all.

Thanks, by the way, to the hotel website for this picture.

Hotel Berchielli, Lungarno Acciaiuili, 14, 50123, Firenze

Tel - odd, but they don't seem to want to publish their phone number?

Hotel Berchielli

Locanda Canal, Venice

Venice is, on the whole, a city of gentle sounds, free as it is of the rush of roads and traffic. Market stallholders feel no need to shout. The distant 'hoi!' of a gondolier around the corner of some still backwater, the gentle strains of a string quartet in Piazza San Marco, the metallic ring of footsteps in an empty alley are all evocative, but unobtrusive. Even the throb of boat engines and the horns of the vaporetti on the Canal Grande are somehow subdued. But the sound that all Venetians listen for, can pick out above and through all others, is the city's siren; the warning, the harbinger of high tides, of acqua alta.

One blast of the siren alerts the city to the likelihood of flooding (so stay tuned), then further emissions spell out the expected magnitude (how far up your house the water might come). In a time when most of us are glued to our radios, televisions, computers and phones for the latest news, this simple sonic alert remains a neatly effective way to reach the majority of Venice's populus, wherever they are and whatever they're doing. An efficient, well-rehearsed response quickly kicks into action, as flood boards are installed in front of shops and walking platforms assembled. We saw, and heard, it happen one watery September.

Locanda Canal is a small, tucked away hotel with comfortable if unspectacular rooms. It reminded me vaguely of a David Lynch film. The walls of the corridor were lined with padded silk that subsided disconcertingly to the touch. We were served a modest breakfast each morning in a compact room with wooden floors and beamed ceiling, sitting just that bit closer than comfortable to our fellow guests, while an extremely petite young waitress wearing thin latex gloves wordlessly made the most incredible cappuccino. The hotel entrance gives out onto the Fondamenta del Remedio and stepping out one morning into heavy rain we noticed that the level of the deep green canal was considerably higher than the previous day. Other canals we passed were the same, and by midday the lagoon had spilled over the Riva degli Shiavoni and was lapping at the base of the Leone di San Marco. A buzz of expectation ran amongst the tourists in the Piazza, excited as children at the novelty of a city full of water.

Not so for the Venetians: just resigned frustration perhaps. And a quiet acceptance.

Locanda Canal, Fondamenta del Remedio, Castello 4422/c - 30122 Venezia

Tel 041 523 4538

Locanda Canal

Le Colombe Agriturismo, Assisi, Umbria

Gina Lollobrigida springs to mind when I occasionally recall our stay here. Actually Gina Lollobrigida quite often springs to mind for no reason at all, but I think that must be my age. We'd driven up an improbably steep dusty track, following discreet wooden signs, to be greeted (well more bumped into really) by the agriturismo's owner, who was just leaving on some brief expedition or other. Now if 'owner of a holiday farm' conjures up a rustic character in shirt sleeves and cord trousers, with weatherbeaten features and rough hands, you're in for a pleasant surprise. The woman that skipped down the steps towards us was in her early forties perhaps, tanned and lean, wearing a crisp striped blouse with turned up collar, fastened one button less than might be expected, white trousers and sunglasses pushed back into her auburn hair. As she leaned into the car her heavy necklace fell forward from her chest and a heady waft of scent instantly cooled the hot air. I felt we'd arrived.

From the tiny hamlet of Rocca Sant'Angelo across the valley from the agriturismo, a thin bell rings at intervals. Other than birdsong and the chirping of crickets, this is the only sound to be heard here on a summer's day beside the pool. I visited the hamlet one hot afternoon; a small knot of buildings tightly tied against outsiders. I saw no people, only their evidence: scattered chairs beneath a sort of gazebo; low voices from an open window; the smell of cooking; a bike propped outside a door. And cats. There were a lot of cats.

Le Colombe itself was peaceful perfection. Our hostess presided over breakfast, making poached eggs more exciting than usual. Most of the time we had the place to ourselves, to laze and potter in between excursions for food. In the evening we'd make the ten minute drive into Assisi to eat, returning in the dusk as bats flitted around the roofs, to sit beneath our loggia until the stars appeared.

