Pisa to Lake Garda - Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure

that will take me across the heart of Europe.

I'll be using this - my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign

travel for the British tourist.

It told travellers were to go, what to see and how to navigate

the thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossing the Continent.

Now, a century later,

I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy

where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

I'm continuing my journey through Italy.

My route began in Pisa and took me east to Lucca.

After I explore the region's capital Florence,

I'll leave Tuscany and travel north to Bologna.

Before reaching my final stop, Lake Garda.

'Along the way, I'll learn how violence erupted in Florence

'after the Futurists arrived by train.'

There was no friendly discussion.

They arrived here to defend Futurism with their fists.

-A-ha!

-Release the tagliatelle!

'I'll tangle with a dish that titillated the taste-buds

'of Edwardian tourists.'

'And I'll experience the Italians' century-long need for speed.'

HORN TOOTS

HE CHUCKLES

I'm in the beautiful Renaissance city of Florence.

CHURCH BELLS CHIME

-Buongiorno.

-Buongiorno.

-Cappuccino.

-Grazie.

-Prego.

Uno pasta.

-Buon appetito.

-Fantastico. Grazie.

The word tourist used to apply to people doing

the Grand Tour like Byron, and Shelley and Keats.

But mass tourism had already got underway by the beginning

of the 20th century, thanks to the railways.

And then travellers of the old sort snobbishly

tried to set themselves apart from the mass tourists

by inventing new tests.

Had you come to Florence for months? Were you here to study?

Could you do without your Baedeker's Guide or, indeed, your Bradshaw's?

The boom in train travel in the 1840s meant that the middle classes

were now able to appreciate cultural treasures which had once been

enjoyed only by aristocrats on their Grand Tour.

That change was well satirised by the writer, EM Forster,

in his 1908 classic, A Room With A View, partly set in Florence.

But far removed from that gentle and old-fashioned British novel,

Italian Futurists had a hard headed determination

to turn society upside-down.

I'm meeting historian Dr Irene Auerbach

in the Piazza della Repubblica.

Irene, what was Futurism?

Italian Futurism was a movement that strove to rejuvenate

Italian culture and society.

It was planned as a cultural revolution, really,

and they wanted to change the society

and the static society of Italy

by a radical change with achievements,

which glorified the achievements of the industrial revolution.

The movement was started in Milan in 1909 by a poet, Filippo Marinetti.

He saw an industrial way of life as the future and loathed the old Italy.

Futurists would fight for a secular, modern nation

using any means possible.

I believe that Filippo Marinetti launched a manifesto.

-He talked about incendiary violence. Was there incendiary violence?

-Yes.

The first manifesto of Futurism was really a scandal because they

glorified war and they proclaimed the love of danger, fearlessness.

-And to reject the past?

-Yes, of course.

They wanted to destroy museums, academies and also libraries.

The Futurist movement was not only an artistic or literary movement,

it was much more.

It was a way of life, it was a new way of looking at the world.

At the start of the 20th century,

Futurist art was the catalyst for a violent event in Florence

as leading members clashed with local journalists.

Irene, why have you brought me to this beautiful, historic cafe?

I brought you to the Giubbe Rosse

because it's a famous cafe where the artists and writers of Florence met.

In 1911, the painter and critic Ardengo Soffici,

who lived here in Florence, wrote a critique on the Futurist painting

and he criticised them very harshly.

He said what they were painting was not what they had said

in their manifesto.

They weren't living up to their ideals?

At that time he said, no.

Now, how did Marinetti take this criticism?

Oh, he was very angry about this and he didn't like criticism very much.

He decided, with the painters, to go to Florence

in defence of Futurist painting.

They came here to defend Futurism with their fists.

There was a great brawl here at the Giubbe Rosso.

When the Futurists in the evening wanted to depart

from the train station, the critics waited there for them

and there was another fist fight.

And they all had to go to the police station and to make peace there.

Irene, it's an amazing story.

Although the brawling groups made a temporary peace,

as war swept Europe from 1914, Futurism ran out of fuel

and was later absorbed by Mussolini's Fascist movement.

Futurism, with its goal of rejecting the nation's history,

itself became a thing of the past.

TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT

Today I'm heading out of Florence.

Bound north, towards another well-known stop

on the early 20th century tourist trail.

Bologna.

One thing the Futurists were right about was that the future was speed.

And today many of the world's fastest cars and bikes bear Italian names.

And the Italians have thrown themselves into high speed rail

with gusto too.

I'm on my way to Bologna.

In my 1913 timetable the fastest train seems to take about

three and a half hours.

Today, that's reduced to about 35 minutes

and nearly all of my 50 mile journey

will be through tunnel under the Apennine Mountains.

-TANNOY:

-Buongiorno. Il treno fermera a Bologna Centrale.

Constructed in 1864, this line has allowed passengers to access

the Po Valley, just over the Appennine Mountains, for 150 years.

