Buon giorno, viewers.
I'm in Italy, on a quest for the good life.
This time, boats...
I think this is la dolce vita.
- ...goats... - Oh, look at that one.
...and I'll get my coats.
I don't know if you can hear me but it's quite kinky.
Episode two.
If you're binging, you'll know we're now on the mainland.
If you're not, we're now on the mainland.
And I'm joined by my guide for this episode,
who is Paolo, who is sitting right next to me.
- Buon giorno. Ciao. - Ciao. Buon giorno. Ciao.
To help with my inadequacies,
I've been sent this half-English,
half-Italian, shiny-toothed, on-trend clothes horse.
At least I'm prepared.
I put this jacket and this shirt on
because it is yet another of those
rock-solid clichés that we have in Britain
about Italians... Italian men, especially.
They are always coordinated.
Things have to be matching.
If I wear a yellow shirt, I need to have yellow shoes.
Italian mothers, they always teach you,
like, you need to be properly dressed
because you don't know what might happen.
The plan for this episode was to explore
the rural south, the Amalfi Coast and Naples.
It still is, but now I'll be doing it
in correctly paired clothing.
But first...
This music is like something from a Bond film,
and so is this view,
which you'll recognize from No Time to Die
but now stars May, James May.
Buon giorno, spettatore e spettatrice.
You join me in Matera,
which is roughly on the ankle bone of Italy,
and if I've timed this correctly,
Paolo will arrive in an Ape car,
and we will go off to explore what is the oldest
continuously inhabited place in all of Italy.
- Ciao. - Ciao.
The Ape is derived from the Vespa scooter.
"Vespa" means "wasp." "Ape" means "bee."
How long have people lived here?
Ten thousand years. It's actually...
Matera is, like, the top three oldest cities
that we know of in the world,
- after Aleppo... - Yes.
- ...and Jericho. - Jericho. Of course.
The original inhabitants,
so this is 7,000 or 8,000 years before Christ,
they lived in caves.
You can see a few surviving caves over there,
and as time went on, people carved and built fronts
to the cave houses, so although these look like
quaint, small village houses, they're actually the fronts
of cave dwellings.
But there's no time to drive.
Paolo's taking me to an underground lair...
Wow.
...that was lived in as recently as the 1950s.
The older generations,
uh, grandparents, would probably sleep on a bed like this,
- and the younger generation... - Luxury.
Here's their, here's their little spot, or alternatively,
the drawers of the cupboards.
- People lived in the drawers of the cupboards? - Babies.
Everything happens around the bed.
Even the bagno, for example. See this?
That's the bagno?
This would've been the bagno at the time.
- So that's medieval. - Yeah.
Well, yes, that's absolutely delightful.
- Shall I put this back? - Yes, please.
They were barely separated
from the beasts of the field,
because deeper into the mountainside
is where the livestock actually lived.
The animals would've come down these steps
- on a carpet. - Why on a carpet?
Because, otherwise, they would slip down on the, on the steps.
And this would be the space
where the animals would rest at night.
- What sort of animals? - Cows, donkeys.
The romantic part of me likes the idea
of living in a house with animals, but in reality,
it would've been a bit grim, wouldn't it?
'Cause they'd have pooed everywhere,
- apart from anything else. - Stinks. Stinks. It smells.
And they make stupid... noise
- all through the night. - Absolutely, yes.
- Shall we go down one more level? - Yeah.
To sum up, to live in a cave,
you must keep your baby in a drawer,
poo in a bowl and sleep with your cow.
But take a look at this wine cellar.
Viva Italia.
Well, I suppose we should be grateful, really,
that we had such luxuries
back in 1958 as basic plumbing,
an electric fire,
black and white television...
...chip pan.
Hang on, what did that just say?
And what the hell is that hole?
Our subterranean tour continues
at the Castellana Grotte,
known locally as the mouth of hell.
Probably because there's some immersive theater going on
down there or something.
Paolo tells me that, to understand Italian culture,
I need to start with the classics.
So he's cadged me a part from director Enrico Romita.
- Sono James. Buona sera. - Okay.