Nights were completely silent and star-filled. And occasionally scented with a waft of expensive perfume.

Le Colombe Agriturismo, Localita Rocca S. Angelo, 42/43, 06088 Assisi

Tel 075 8098101

Le Colombe Agriturismo

Hotel San Francesco, Trastevere, Rome

Several bridges will take you from the heaving capital into Trastevere. Broad, wrought-iron-framed Ponte Palatino; solid stone Ponte Garibaldi; Ponte Fabricio which hops across to Isola Tiberina in the middle of the river, and Ponte Cestio, which skips from there to the western bank. Crossing any of them is like breathing a sigh of relief, as you leave the crowds and the traffic and the heat behind and plunge into a leafy suburb which seems far more separated from the commotion of the other shore than a mere fifty yards or so of churning brown water.

Trams rumble along Viale Trastevere, a broad avenue of dusty plane trees, where men sip coffee outside bars, a florist waters his stock from the nearby drinking fountain and an Indian family sells fabrics and bags from a tiny stall which we never saw closed. Along Via San Francesco a Ripa tables and chairs burst the boundaries of their restaurants and spill out onto the sanpietrini pavements. In the Piazza Santa Maria a Trastevere people enjoy the relative cool of the evening after another stifling day; happy just to mingle amongst the gentle activity of the square, the musicians, the living statue dressed as a Pharoah, the Indian street sellers whipping illuminated frisbees high into the night air.

Tucked into all this, a block back from the Viale, past the laundrette and the Jaipur restaurant, just by the convent in the Piazza San Francesco d'Assisi, we found this modest hotel of contrasts: smallish bedrooms, but spacious bathrooms; smart reception but peeling stairwells; and a roof terrace that looked worn around the edges by day, but was a magical retreat at night, when the canopy flapped in a breeze that carried thin chimes from the nearby church bell, the seagulls flew like pale ghosts through the black sky, and the pre-dinner beer was as refreshing as the post-dinner grappa was warming.

I'm a big fan of roof bars. And bridges.

Hotel San Francesco, Via Jacopa De' Settesoli, 7, 00153, Roma

Tel 006 58300051

Hotel San Francesco

Hostaria Da Paolo, Trastevere, Rome

Anywhere you can get a litre of decent house wine for less than the price of a plate of green beans deserves a mention, in my book. Hostaria da Paolo is one of those places that withdraws like a snail into its shuttered shell during the day; to emerge in the evening, as the sun dips and the temperature drops a little, spreading itself across the pavement and into the piazza. At the end of each night it retreats once more, shutting down so comprehensively that it might never have been there.

They begin setting out at around seven, un-padlocking the tables and covering each with a gold-coloured cloth, bringing out plastic chairs from inside. Luca D'Alfonsi (we assume it is him from the name on the bill - we never found out who Paolo is) performs this task, as he must have done a thousand evenings before, in a careful, measured way, stopping now and again to chat to passers-by. He is a small gorilla of a man; straight-backed, barrel-chested, full-stomached, in denim shirt, apron and jeans. When we had chosen our table, Alfonsi's leaner brother appeared, in official red waiter's waistcoat. If anyone remembers Mister Pastry from the earlier days of British children's television, then this is the briefest way in which I can describe him to you; but with less grey hair. A twinkle in his eye told us from the outset that he had a reliable sense of humour.

As we picked our way through the written menu, Mr Pastry delivered a comprehensive inventory and imaginative explanation of what was off that evening: it equated to most of the things my brother-in-law had planned to order. I'll start with the zuppa advertised on the menu, please: "No." said Mr Pastry firmly, with a shake of the head. "We don't have any. Anyway, who would want to eat soup in this heat?" He had a point. Next then, how about the abbacchio scottaditto? "No." said Mr Pastry. "That's off. You'd prefer the pollo al peperone." What about some roasted potatoes? The reply was predictable: "I'll bring you fagiolini." Musicians appeared in the square to serenade the diners; an accordianist, then a guitarist who also sang, while my dining companion contemplated his singular achievement of not actually receiving anything he had so far ordered.

