The old man was still fuming about the missed opportunity. The photo with the pretty Italian lass was ruined by her boyfriend who sneakily positioned himself between her and the old man. She was a most unlikely beauty to have a photo taken with, he later told me. He said his heart missed ten beats and he was almost pronounced dead by the time she stood close to him.

“Can-ah I-ah have-ah a photo-ah with you-ah?” she asked, screwing her button nose, making herself even more adorable.

She asked the old man where he’s headed next after leaving Bellagio, as she posed sensually for the camera, looking right into his eyes.

“Naples. I hear it’s beautiful there also,” he replied, her beauty imposing on him to use the word ‘beautiful’ even though he had heard the place was simply chaotic, messy and littered with rubbish almost everywhere. The bumpy roads of Naples were so neglected that anyone with loose dentures was liable to lose them if they left their mouth open during a journey from Posillipo to Vomero.

“Beautiful nipples-ah?” she asked, changing her alluring look to a quizzical one. Italian women know how to pose for the camera. Well, at least in Milan anyway, and at Bellagio. She had a classic look but standing next to her boyfriend made her less classy.

“We have a saying about nipples,” she said.

“See nipples and die!”

The old man left them without asking for a photo. He thought she was just distasteful and vulgar. He did not understand that ‘see Naples and die’ meant that once you have visited Naples and saw its charm and beauty, you have seen enough beauty to die satisfied.

The air was still warm with the afternoon sun shining brightly despite it being mid-November already. He and his travelling companions hurried to the jetty to catch the next ferry; they did not fancy missing it as they had to leave for Bologna early the next morning. The old man, accustomed to walking his dog regularly, was unchallenged by the gentle terrain of Villa Balbianello’s garden and arrived at the jetty on his own. His companions behaved more like dogs in a park, sniffing here and there, smelling the flora and stopping to soak in the ambience of the romantic garden. By the time they joined him at the jetty, he had already scouted the place and could see a ferry speeding towards their direction.

“The ferry will depart at 1.30pm,” ‘James Bond’ said, as the ferry slowed down. With fifteen minutes to go, the group decided to sit away from the gate to avoid the throng of passengers expected to alight from the ferry. ‘Eva Green”s sister was observing a young couple from Singapore, hoping to engage them in a conversation but the couple, both of them quite fat, remained aloof and walked away. So, she started to chat with a group of Filipino girls instead, and soon both sisters were deep in conversation with their new friends. All four of them looked to be no more than in their late teens, all dark in complexion, all unattractive and therefore did not attract the old man’s attention. There would be no photo session with any of them. ‘James Bond’ reconnoitred the immediate surrounds of Bellagio jetty and collected a collage of photos for his album. The old man sat alone, waiting for the first passengers to appear from the boat. None did. To his horror, the boat didn’t stop and veered away from the jetty. The ferryman must have seen no one was waiting at the jetty and hurried to the next stop.

“Oi! Ferryman, come back!” he yelled.

The busy chatter around him stopped, all in shock at the rudeness of the voice. The filipino girls, ‘Eva Green’, her sister, ‘James Bond’ and a Hungarian couple with a baby girl all looked his way. They behaved like they were inhabitants of Herculaneum, all looked horrified and stunned, with no time even to breathe, as if Mount Vesuvius just had a cataclysmic eruption and spewed tonnes of volcanic mud twenty five metres deep onto them.

The next ferry, the last for the day, wasn’t due till 5.10 pm by which time it would be already dark. The newfound friends decided to walk across the dead road to a local hotel which welcomed them like a Venus flytrap. Once you walked in, you were destined to part with your money. The old man reckoned the hotel worked in tandem with the ferryman; there was nowhere else for them to kill time.

Hot tea, thank you.

Four cappuccino please, thank you.

Some nuts and chips, thanks.

“Vorrei una birra, grazie,” the old man ordered a beer.

The problem with Bellagio was the lack of public transport in a town that was peppered by winding and undulating tracks, some of which are quite steep and slippery when wet. ‘James Bond’ had not only booked and also prepaid for an expensive dinner at a ristorante a few miles from their AirBnB villa. When they finally landed on Bellagio again, it was already dark. The blue and emerald water of the lake had turned black.

