Dreaming of Italy: A stunning and heartwarming holiday romance

by T A Williams

  At that moment they drove through a dark tunnel beneath what looked like an old convent on the hill above. As they emerged on the other side, they found themselves at the entrance to a narrow valley, its steep sides reaching almost vertically upwards towards the higher mountains beyond.

  ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ Emma was impressed. ‘We’ve only been driving for less than half an hour and we’re already in the mountains.’

  ‘Don’t forget, Turin was where the Winter Olympics took place back in 2006. There are mountains all around the city. Going back to the film, would I be right in thinking it’s not so much a mad passionate affair as a slow-burn “will-they, won’t-they” sort of thing?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Emma nodded approvingly.

  ‘Fine. That helps me a lot. And we aren’t looking for bright, flashy places like Monte Carlo, Rome or the centre of Florence, are we? You want places with an altogether quieter, more reflective sort of feel.’

  ‘Dead right, Marina. Our brief is to look for beauty, but off the beaten track.’

  The road became ever narrower, but Marina had obviously got the measure of the big vehicle and managed to squeeze up the valley towards the solid mass of mountains in the distance. After another twenty minutes or so, the valley floor widened and they arrived at a little town. Here the houses were mostly solid structures with gently sloping roofs to catch and hold the snow as added insulation in winter, with massive slabs of stone in place of roof tiles. A river rushed down the valley through the trees below and a sturdy-looking church dominated the little main square. Marina turned right and drove up to a sign announcing the Grand Hotel.

  She pulled into the near-empty car park and turned off the engine.

  ‘I’ve arranged to meet the local guide here. That’s probably him over there.’

  Sure enough, the door of a battered 4x4 opened and an elderly gentleman climbed out. As Marina left the driving seat and went over to greet him, Emma checked out the hotel behind them. For such a tiny town in an unknown valley, it looked as grand as its name, although not in the first flush of youth. Clearly, in its day, this had been quite some place.

  ‘Buongiorno signori.’

  Marina led the old gentleman back to the car where he tipped his hat at them. This was a jaunty-looking green felt hat with a feather sticking up on one side. Emma later learnt from Marina that it was an army cap, showing that he had once been in the Alpini, Italy’s elite mountain corps.

  They climbed out and Marina made the introductions. The elderly man, Cesare, didn’t speak any English and so Marina slipped into interpreter mode. And she was good at it. As Cesare spoke, she supplied an almost simultaneous translation. After a discussion with Marina about their requirements, Emma saw him nod decisively. She had been able to follow bits of the conversation, but the bulk of it had been too technical. Marina filled in the blanks.

  ‘He’s going to take us to a gorge with a narrow bridge over it. By the sound of it, it definitely falls into the melancholy category as well as scenic.’

  This set bells ringing in Emma’s head. She turned to Richard. ‘Hey, Rich, you’ve just finished reading the screenplay. Did I dream it or isn’t there a scene right back at the beginning where the old governess thinks Emily might have tried to kill herself?’ In fact she already knew the answer, but it seemed like a good way of getting him involved – and checking that he really had read the thing.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, quite a dramatic scene where Mrs MacDonald, the governess, goes running about wildly, looking for Emily as night’s falling and then finally discovers her on top of a high cliff.’

  Emma snapped her fingers. ‘Bingo! Let’s go and see if this narrow bridge could fit the bill instead of the cliff.’ She turned back to Marina. ‘Any other ideas for today?’

  ‘Cesare suggests going right up to the top of the valley in the high mountains – there’s a little restaurant there where we can have lunch. Sound good?’

  ‘That sounds great. And it’ll give us a chance to get some mountain shots for background.’ Emma nodded approvingly. ‘And maybe on the way back down we can check out this hotel. I think it could be right for the film. It exudes a sort of fin-de-siècle charm.’ She turned to Cesare and summoned her best Italian.