Meanwhile my bucatini amatriciana was earthily rich, as a dish involving dried pig's cheek and pecorino cheese should be. The chicken with peppers was meagre on chicken but generous on flavour. To my brother-in-law's horror, the beans were served cold, with just a dribble of oil and a squeeze of lemon. The outside tables were now filled, mostly with locals, and plates of food that we hadn't seen listed on the menu regularly appeared. At the end of the evening, attempting at least to get on the scoresheet, my brother-in-law, knowing that it was against convention, ordered a cappuccino. Mr Pastry's face acquired a look of alarm. "No, no!" He clasped his hand theatrically to his chest and asserted that this was absolutely impossible: they didn't serve milk, because it was bad for the heart. "You will have an espresso." My companion was defeated. With such a maestro at work, attempts to order anything other than what he was determined to serve him were futile. I ordered a grappa to toast him in admiration. And got it.

Next morning when we passed, any evidence of the previous evening was gone. Until this evening, when no doubt it's happening all over again. That litre of wine cost three euros, by the way. The beans were four.

Hostaria "Da Paolo", Via San Francesco a Ripa, 92 Roma

Tel 06 5812393

No website. Even if there were, you'd probably be redirected to a different site altogether.

B&B Accademia, Venice

Venice has an abundance of many things. Water, obviously. Tourists, clearly. Dimly lit calle and dripping sottoporteghi. Gondolas. Art. And graffiti. There's a lot of self expression in Venice.

This particular piece of plebeian art was right outside the window of our first floor rooms at the B&B Accademia in Dorsoduro, and during our short stay here we grew to quite like it. It acted as a landmark, assuring us that we'd turned the right corner on the way back; reminding us to turn left as we left in the morning. Appearing mainly on temporary structures, the graffiti comes and goes, appropriately transient in a city of such crumbling history which is itself passing away, and might not even remain in as few as fifty years, they say. What Venice may no longer have in abundance is time. In the comfortable rooms of this lovely old bed and breakfast the polished parquet floors, the original shutters, the heavy door furniture, even the creaks and groans seem stoically rooted in the past, as if denying the prospect of such an insubstantial future.

We fell asleep to the sounds of the evening's last vaporetto chugging away into the night, and woke to the morning's first, noisily disgorging its passengers into the alley below our window. The autumn days when we were there were damp and grey, only occasionally broken by a pale, ineffectual sun. We opened the French doors of the breakfast room hopefully one morning, only to close them against the chill before we'd finished our coffee. It was that time of year when a shroud of quiet melancholy seems to fall over the city (and nowhere does melancholy like Venice), as if in mourning for summer past. Or maybe in mourning for Venice itself. The swell slapped the gondolas on the Riva degli Shiavoni and a keen wind blew in off the lagoon. The gondoliers had put on their coats and pulled up their collars. By mid afternoon in the Campo Santa Margherita the few stallholders had begun to pack up and head for home, leaving only puddles of water where they had cleaned down their stalls and a dog snuffling for scraps. In the empty Rialto fish market at dusk the heavy red tarpaulins between the pillars snapped and billowed in the breeze. At night our footsteps echoed along the alleys, filled with the foggy yellow light of the city's lamps, and with black shadows. Venice's ghosts surge easily in on nights like this.

Perhaps one day, maybe sooner rather than later, they'll have the city to themselves again.

Accademia Bed and Breakfast, Dorsoduro 1054, Venice

Tel 041 5221 113

Accademia Bed and Breakfast

Al Vecio Pipa, Burano

The islands of the Venetian lagoon are like children from the same family who share common parents but have developed their own characters and gone their separate ways. Murano is industrial and commercial, still churning out glass in its furnaces located a safe distance from the city. Atmospheric San Michele, the island of the dead, groans under the weight of Venice's departed (but only temporarily, until they are removed and deposited in the ossuary, in readiness for the next inevitable occupants). Torcello exudes abandonment: a portent of Venice's own eventual fate, perhaps. So Burano, with its brightly painted houses and displays of delicate lace, feels the most cheerfully wayward of the offspring, even on a misty autumn day.