- Buona sera. - Okay. Buona sera. Buona sera.
Um, uh, this is v-very new.
Um, what do I do?
He sent me an email with the, with the verses.
Oh, there are some words?
- Yes, there are. - Well, in Italian.
In 1300s Italian.
Part one of the Divine Comedy,
Inferno, depicts Dante's guided tour
through nine concentric circles of hell.
Don't let the silly hat fool you.
I'm playing Minosa, judge of the damned.
Minosa's character, he's big and powerful.
- He's hard. He's harsh. - Hard. Okay, hard.
- That's me. That's... - He's evil.
Right, I should be able to do that, no problem.
Apparently, Paolo's idea of teaching me Italian culture
is shoving me into some Lycra
with a book of 14th-century poetry.
O you who come...
to this house of pain.
To this painful hospital.
There's more?
Yes, there is.
Can I just say it in English?
No. This is the most important poet
in Italian history.
- I know, I know. - You can't put the audience down.
- Dante Alighieri, is it? - They deserve...
- they deserve a proper delivery. - Okay.
I try to concentrate very hard on learning
and remembering my lines, but it's difficult.
It's even more difficult when people insist on scribbling
all over your face.
O tu
che vieni
al dolorose
- ospizio. - Yes.
That's my "successfully learned" face.
Ragazzi.
Now that I look like Lucifer's Christmas trifle,
it's time for the warm-up.
Bit unnecessary since we're all about to go to hell.
Or maybe we're already there.
This is quite liberating, actually.
If aliens don't land after that, I'll be amazed.
With 15 minutes to go, we assume our positions,
down a 200-foot-deep limestone abyss.
The cave is fantastic.
I mean, I appreciate I'm not gonna be brilliant in this.
Obviously, I'm not an actor,
but I don't want to * up all their hard work
'cause they obviously take this very seriously.
Oh, I think there might be another
group noisemaking activity. Hold on.
I now begin to worry
that we're actually invoking evil entities,
so I try speaking to one directly.
Where the * is Tom Whitter? Tom!
Tom?
What the bloody hell have you got me into?
I-I don't know.
I don't know, but I renounce Satan and all my worldly goods.
Good luck.
Thanks. Do I go up here?
Time to shout blue merde.
The poor audience
walks through a series of scenes representing
the nine circles of hell.
The actors are souls eternally tormented
for their sins on Earth.
There's your common or garden sins of wrath
And some of the lesser-known sins.
Bridal flatulence,
excessive hang gliding...
Finally, the audience arrives at the sin of lust.
Starring me, Minosa,
with my chariot pulled by dead perverts.
I don't know if you can hear me but it's quite kinky.
I think they're all getting off
on the ritualistic whipping a bit.
Their commitment to the cause is inspiring.
So, when in hell...
O you who come to this...
What's the other word?
House of pain.
A strong start, until I forget my lines
and start shouting my own name.
Minosa. Minosa.
I think I might be getting away with it.
I eat an apple.
Where is an apple?
Where is my Panda?
Apparently, the director disagrees
and dispatches Paolo with the script.
Grazie, signore.
Beware how you enter and whom you trust.
Do not let this grand entrance deceive you.
Yes.
Nailed.
Well, they liked it.
And surprisingly, so did I.
- You started really shy. - Yeah, I know.
Well, to be honest, at first,
it just looked like a Led Zeppelin album cover,
and then it got a bit weird, and I thought,
"What has Tom actually got me into?"
But then, weirdly, I found that I was
quite enjoying being damned for all eternity.
Right. Shall we have a beer?
Next morning, cleansed of sin and greasepaint,
we head east into the rugged farmlands of Puglia,
with a lesson in Italian timekeeping.
If you say that the show starts at 9:00,
you don't mean that it starts at 9:00.
You would never start it at 9:00 and think,
"Well, ten people haven't turned up.
Tough luck. It's starting."
You'd wait for the ten people who are late.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's-that's... that would be mean.
I mean, we're not...
You're not savages.
Now, Puglia is Italy's breadbasket
and veg basket
and meat and wine basket.