“Watch out for dog poo,” ‘Eva Green’ said, in a dialogue unimaginable even in a very bad movie script.

“What poo? There’s no dog around,” her sister replied.

Eva’s eyes, glued to the grass as they crossed a garden in a moonless night, suddenly lit up with laughter.

“Hah, see what I stepped on!” she shouted loudly but with delight in her voice.

The two men were some five or six metres ahead of her. They were tired and hungry and did not care to turn their heads back to look. Her sister, thinking Eva was just tricking her to double back for her, also kept walking.

“Look, look, it’s a U.S. twenty dollar note!” Eva shouted for attention, pleased that looking out for dog shit could give her such a good reward.

The following day, they said goodbye to Bellagio and an uneventful hour-long taxi ride to Milano Centrale followed by another uneventful hour-long train ride got them to Bologna. Both Eva and her sister were by then reminding each other to be less adventurous or else the screenplay for their holiday might mirror that of Book Club: The Next Chapter and see them spend a night in a local jail in Italy!

Their holiday started to unravel in Bologna. ‘James Bond’ got sick of Italian pasta and then he got sick. His throat started to hurt and a mild fever haunted him all the way to Naples. His companions continued with their walking tour in Bologna, leaving him alone in their apartment to rest. ‘James Bond’ couldn’t rest despite being unwell but he pretended to be asleep when his companions got back, fully drugged with happy hormones. In their apartment, Eva cooked lunch which consisted of incredibly fresh prawns and two live crabs from a seafood store adjacent to Via Clavature, a side street of Piazza Maggiore, where they were staying. Prawns and crabs weren’t suitable food for the unwell ‘James Bond’; besides, he reckoned it would cramp his style to be dirtying his hands whilst sucking on some skinny and hairy crab legs.

It didn’t make sense for ‘James Bond’ to openly admit that he was frightened by some loud strange noises when he was trying to rest alone in the apartment. After much prodding by ‘Eva Green’, the sickly ‘James Bond’ reluctantly shared his encounter with an unknown nemesis.

“No need to look away,” Eva said to the old man and his Mrs, before adding, “There was nothing to see. All that happened was that he heard a lot of loud sounds; of trolley wheels being dragged on a timber floor and animated male voices emanating from your room.”

The old man gave her a quizzical frown but said nothing. People were beginning to disbelieve his frequent ghost stories, so why bother to explain that his room was carpeted and he was out all day?

But, ‘James Bond’ heaved himself out of the black sofa he had laid on all day to join the party for their food walking tour around the Quadrilatero, an ancient commercial district in Bologna. There, they sampled the best produce from the Emilia Romagna region – pancetta from Piacenza, prosciutto ham from Parma, the wonderful parmigiana reggiano cheese from Reggio Emilia, the incredibly expensive 28-year-old Aceto balsamic vinegar from Modena, tortellini and mortadella in Bologna itself and so much more.

Bologna, a truly foodie’s paradise, did not disappoint. But, ‘James Bond’ did. He woke up the next morning with a throat that’s got a lot of white stuff in it.

“See, it’s bacteria or virus,” he said to Eva, as he opened his mouth wider for her to peer into it.

“Si, si,” Eva replied in full agreement with her action-hero before turning off the flashlight of her phone.

When they got to Naples the following afternoon, the normally suave “James Bond’ was looking worse for wear but he still strode the red carpet at the Teatro di San Carlo to attend Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote that evening.

The next morning, ‘James Bond’ developed a slight fever and had trouble swallowing.

“Please take him to the closest farmicia,” the old man said to Fulvio, their limousine driver in Naples.

“No, take me to the hospital,” ‘James Bond’ said with authority.

“Are you not well, Sir?” Fulvio asked sympathetically.

“Many people sick. Nipples very wet and cold last week,” he added.

“My doctor friend in Nipples very busy this time of the day,” he said helpfully.

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll explain to her.”

“Tell her I have a sore throat,” ‘James Bond’ answered.

“A sore throat? No fever?” Fulvio asked, as he raised an eyebrow and gave a shrug.

That evening, ‘James Bond’ went to bed really early, before 7 pm in fact, skipped dinner and missed the sunrise the next morning.