The bright colours of the houses were traditionally employed, apparently, to help the island's fishermen find their way back home on murky days and nights. Days like this. Today they have become a design statement. Philippe Starke owns three houses here, apparently. So it's hard, when wandering Burano's streets, to know what's real and what's pastiche. Those nets and sticks outside that small house, are they awaiting a fisherman's next trip or just there for effect? The fishing boats tied up at the side of the canal; do they really fish any more, or just take tourists on safe little rides into the lagoon? That lace in the window, is it really made by hand here, or on some machine in China?

And then we stumbled upon 'Al Vecio Pipa' for lunch, and all seemed real again. An elegant wood panelled dining room. A reserved but efficient waiter; older, wiser. And very good food. This place must host tourists by the boatload, but seems to have resisted any temptation to lower itself to the common denominator that so often results. We ate risotto with a brisk taste of the lagoon and drank crisp white wine. An elderly, elegant French couple were the only other diners. After lunch the mist thickened and even the bright colours of the houses were subdued in the greyness. We chugged back across the water as if surrounded by cotton wool, the dim votive lamps of the Fondamente Nuove appearing suddenly as we docked.

Behind us, the cemetery, the foundries, the forsaken church and the colourful houses out there in the lagoon had slipped away: receded into the insubstantial fragments of our imagination.

Al Vecio Pipa, Via San Mauro 397, 30012 Burano

Tel 041 730045

Even the website seems to have disappeared in the mist.

Da Anna, Portonovo

Before we discovered Marcello's, we found Da Anna amongst the scattering of wooden buildings that line the shore around the bay. Further on towards the headland are smaller, scruffier boathouses and fisherman's huts. But this is the restaurant quarter of the beach. Da Anna is painted powder blue beneath an asbestos roof, with troughs of oleander below its windows. The lovely Anna takes things at a measured pace. In the late afternoon a man carefully raked the fine pebbles of the beach outside the restaurant, and tended to the parasols. At seven in the evening, as the shadows of the parasols lengthened across the shingle, the mainly Chinese staff sat outside the restaurant in what was left of the evening sunshine, eating. At seven thirty they were talking and smoking. At eight they unhurriedly began to open the restaurant, and we were the first eager diners through the door and into the vaguely nautical dining room.

First, garlicky, winey, chilli-spiced vongole, then crisply rustling fritto misto. You can judge a lot from a restaurant's fritto misto. The batter should be thin, crisp and very light; the misto may be squid, octopus, tiny fish, but all must be spankingly fresh. There may be courgette too. The fried morsels should leave hardly a trace of oil on the greaseproof paper and no aftertaste in the mouth. And there must be salt, and lemon; in quantity. Nothing else is needed. Like fish and chips, it's best eaten directly out of the paper. In Venice we ate a slightly sad version, served with salad. In Amalfi a better one, mainly of octopus. The very best exposition we've enjoyed is a few steps up the beach from Da Anna, at Il Laghetto, but this came a close second.

Down to earth, prompt service from a slightly swarthy waiter kept the place up to speed with the seemingly endless stream of customers that poured through the door like the tide had come in. Here a young couple gazing into each other's eyes. There a family with a young baby. Over there two young chaps who ate their pasta more quickly than anyone I've ever seen (apart perhaps from Alessio Villa's father in Assisi). At intervals an increasingly sweaty Chinese head would appear from around the kitchen door to check progress then disappear back into the kitchen, no doubt to report that the deluge continued.

As we left Da Anna, more diners squeezed past us through the door and yet more waited outside, good-humouredly, in the now chilly dark. The tide was still coming in.

Trattoria Da Anna, Via Portonovo, 60020, Ancona

Tel 071 801 343

No sign of a website I'm afraid. You'll just have to wander along the beach until you find it.

Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Palermo

It's more than a year since I was in Palermo, yet odd reminders still draw me back. The weather was like it is here now – hot and close, threatening to rain. What made me think of it this morning is the fennel growing in our vegetable garden, now so tall that it waves to me through the kitchen window in the breeze. I ate bucatini with wild fennel and fresh sardines at the Antica Focacceria San Francesco, sitting outside in the shaded piazza. There was a breeze there too, this one warm and scented with the smells of cooking.