  ‘Please do you know the history of this hotel, Cesare?’ Beside her she registered Marina’s surprise at hearing her speak Italian.

  ‘Yes, signora, it was built in about 1910 and it has had some illustrious guests over the years, from the owners of FIAT to the Italian royal family, and even Mussolini. It was ahead of its time in that it was one of the very first hotels in Italy where every bedroom had its own private bathroom.’

  He was speaking slowly and Emma was delighted to find that she understood all of this, so she turned to translate it to Rich. ‘That’s good news. It would have been newly built only a few years before the time of our movie and was very posh in its day. We should absolutely include it. We’ll take a load of shots inside and out when we come back down the valley.’

  * * *

  The gorge with the bridge was perfect and the setting, with the clear waters of the rushing river far below and the mountain peaks above was exactly the sort of place Emma felt sure would lend itself to the film. The remarkably narrow bridge was strung high above the roaring waters of the river. A fine mist of spray hung over a waterfall below and, as the rays of the sun caught it, little miniature rainbows danced in the light. Emma could almost see the hauntingly beautiful Laney Travers, wearing a long skirt, leaning against the handrail, high above the gorge, sobbing forlornly as her old governess fussed around her. She took a load of photos with the very slick camera provided by the studio and instructed Rich to do the same, just to be on the safe side.

  From there they carried on up the valley, climbing steadily, until they emerged into the head of the valley. This was a wide flat-bottomed bowl ringed by walls of rock towering high above them into the snowline. A sign indicated that the altitude down here was just short of 2,000 metres and she could see the peaks above were way higher than that.

  The broad floor of the plateau was covered with masses of white and pink wild flowers and a huge flock of sheep were happily filling up on the rich Alpine grass, while their shepherd and his massive shaggy hound kept watch. A river meandered through the middle, the pools of water along its banks framed by clumps of tall-stemmed yellow flowers. The road ran along one side and, following Cesare’s instructions, Marina parked among a handful of other cars and they got out. Coming from the heat of Turin, the drop in temperature was palpable, and welcome.

  ‘We’re having lunch there.’ Cesare pointed up the slope to one side and they saw a fine stone and wooden chalet. ‘That’s the rifugio and it’s open every day of the year – even when the only way to get up here is on skis or in a snowmobile. It’s only a ten-minute walk from here and the food’s good, I can assure you.’

  Emma grabbed a jumper from the car just in case, but the sun and the climb soon warmed her. It was a wonderful feeling to find herself out in the clean, unpolluted mountain air, surrounded by nature rather than concrete. She had got so used to the haze of LA and the incessant growl of traffic that it came as a refreshing change to realise that all she could hear were their footsteps and distant bells. As they walked up the winding road, the view up into the high peaks grew ever more impressive and she knew this would also make a terrific backdrop to a scene in the movie.

  Alongside her, Marina was keen to know more about the movie. ‘So why’s the main character thinking of committing suicide?’

  Emma shook her head. ‘She’s not really. She’s just so depressed that her governess fears the worst. She’s unhappy to have been separated from her friends and packed off to Italy even though she’s secretly been dreaming of visiting Italy all her life. As the movie progresses, she gradually gets over her depression and starts smiling again.’

  ‘Is that because she meets a man by any chance?’ Marina was grinning.

  Emma smiled back.
‘But of course. Dreaming of Italy is a romance after all.’

  Over a tasty lunch of polenta with a rich game stew, Cesare told them all about the area, and Emma listened in fascination. There were paths that led from there over the mountains into France, climbing to almost three thousand metres in places. These had been used for centuries by smugglers and, as recently as the Second World War, by people trying to escape either from or into France. The area was now a National Park but, back at the start of the twentieth century it would have been popular with hunters, out to bag themselves a wild goat, or camoscio, or the even rarer stambecco, the elusive wild ibex with huge curved horns, the heads of some of which studded the walls of the rifugio. Emma typed a query, Hunters? into her phone. An image of austere gentlemen in plus-four trousers and tweed jackets accompanied by ladies in long skirts holding parasols to protect their porcelain skin came to mind and she resolved to suggest it to JM in her report.

