Emilia-Romagna, explored in full.

Emilia takes its half from the Roman Via Aemilia, the dead-straight road laid down in 187 BC that still threads its cities, Piacenza to Parma to Modena to Bologna, like beads on a string. Romagna runs east toward the Adriatic, all wide skies, river plains, and a long ribbon of sand. Between them lies the most fertile larder in Italy.

This is where the country learned to eat. The Po plain perfected Parmigiano-Reggiano and prosciutto di Parma; Modena ages its balsamic in attic casks; Bologna, nicknamed la Grassa (the fat one), hand-rolls tortellini and tagliatelle behind its forty kilometres of porticoes. Yet the region is no single note. Ravenna keeps the gold Byzantine mosaics of a vanished empire, Ferrara the Renaissance order of the Este dukes, and Maranello the red thunder of Ferrari.

Come hungry, and come in autumn, when the new Lambrusco is poured and the Apennine foothills turn to chestnut and vine.