Okay, it's Italy's trolley.
So far, food has been a little bit of a problem
because, quite often,
we'll be in the middle of filming something,
and we will become victims of the Italian lunch ambush.
For example, you're looking at an abandoned town,
a castle, a local dignitary will turn up to welcome us--
all very nice-- and then he will say,
"And now the lunch," and the lunch can go on for three hours.
So, the way to get around this is to make our own lunch,
and you do that with one of those.
Right. What do I do?
Ask the goat expert.
Unfortunately, I don't know
which of these goats is the expert.
Ow. Stop it.
Goats are bastards.
In truth. Stop it. Ow!
I give up trying to ask the goat for instructions
and try a human instead, Antonella.
She opens it. She spreads out her legs.
And now she's ready.
Antonella is an artisan cheesemaker.
She's going to show me how to squeeze milk
from Bettina here so I can make everyone lunch.
Give him... give her your hand.
Yes, milk is coming out, I think, huh?
Ah, there you go. I'm doing it.
- Oh, look at that one. - Wow.
Bene.
- Benissimo. - Benissimo.
Goats are quite friendly animals.
You could almost have them as pets.
They're quite inquisitive.
Um, they're cute. They make a nice noise.
They tend to r... Oh.
I can feel the relief in the goat when I do that.
And she's very warm,
which is quite nice.
I don't know who's happier among the two of them.
It feels quite intimate.
There's a bond of trust between me and this goat.
I'm squeezing her udder, which is, you know,
I wouldn't let somebody-- I know they're not related--
but I wouldn't let somebody squeeze my...
My chivalrous approach has been rewarded.
Is it enough to make a small cheese?
Okay, something... we'll manage to make it.
Grazie, Bettina, for your bounty.
Ooh.
Ay.
Oh, I'd love to have a goat.
Turning goat's milk into cheese is a quick and easy process.
Add some extra milk when you're pouring it there later.
Or we just work with the milk we've got and you get what you get.
Just pour that, then when the cameras cut, sneak in an extra half litre.
Anywhere except Italy, that is.
It's your cheese, whatever you want,
it was just to make it look better.
What's that mean?
If you wait, you'll get this result, it's up to you.
Carry on, calm down.
Once we finally begin, it all happens very quickly.
First, the milk is filtered.
And then the fly remains in the strainer,
along with a few bits of grass and a bit... few bits of goat.
Next, it's gently stirred and heated.
Forty degrees is the temperature you need.
Thirty-eight, forty.
- Okay. Perfetto. - Perfetto.
That's it.
Now, for delicious-sounding rennet
from animal guts.
Bit more?
Bit more. Oh, that's loads.
And then you finish it off by hand.
As if I was once again fondling Bettina.
Oh, it's doing it. Look, come and see.
- Sean, look, look. It's going... - D-Don't stir it anymore now.
Can you see it's going thick?
Finally, the curd's ready to be squeezed out.
This is... this is a calm... a calm process.
It's-it's serene almost,
and it's at odds with the atmosphere in this room,
which is slightly frantic.
And, as if by magico, formaggio.
Look at the pattern. That characteristic shape
you get on the little circular goat's cheese
is made by the slots in the potto di slotto.
This is fantastically exciting.
Everybody ready for some cheese?
The crew are ready
and haven't eaten anything for almost two hours.
They're faint with hunger.
And there it is,
the Italian lunch avoidance cheese.
This represents a saving of two or three hours
in our very, very busy filming schedule.
Cheese is up, everybody.
Gather round.
Have a piece of cheese.
Don't hold back. Just dive in.
There's plenty of it.
Right, that's lunch, everyone.
Oh, that's pretty good.
There's a tiny, tiny bit left.
Who would like that?
- The dog. - The dog.
Great. Cut.
Three hours later,
after a quick snack in a pasta place
around the corner, we hit the road again.
Now, look, Paolo, I don't want to appear rude,
and I certainly don't want to insult your fabulous country
which I love very much,
but that whole cheese-making thing was absolute peak Italian.
Unfortunately, I think so, too.