MUSIC: Brindisi from La Traviata

Like many other capitals of former Italian states,

Bologna has a long history of rivalry with its neighbours.

The city even has its own leaning towers, built before their more

famous counterpart in Pisa.

As well as being celebrated for its architecture,

Bologna is also a food lover's paradise.

And there's one dish that the city is most famous for.

I'm looking for a restaurant that has the very best spaghetti bolognese, please.

Oh, my gosh, no!

-Assolutamente, no!

-No?

-No, no, no!

Spaghetti bolognese not here in Bologna.

Spaghetti bolognese is one of Italy's most famous food exports

and I'm intrigued to understand why I can't find it here.

-Monica, I'm Michael.

-Hello. How are you?

I've come to Monica Venture's pasta workshop.

They've been making traditional Bolognese dishes

for over 70 years, and I'm hoping that she can help.

Everywhere I go, I ask for spaghetti bolognese

and people get quite cross, quite excited. What's going wrong?

You have to ask for something else with Bolognese.

Tagliatelle al ragu.

How do you make that?

It's very easy.

Tagliatelle is not like spaghetti, it's not semola

but it is flour and eggs.

I am here to show you.

This is sfoglia to make tagliatelle.

'The pasta must be freshly made

'and I can't wait to taste some true Bolognese cooking.'

OK, then you roll like that.

Start to cut.

The size,

it should be seven millimetres of tagliatelle with ragu,

because every sauce got its proper size.

-Do you want to try?

-Yes.

'Different pasta shapes are paired with different sauces.

'A thicker sauce will cling better to a fatter,

'longer ribbon.'

-A little bit more?

-A little bit more, yes, like that.

-OK.

-Not too much.

-Not too much. And not too little.

-OK.

-A-ha!

Release the tagliatelle.

Suddenly we have lovely ribbons of tagliatelle.

'Now that we have the pasta, we need the sauce.

'Monica's invited me to her home to show me how that's made.'

-Grazie, Monica.

-Prego.

-Grazie.

-So...

-You can see that the water is boiling and the ragu is ready.

'The pasta may take just seconds

'but the meaty ragu is cooked over five days.'

Oh, they look lovely, Monica.

Va bene.

OK. Ready?

-How is it?

-It's absolutely wonderful.

-OK.

The pasta is perfectly cooked, wonderfully fresh

and the meat sauce, wow!

Here's my tip for survival in Bologna -

do not ask for spaghetti bolognese!

In the early 20th century the Futurists wanted to ban pasta,

citing it as the enemy of speed and modernity.

However, as a newly-industrialised Italy began to lead the way

in the production of cars and planes, another of this city's creations

most certainly won the Futurist seal of approval.

Bradshaw's has steered me towards the Piazza del Nettuno

and there's something familiar about Neptune's trident.

I think that weapon pierced the future and came to represent speed.

The symbol of the trident, inspired by one of Bologna's most

famous statues, was adopted by Italian car firm Maserati in 1920.

Fabio Collina, the company's classic cars manager,

is picking me up in a 1969 Quattroporte.

-Va bene, Fabio.

-Ciao, Michael.

-Andiamo via.

-Andiamo.

I want to learn more about the famous sports car manufacturer

conceived over a century ago.

What was the origin of Maserati cars?

The origin of the factory, Maserati, is here.

It's in Bologna.

The Maserati brothers opened the first workshop

in the very centre of the town.

What were they doing in the workshop? Were they already making cars?

At the very beginning, not.

They were a service workshop.

After the war, when the brother came back from the war,

they decided finally to prepare cars for race.

-Were they successful?

-Absolutely.

Every car they prepared, the car won.

Where are we going now, by the way?

-Now we are driving to Modena.

-To Modena?

-Yeah.

The company moved to Modena in 1939.

With other car manufacturers also in this region,

including the first incarnations of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani,

no wonder it's called the Motor Valley.

I'm getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the production line

from a retired mechanic from the company, Giorgio.

Giorgio, it's a very impressive facility -

it's very clean, it's very quiet.

And while the cars are stationary, what is happening to them?

So, in every station, there is a different job.

We have 12 stations where we fit all the mechanics on the car,

and another 12 near where we fit all the interior of the car.

24 to be completely assembled.

At each of the 24 assembly stations,

skilled mechanics have just under 36 minutes

to complete their phase of the work

before the car is moved on to the next.

Here is just the assembly of the car,

but later on, there are a lot of checks, testing, finishing area.

To build one car completely, from zero to the end,

you need at least 21 working days.

Are Italians still as keen on speed as they ever were?

Sure - speed is very, very important.

You see, we must have a powerful car.

ALARM SOUNDS

Capable of speeds of up to 190mph,

these machines can cost as much as £110,000.

Today, I'm being trusted with possibly the most important job.