  It was a very enjoyable day and by the time they drove back down to the Grand Hotel, Emma felt confident they had made a very auspicious start. The hotel itself was duly photographed inside and out and Emma had a chat in English with the charming lady at the check-in desk, who understandably expressed considerable interest in the possibility of having her establishment featured in a blockbuster movie. Emma was able to tick the Cooperation box on that one and file it away for her final report.

  They shook hands with Cesare and thanked him for his help before driving back down the valley once more. Marina, ever-organised, was already thinking about tomorrow.

  ‘Have you got all the photos you need as far as the mountains are concerned, Emma?’

  ‘Yes, I do believe I have, thanks to you and Cesare.’

  ‘Does that mean we head for the coast tomorrow? I need to firm up the hotel bookings.’

  Emma decided to involve Rich in the decision. ‘What do you think, Rich? Shall we move on?’

  He gave her a little grin. ‘You’re the boss, Emma, but I reckon we got the mountains pretty well covered today.’

  ‘Right, then, Marina, we head for the coast tomorrow.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Is there anything we should visit on the way?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. How does a brief detour into the vineyards around Asti sound? That’s one of the main wine producing areas of Italy where they make Barolo and Barbera and many other iconic Italian wines. It would most certainly have been functioning back in the early twentieth century.’

  Chapter 5

  The rolling hills around Alba and Asti, covered with a regular patchwork of vines, were charming, and Emma took ever more photos, particularly when they visited an old winery which had been operating in the same charming old stone building for over two hundred years. She had spent the previous evening with Rich going through the photos they had taken and filing away the best for the final report. She had been impressed at the skill and artistic talent of his photography and she had to admit that many of his photos were better than hers. She added this observation to the confidential report she was composing on him, as she felt pretty sure his father would want to quiz her about Rich’s performance. So far, so good, was her opinion at this early stage – give or take a bit of trouble getting him out of bed in the morning.

  It was mid-afternoon when they reached the seaside. They drove through an unexpectedly hilly region just before the coast; the last ten or twenty kilometres on an autostrada that was an amazing piece of engineering, curving this way and that down the mountainside, in and out of tunnels, until it reached sea level. As it was a Sunday, there was quite a bit of traffic, presumably people from the big cities of Milan or Turin taking the opportunity to have a sunny seaside day out. They turned west and carried on along the spectacular motorway that hugged the coast, crossing valleys on scary viaducts before plunging into yet more tunnels through the headlands. The Mediterranean to their left was a deep blue, punctuated by white dots of yachts and even a large cruise liner. It was a fine view and from up here it was easy to make out the old road far below, based upon the ancient Roman Via Aurelia, with the railway alongside it that the characters in the movie would have taken.

  Around mid-afternoon they came to the stylish seaside resort of Bordighera, not far from the French border, a stone’s throw from Monte Carlo. As they drove down the narrow, winding road into the town centre, they began to see spectacular villas on either side of the road, surrounded by luxuriant gardens. Clearly these had been the homes of the very rich.

  Emma queried this with Marina. ‘These villas look pretty old. Do you think Bordighera was already a seaside resort back at the start of the twentieth century? Would these places have existed before the First World War?’

  Marina shook her head. ‘Probably, but I honestly don’t know. We can ask Mark, the historian. He’s arriving by train in half an hour or so. Is a villa important for the movie?’

  ‘Sort of. Here on the coast’s the spot where the heroine, Emily, first catches sight of Robert, the army officer. They’ve just travelled down from the mountains, like we’ve done, and they’re staying in a hotel, but in my mind’s eye I imagine the hotel to look like one of these villas. It would be good to find an old-fashioned-looking one.’

  Marina grinned. ‘Hold that thought. I think you might be interested to see where we’re staying tonight.’

