On Route 35, 36 km South of Milan. The mark of a true river-city, a covered bridge (partly destroyed in the Second World War, rebuilt in the old manner), beautifies a town strategically placed on the Ticino, just above its confluence with the Po. The old Naviglio Pavese runs dead-straight into Pavia, the highway from Milan accompanying it.

Pavia was once a royal Lombard seat and there is still something majestic about it. Outstanding monuments include the Romanesque church of San Pletro in Ciel d’Oro, where the tomb of St Augustine (not the English saint) finally came to rest. The art gallery, the inevitable Visconti fortress and six domestic towers (500 years ago there were hundreds) add dignity. Bramante designed the Duomo (1488), Leonardo da Vinci did the dome and interior.

Where Pavia now stands Hannibal crossed the Ticino and marshalled his elephants for the opening skirmish of the second Punic War (219 BC). Pavia was Charlemagne’s Italian power-base and some insist that he founded the University (in 774). It is certain that Boethius, the philosopher, and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury in William the Conqueror’s time, wrote and lectured there, and that Petrarch was a student; it is less certain that Columbus enrolled as a student in 1447.

Out of town on the canal bank is the Certosa or Charterhouse of Pavia, a flamboyant 14thC monastery with lavish ceilings and a facade of polychromatic marble, more like a fortified complex of ballrooms than a religious house.

Detour – Lodi

On Route 9, 1 km East of Pavia. The duomo is in the old Lombard style, with Lombard lions supporting the porch. Both here and at San Francesco’s church you see very old frescos and reliefs. The octagonal Incoronata church (15thC), by Battagio, a pupil of Bramante, is a marvellous building, inside and out.

Lodi is where Napoleon, opening his Italian campaign in 1796, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Austrians and was hailed by his grenadiers as their ‘Little Corporal’ – the title, he always claimed, of which he was most proud.