So hungry I could eat a horse's head (tacky Godfather reference, sorry), I claimed my outside table for one and ordered mixed antipasti and a portion of caponata to start. Most of what arrived I'd expected. There were arancine (deep fried rice balls filled with ragu), panelle (chickpea fritters), sfincione (a kind of pizza) and cazzilli (potato croquettes). But there was a surprise too, which I hadn't ordered. Pani ca' meusa: a small bread roll filled with boiled veal lungs and spleen, topped with slivers of caciocavallo cheese. Yum. Probably not on McDonald's NPD horizon, but evidently extremely popular in Palermo. And any city that offers veal innards in a bun as its signature dish deserves respect.

In for a cent, in for a euro, I bit into the soft bread and the meat inside. And chewed. The taste was oddly sweet, meaty but sweet, like cow's breath, the texture rubbery. I peeled back the top piece of bread to investigate. The innards were layered in thin slices, and pinkish brown. One piece had a delicately frilly and anatomically detailed pale centre. I closed the bun and chewed some more. As I chewed, I noticed a few people emerging from the Focacceria with serviettes wrapped around buns of their own. Then more people. Theirs were not little buns, like mine, but large ones, the size of saucers, stuffed so generously that the filling oozed out from between the bread. The Big Macs, the Whoppers of Palermo fast food.

Soon almost everyone in the piazza was chewing. And talking. They stood, they walked, they sat on the steps of the church, and they chewed. The Palermitans must have the most exercised jaws in Europe. Next day, wandering around the market, I saw the raw materials of the dish hanging from hooks like wet chamois leathers, and realised why all that chewing was necessary.

Talking of jaws, it would have been nice if the waiting staff at the Antica Focacceria had managed to stretch theirs into some semblance of a smile. Whilst the food here was acceptable, the service was the epitome of Sicilian surliness. Perhaps the fawning attention lavished upon the crisply suited and sun-shaded businessmen on the next table had left them drained, bless them.

Antica Focacceria San Francesco, Via Paternostro Alessandro, 64, 90133 Palermo, Sicily

Tel 091 6090261

Antica Focacceria San Francesco

Tentazioni di Gusto, Trapani, Sicily

I like the way Italians name their restaurants. There's practicality and down-to-earthness at work in a naming convention that often includes the owner, or even previous owner, or grandmother; sometimes refers to its location or an attribute of the place's history; and that usually makes reference to the accepted coding system which only Italians seem really to understand that tells you what kind of establishment it is - osteria, trattoria, ristorante. So a name that translates as Temptations of Taste seems to break with all of that accepted wisdom, and risks sounding a bit tacky. When the B&B owner drew circles on my map of Trapani to indicate good places to eat, he wrote just Gusto, so either he couldn't spell Tentazioni or he felt the name is tacky too. There was nothing tacky about the food though.

It was a hot evening. The clear skies of the day had clouded over thunderously and occasional spots of rain spattered the pavements, threatening to break into a downpour. Gusto (as I prefer to call it) didn't start serving until 8pm, so I spent the previous hour outside a bar within spitting distance, so to speak, of the restaurant, drinking cold beer and watching my fellow drinkers, thinking how different this was from a British pub. Men in smart suits dropped in, presumably after the office and before home, and sipped from cocktail glasses. A beautiful, elegant young woman in an evening dress joined them and drank a glass of wine. Pairs of young girls in jeans sat and sipped coke and coffee, and smoked. Groups of teenage boys gradually swelled in numbers, pulling in more chairs as required, and carrying on earnest and animated conversation. They didn't drink, and as each additional boy arrived, there was much kissing of cheeks. See what I mean about not being like a British pub?