  The hotel turned out to be exactly what Emma had in mind. It was a large cream-coloured villa set back from the promenade and immersed in wonderful subtropical gardens that reminded Emma of JM’s place back in LA. The garden walls were covered in deep purple bougainvillea, and palm trees towered above a mass of shrubs and colourful flower beds. Marina told them it even had its own private stretch of beach a few hundred yards away for the use of guests. It was warmer today and Emma decided to go for a swim in the sea later on, once they had met up with Mark.

  The girl at the front desk told them that the fine old hotel had started life as the private summer residence of one of the senior aides to the King of Savoy, whose wife had had her own villa just a few hundred metres along from there. It had already been turned into a hotel by the end of the nineteenth century so Emma was able to tick this off as a possible stopping point for Emily and her governess in Dreaming of Italy. She happily added it to her list of locations and thanked Marina most warmly for finding it.

  It was certainly atmospheric and the gardens added a romantic air to the place. She promised herself she would come out into the park at twilight so as to take a few more photos. This might well be the place where Emily would first set eyes on the male lead played by Emma’s friend, the screen idol, Ethan Dukes, and she knew she owed it to him to find the perfect spot.

  While Emma and Rich sat down under a parasol on the terrace in front of the hotel, Marina went off to collect Mark from the station. Emma phoned Elliot back in LA to check that everything was still on target for tomorrow when the cameras would start rolling on Sweet Memories. He sounded a bit miffed at her constant surveillance, particularly on a Sunday, but she wasn’t sorry. Ever since childhood, she had been a perfectionist and she wanted to ensure the movie was as good as it could be. Besides, it was her head that would be on the block if it all started to unravel, so she was as nice to him as she could be, but she made sure he was firmly on the case.

  Finally reassured, she ordered an ice cream and a glass of mineral water while Rich opted for an ice coffee. Together, they reviewed the photos of the vineyards and, once again, his were generally better than hers and she told him so. He looked pleased to receive the compliment.

  ‘Make sure you tell my old man. At least it’ll show him I can do something right.’

  ‘I certainly will. Tell me, Rich, what did you do at university? Film studies?’

  He smiled. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you, but no, I did economics. I quite like figures and my father didn’t object. I guess he thought it might make me more useful to the business.’

  ‘And this is what you want to do as a career, to go into JMGP?’<
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  He gave her a little smile. ‘What would you do in my place? It’s not every guy who can walk into a senior management position in a big company at the age of twenty-seven. I just hope I’m going to be up to it.’

  ‘You’ll do just fine, Rich, I’m sure. I like the fact that your father’s trying to get you to learn about it from the bottom up.’

  ‘You trying to tell me this is the bottom? From what my father says, you’re on the fast track to the top.’

  This sounded very good, but Emma was quick to play down any developing importance she might have in the company. ‘First, we’ve got to help make Dreaming of Italy into next year’s blockbuster. Easier said than done.’

  Just at that moment the familiar people carrier with Marina at the wheel appeared on the drive and drew up just below them. Emma’s eyes tracked the car’s movements and she watched as the car door opened and a man stepped out.

  As Emma’s eyes alighted on his face, the weirdest sensation went through her. For a moment she thought it might be the cold ice cream on a warm, empty stomach, but as the man walked up the steps to their table, carrying a holdall in one hand, she got a better look at him and it happened again. This time she couldn’t ignore the fact that the cause of it somehow had to be down to him. And if it was, it had to be the first time in a long, long while that a man, any man, had affected her this way. She took a hasty mouthful of cold water and stood up to greet him.

  ‘Hi, Mark? I’m Emma and this is Richard. You’ve met Marina already.’

  To complicate things further, as he shook her outstretched hand, another pulse of electricity went through her body. She waved him to a vacant seat and sat down herself, actually quite glad of the support, as her knees were feeling decidedly jelly-like. If he noticed anything, he was diplomatic enough not to comment.