So, there I am, standing in Ermete's bar, cappuccino in hand, wistfully observing early morning village activity when, clunk, my teeth get rammed into my coffee cup. I look around. Not as much as a scusa or don't-mind-me-if-I-clobber into you.
The offending gentleman in question stands about 6 ft 4 in tall, wearing hideous baggy shorts of the crotch-just-below-your-kneecap variety, complete with gaudy T-shirt. Needless to say, the shorts and the T-shirt do not match. Furthermore, the skin complexion is of the pinky off-white variety. Need I say anymore. The man is obviously a tourist.
That instant assessment is soon confirmed when he starts spouting to his mates in Flemish. Hah, a lowlander. Clearly this guy badly needs a course in the delicate art of how to weave your way through a crowded bar with cappuccino, cornetto and Gazzetta Dello Sport all in hand, without spillage or untoward incident.
Ah yes, it is summer time again, that time of year when even the outer reaches of Northern Lazio begin to feel the overflow of the great summer tourist invasion. On this subject, too, and in the interests of the health and life prospects of a number of our Northern European friends, we issue an urgent appeal to all readers: Could someone stop the Northern European tour guide writer and operator who has been advising normally sane and healthy folks to take a walking tour in and around Northern Lazio?
The result of this "advice" is that when travelling into Rome on the four-lane, very-fast-moving Cassia Bis highway, you are likely to be confronted with small groups of earnest-looking backpackers, complete with environmentalist walking stick, stead fastly marching down the hot asphalt, as if certain that eternal salvation and/or a winning Superenalotto ticket are to be found round the next bend and after the next mouthful of carbon monoxide.
Some of these hilltop striders like to start early. At 7.30 the other morning, up on a hill road behind the house, I came across another "swarm" of them, marching cheerfully down the middle of what they, not surprisingly, supposed to be a quiet country road. Little did they know that the "quiet country road" in question leads to a stone quarry and is used by large, fast moving and backpacker-unfriendly lorries.
The determination of the various Uncle Jans and Aunt Hilde gaards of Northern Europe to have an Italian "walking" holiday raises worrying health considerations. I mean, are they all mad? If they have applied the same suicidal, lemming logic to dyke construction, then "Op, Holland, Op" is about to disappear under the sea any day now - glup, glup.
What is wrong with sitting in the shade, counting your unpaid bills, your losing superenalotto tickets, your unfilled "740" income-tax declaration form and cursing the Frogs (remember Rotterdam, football fans will understand the reference) just like everybody else? Then, too, there is always the consolation of a glass of cool, sparkling white wine.
Those of us who prefer not to sturm und drang up and down the hot highway also reap the immeasurable benefit of having time to be informed about what is really important this summer in Italy. For a start, there is the happy news that the nation's favourite, glamorous TV newsreader, Lilli Gruber, finally got married, holding a small private ceremony in the tiny village of Montagna, near Bolzano in her native Basso Adige. That is the good news. The bad news is that she married a balding Frenchman. Was Rotterdam not humiliation enough?
Being informed this summer also means knowing about the latest episode in the troubled life and times of recently separated Rita and Vittorio. Rita is Rita Rusic and Vittorio is Senator Vittorio Cecchi Gori, media tycoon and owner of Fiorentina football club.
For years, they had been an unusual item in Italian public life, namely a couple in which the wife was not merely an expensive sartorial accessory for glitzy mundane events but a genuine business partner who appeared to make a significant contribution to her husband's financial success. Then came their separation, last year.
When Rita travelled down to the family seaside holiday home at fashionable Sabaudia, near Rome, last weekend, she found that someone had put a chain and padlock on the door, barring entrance. Believing that the someone in question had been acting on behalf of her former husband, Rita hot-tailed it to the nearest carabinieri station to file a complaint. The contentious issue is due in court this week.
Bearing in mind that Rita Rusic's separation settlement reportedly entitled her to a £20,000 monthly pay check, plus a millionaire Rome pad complete with swimming pool, cars and servants, then this latest tussle may not go Vittorio's way.
I tell you one thing, though: I bet you Rita Rusic does not go on walking holidays in Lazio.