From where I sat I could watch the staff at Gusto lay the tables and set out the chairs in the alley outside the restaurant. Lighting the oil lamps at either end of the alley signalled they were ready to serve, and I sidled up to my table for one. The two dishes that most tickled my fancy on the menu were both pasta. A busiate with wild board ragu, which I ate second, was excellent. The two glasses of wine, white with my first bowl of pasta and red with the busiate, which the waiter had gently but firmly steered me towards, were superb. The service, the knowledgeable explanation of the dishes, the genuine desire that you enjoyed the food, was exemplary. But it was the first bowl of pasta, bucatini with sardines, that was the star. I'd eaten this dish in Palermo, and was impressed. But this rendition was so many notches up it was in a different league. Sardines so fresh you needed your sea legs to eat them just melted in the mouth. Pine nuts and raisins wafted in the Arab world like a breeze across an oasis. Wild fennel lent a heady other-worldliness. I don't usually photograph the food I'm eating (I'd rather just eat it), but on this occasion I couldn't resist recording how simply this dish was presented, compared to how sublime it tasted. Unsurprisingly, every table was filled by the time I left.

So, that name. I still think it's tacky. But maybe there's something about that temptation thing after all.

Tentazioni di Gusto, Via Badia Nuova, 27, 91100 Trapani, Sicily

Tel 0923 548165

Can't find a website of its own. Google probably rejected the tacky name. Doesn't matter - if you're in Trapani, this is where to eat.

Tavernetta Ai Lumi, Trapani, Sicily

I wasn't sure, when I was in western Sicily in the early summer, whether La Mattanza - the ritual tuna slaughter - still existed or had slipped into folklore. I saw no evidence of it in Trapani or on the island of Favignana, where the old tuna processing factories now lie empty. No one seemed to want to talk about it much. I did see an awful lot of fresh tuna for sale though, so someone's catching it.

In Palermo the arrival of a whole tuna at the Ballaro market had been greeted with noisy excitement, as stallholders barked and a crowd gathered to watch the huge fish being butchered into bright red portions. In less than an hour the head and a few bits and pieces were all that remained of the glistening black torpedo. Here in Trapani, the sale of tuna is a more considered, less frenetic affair, perhaps because there's so much of it. In the fish market by the harbour a whole tuna had been neatly portioned and the pieces laid out knowingly, like some mystic arrangement of symbols. The colour of the flesh varied markedly from piece to piece, some almost black, some deep crimson, others bright scarlet, a few as pale as raw chicken. Elsewhere in town every fishmonger displayed their hand drawn cardboard signs advertising tonno locale, all at the same kilo price. On the odd street corner little trucks sold a few pieces of red flesh off slabs of chipped marble, covered by the makeshift shade of an old umbrella. At a stall by the seafront I was cheerfully offered a tuna sandwich: a huge bread roll stuffed with thin slices of cured tuna, a squeeze of lemon and a twist of black pepper. While I waited for it to be assembled the stallholder invited me to taste a thin, dense, dark slice of intense fishiness. Cuore di tonno, he smiled: tuna heart.

So, in a town awash with tuna, it was no surprise to find it on the menu at the tavernetta Ai Lumi. I took a table outside in the early evening. The heat was just going out of the day and the sun had sunk low enough that the pedestrianised street was in full shadow. Lamps were lit and the bars and restaurants were filling. A waiter not unlike Cristiano Ronaldo weaved skillfully between the tables on the wooden terrace, taking orders and brusquely delivering bread and water. I started with something I'd never seen before on an Italian menu, or any other for that matter: fried eggs, salsicce, red onions and pecorino cheese, served in its cooking pan. It was quite tasty. Ronaldo shimmied neatly past the other diners to deliver my main course: the tuna. A thick slice topped with a yellow dollop of sweet and sour onions, and a side of roast potatoes. It was okay, but a tad overcooked, and in truth I was a bit disappointed.

It was dark when I left, nearly ten o'clock, and as I wandered back to my B&B I passed a chap on a street corner selling something off the back of one of those tiny little vans. You've guessed it.

