Diary – 23 August 2018

Down here near Nice, you find most locals unsurprised by the catastrophic Genoa bridge collapse. The Italian border is only a few miles away but most people will find any excuse not to cross it — including my wife and me. In fact, these days we don’t go there at all. We haven’t done for years. Friends find this strange. After all, Italy’s closeness is one of the reasons we bought the place. So why do I fight shy of motoring through the long autostrada tunnel that runs under the pre-Alps, linking Menton to Ventimiglia? Because it’s bloody dangerous. Not on the scrupulously maintained French side, brightly lit with clearly marked carriageways. But the moment you flash over the border into subterranean Italy, everything goes pear-shaped. At least I think it’s pear-shaped; it’s so dark it’s hard to tell. Cat’s-eye road studs vanish for hundreds of yards. The Italian authorities don’t seem to have any programme of replacing blown bulbs and gouged-out reflectors.