The final part of the production process

is, of course, the test drive.

And, being in Italy, I've acquired an Italian's taste for speed.

HE LAUGHS

As soon as you tap the accelerator, here's that great roar and off we go.

ENGINE REVS

HE CHUCKLES

This is really the only way to arrive at a railway station.

I'll swap the car for a train before I do any damage.

I'm heading back to Bologna for the night

before I continue on the last leg of my journey tomorrow.

I'll travel over 130 miles north

towards one of Italy's most glamorous holiday hot spots -

Lake Garda.

I will shortly be arriving at Lake Garda.

Bradshaw's tells me that steamboats ascend and descend the lake

between Peschiera and Riva,

corresponding with the railways at each end of the lake.

Situated to the south of the Dolomite mountains,

and with a Mediterranean climate,

the lake has attracted tourists - including artists -

to its shores for three centuries.

DUCKS QUACK

In 1912, a British writer visited here to escape

and to seek inspiration.

I'm in Gargnano, on the lake's west shore,

to meet Professor Stefania Michelucci from the University of Genoa.

-Hello, Stefania.

-Hello.

-How are you?

-Fine, thanks.

Stefania, what adventure is it that brings DH Lawrence to Lake Garda

the year before my guidebook is published?

Well, it was a very particular adventure,

because he had met Frieda,

who was Frieda von Richtofen,

who was the wife of his professor in Nottingham,

and they fell in love,

they were mutually attracted to each other,

so she decided to leave England and then they came to Gargnano.

Embroiled in an affair which scandalised England,

Lawrence and Frieda were drawn to Italy

by its more liberal attitudes,

as well as by their curiosity about the changes taking place there.

What did Lawrence think of Lake Garda?

He had a very different attitude, I would say, modern and new,

because he wasn't at all romanticising,

having a sort of romantic view of Lake Garda.

He tried to understand what it was really like.

He's sensing that it is...decaying.

It's going to be overwhelmed

by the spreading mechanisation and industrialisation

which is coming from the north.

Although excited by that atmosphere in Italy,

Lawrence wanted to preserve the beauty of regions like Garda.

It was partly the spectacular scenery here

that inspired him to write some of his most famous works.

So this is the view that DH Lawrence and Frieda

would have had from their bedroom?

Exactly.

A very inspiring view.

He was certainly inspired by being abroad

and by the beauty of the place.

Lake Garda played an important role in his life.

But he was also desperately needing money

and so he completed Sons And Lovers, which was his first masterpiece.

And then he also wrote all the essays of Twilight In Italy.

After the First World War, Lawrence returned to Italy,

where he wrote his most controversial novel,

Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Writers were drawn to Lake Garda's tranquillity,

but some areas of the lake were far from calm.

They were caught up in the nation's obsession with speed.

I'm at the docks to meet Fausto and Mauro Feltrinelli.

Their family has been building boats here for over 100 years.

Fausto. Sono Michael. Piacere.

-Mauro.

-Hi, nice to meet you.

-Fausto...

HE SPEAKS IN ITALIAN

-Si?

-Si.

Fausto's great-grandfather Bernardo and his son Egidio

travelled from town to town repairing boats.

After a trip to America in 1919,

Egidio discovered how to build not just fishing boats

but speed boats, too.

It went...20 knots over the water.

It was incredible for that time.

And the fever, the fever of speed took him so strongly.

The whole of Italy was boiling with the sensation of new speed,

new life, new progress.

Egidio, Mauro's great-grandfather, also developed the hydroplane here,

based on American designs and capable of speeds of over 100mph.

So, your family developed the high-performance boat business.

Do you then find that the tourists are coming to enjoy them?

I think it automatically happened.

Before, work boats, boats for working.

Then, sport boats, racing.

And suddenly, after the speed, then came just the fun.

-Can we have some fun with this?

-Oh, why not?

THEY LAUGH

-But attention, eh?

-I'll be careful.

REVVING

HE SPEAKS IN ITALIAN

The steady flow of tourists to Italy 100 years ago turned into a flood

and is now virtually an invasion.

Most of them come still to see

the historic towers and domes and statues,

hoping for a room with a view,

maybe even a Chianti-fuelled romance.

But on this journey, I've discovered, just off the beaten track,

another, futuristic Italy of high-speed trains

and racy cars and boats -

it's not Italy that we come to visit,

but with its cool and elegant designs,

it's certainly one that we admire.

'Next time in Greece, I'll find out about

'the surprisingly ancient origins of our modern railways

'at the spectacular Corinth canal.'

So, this is incredible - 600 BC,

two parallel lines of stone, logs running between them

-and on top of the logs, the ships.

-Yes.

'I have a dream of Olympic glory.'

MUSIC: Theme from Chariots Of Fire by Vangelis

'And I trade the train seat for a saddle.'

I'm having to hoof it through these beautiful olive groves.