Half this area is as flat as an inland sea, the other half mountainous. One half is on the Po plain or pianura padana. The other half rides the forest fleece of Apennine, a mountainland concertinaed into awesome folds and canyons where beech, chestnut and pine are anchored on jumbled peaks, cliffs and ravines. The best places to visit are connected by The Autostrada del Sole, one of Italy’s busiest motorways, which takes the Apennines in a series of high viaducts and tunnels. Alongside it through the plain goes the Via Emilia, a Roman military highway. The towns strung along it, the capital cities of extinct duchies, are not large or heavily industrialized but each is a nexus of routes, drawing much cross-country traffic.

These towns are amazing. The urban plan took shape in the Middle Ages when radial streets, piercing perimeter walls, were superimposed on square-built Roman stations. Rosy brickwork, the soft Roman brick that cats love to snooze on, and yellow or beige plasterwork give them an unassailable antiquity. Striated facades and copper domes of churches, weathered to green, add eye-catching chromatic touches. You will find them throughout Lombardy, Emilia and in Florence’s bowl of hills. They typify the authentic Italian city, where the inhabitants live in the heart of it, where the principal piazza is ‘del Duomo’ or ‘della Repubblica’ and the main road south is ‘Via Roma’ – where country people coming in to market are distinguished by their black clothes and patriarchal looks. Maybe the place is now surrounded by cheap high-rise case populari (council tenements) and arc-welding shops, maybe a haze of petroleum or chemical smoke hangs over rice meadow and maize crop… but still the towns survive.

Do not expect too much of the River Po, Italy’s longest river. It proceeds in shallows, amid sandy islands. In summer the bridges look ridiculous, 20 times too long for that feeble trickle. The best stretch for canoes is downstream from Castelvetro near Piacenza to Boretto near Parma. You find small boatyards and gravelly beaches there.

TRANSPORT

Airports: Bologna, Reggio, Parma, Milan.

Companies operating express buses between major towns include Autostradale (www.autostradale.it); Lazzi (www.lazzi.it); and  SITABUS (http://www.sitabus.it). Towns and villages of the Po plain and Apennines are served from all large towns. Motorists  can avoid the Cisa Pass (1,040 m) by putting cars on the train between Pontremoli and Borgo Taro.

Milan-Bologna-Florence is a major rail route and the high-speed trains make short work of the arduous Bologna-Florence section. Branch railways from Emilian cities cross the Po on lengthy bridges, linking the Apennine foothills with those of the Alps. A slow but exceptionally picturesque line through the Apennines is Parma-Sarzana.

A boat service, mainly patronized by tourists, operates in summer along the Po from Boretto, north-east of Parma.