Tavernetta Ai Lumi, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 75, 91100 Trapani, Sicily

Tel 0923 872 418

Tavernetta Ai Lumi

Ristorante Bar Nuovo Edelweiss, Erice, Sicily

As far as I'm aware, I'm the only paid up member of the mile high arancini club. Okay, eating deep fried crumb-coated balls of rice at altitude may be a bit of a minority sport, but someone has to do it, and it was at the mountainously-named Ristorante Bar Nuovo Edelweiss in Erice that I broke my previous record. Smashed it, actually.

Until then the highest place I'd consumed an arancino was in Ravello, on the Amalfi coast. 350 metres below, past the hairpin bends and the tumble of roofs and lemon groves, the azure sea twinkled. Signor Schiavo at the Caffe Calce on the square twinkled too as he worked his magic with humble rice and breadcrumbs.

The journey to Erice's summit was more of a serendipitous trip than a planned record-breaking attempt. A number 23 bus brings you to the foot of the mountain and a cable car whisks you silently high over scrub and rocks (and the odd villa with swimming pool) to deposit you in deserted Erice. You only have to peer over the edge to know that you're pretty high up. 751 metres high up, to be precise, making Ravello look like a hillock. There are two bars in the tiny central square, and I chose this one. Of course for the sake of research I could have ordered an arancinu (which is what Sicilians call them, apparently) in each bar and compared them. But I judged that would involve wasteful effort, so I ordered two from this same bar, and compared them instead. The first was filled with ragu, rich and slightly spicy. The second contained cheese and peas. Both were encased in crisp golden breadcrumbs and surrounded by soft moist risotto rice. I preferred the first, but it was a close run thing. I congratulated myself on my record breaking achievement with a celebratory ice cold Moretti beer.

The owner of the B&B where I was staying told me that people in Trapani like to visit Erice in the autumn when it is atmospherically gloomy, misty and damp, because there are rumoured to be ghosts roaming the streets. Perhaps it's just high spirits.

Ristorante Bar Nuovo Edelweiss, Piazza S. Domenico, Erice, Sicily 91016

Sorry, no phone or web that I can find, but if you've made it to the piazza you can't miss it.

I Colori del Vento, Trapani, Sicily

Trapani is Sicily's westernmost town. The westernmost point of the westernmost town has an edge-of-the-world feeling: a single road runs along a promontory to a squat stone building, beyond which a few rocks tumble into the clear sea, then nothing but an eye-squinting sky meeting a dark blue horizon. If you were to set sail from here it feels like you would go on forever. You wouldn't of course. Before very long you'd bump into Sardinia to the west or Tunisia to the south west, but it's a romantic idea.

My rooms at the bed and breakfast I Colori del Vento felt a bit end-of-worldly too, in a comfortable sort of way. Staying here on my own for a few nights in an enormous apartment, with two double bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen and bathroom, I imagined this as a place of anonymity, a place where you could disappear from the world for a long time. Maybe forever. (Well it was hot, and the sun may have heightened my imagination.) The windows of my room, full length and shuttered, looked over the treetops and across the road onto the port, where the ferries between here and Tunisia dock and depart. At night the sounds of mopeds and the shouts of boys and the thud of a football against a wall drifted through the open windows on the warm air, and often the low and steady engine-throb of a ferry at anchor. I settled and relaxed here: felt at home. When I first arrived, late at night, the owner appeared from the darkness to greet me, give me maps, tell me where to eat and offer me a glass of limoncello. All I really wanted was a bed, but I was touched by his concern. When I struggled to open the front door, returning one morning to collect something from my room, one of the young cleaners climbed out of the window to help. And late on the night before I left, when I went upstairs to the owners' rooms to pay, I was offered again the limoncello. This time it would have been impolite, I judged, to refuse.

Not everyone, apparently, agrees with this assessment. I Colori del Vento's reviews on TripAdvisor are at opposing ends of the spectrum: 'five star fantastic' to 'avoid it like the plague'. It's all about expectations, I think, and whether you consider yourself lucky or unlucky to have bagged the 'apartment' on the first floor. I did, and if I ever travel to the edge of the world again, here is where I would stay.

I Colori del Vento, Viale Regina Elena 62, Trapani, Sicily

Tel 347 2504630

I Colori del Vento