What were you all shouting at each other about?
E-Everything in Italy becomes a big deal.
I think it's down to the language.
Everything that you say in Italian is a massive event.
So, in English, we would say, "I eat an apple."
You know, matter of fact. It's not... it's not a big deal.
But in Italian, it's, "Io mangio una mela."
Italians enjoy their own language.
They like the-the flavor of it and the sound.
It's all music and poetry.
Well, we've had the cheese.
Now for some wine.
I've said ciao-- or goodbye-- to Puglia
and headed west to say ciao-- that's hello--
to the glamorous Amalfi Coast.
And just look at it.
And there is Amalfi, a beautiful town.
Beautiful weather, beautiful landscape,
and most importantly, beautiful people.
I think I might have cracked it.
Because that is the Amalfi Coast,
where wealthy people have been coming for centuries
to enjoy this view, take the air and so on.
That is the Bay of Naples.
That is the island of Capri there.
This is a 72-foot yacht.
This is a glass of delicious Italian red.
I think this is la dolce vita.
I'm sorry, viewers, but from now on,
you're just going to have to get used to a new,
suaver, more Italian me.
Oh, God.
La dolce vita just went completely wrong.
I took my eye off the ball
and off my glass of Valpolicella,
and, ugh, that happened.
I've got it all over my trousers,
all over the poop deck.
All over my socks, all over this shirt.
I don't look cool.
Bollocks.
you were posing next to that Vespa over there.
- Did I look cute? - Well, I wouldn't say "cute," but...
- Did I look Italian? - You looked very Italian.
- There you go. - And you looked happier
leaning on a Vespa
than I looked being on an enormous yacht.
Is that la dolce vita?
Well, it makes you feel at home, you got a sunny day,
you're sitting on a Vespa, enjoying the world go by.
It's just enjoying the little things that you have, really.
I used to have many ambitions when I was younger,
and then recently, I realized that my remaining ambition
was to have a fridge that makes ice cubes,
which I now have.
- Okay. - And eventually,
I won't care about that, either.
And I agree with you, I will want to be able to just go
somewhere where my mates are sitting, and we will...
drink a coffee, have a beer,
play a game of chess or something.
When I see myself, like, when I'm 75,
in the main square of my village
sitting all together drinking a coffee,
with the younger... younger generation coming up,
they'll look at me and say, "Hi, Don Paolo."
"Don." You have to have stick "Don."
Otherwise, you're not acknowledged
as an important person.
So, Don Paolo...
- Okay. Don James. - Don... Exactly.
It's a lot nicer than the one in Rotherham.
It's fantastic, actually.
The building dates back to the 1500s.
The club has been here only for 150 years,
but the clientele have been here since it opened.
- Buona sera. - Okay? Take a seat.
But I can't see any chessboards.
So, you will be my partner.
So take care how you play,
because otherwise, we'll lose,
- and we lost all the money. - Yes.
- So it's us against you. - Yeah. Two...
Okay? What's the game?
That's scopa.
Similar to bridge,
where you are teamed with the person opposite
and everyone around you is old,
scopa is otherwise completely different.
Ten cards with one color.
See, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
You have two of another color, you can take if, for example,
five, plus three eights...
...and two other... and two is ten.
- Right, that's absolutely clear. - Okay.
The cards aren't even cards.
- What are these? - Neapolitan cards.
Ah, okay, so uno, or ace.
This, this sort of king/knight bloke is the ten.
And then it's obvious because it's the number of-of, um,
grapefruits.
Good, I think that's cleared things up.
Now, in scopa, things escalate quickly.
Your money, please.
How much is one hand?
It can be 100 euro, more or less.
100 euros. Cento euro? Okay.
Really? Fine, let's fleece him!
Let's get him drunk.
I feel I'm not the first unsuspecting tourist
Paolo has brought here.
Can I go like that, and take those two?
- It's eight, it's seven. - See?
- What's the math? Where's your math? - What's wrong with you?
- You cannot count. - Seven? Three and five is eight.
- It's five and three. - That's a five.
- No, no, no, no. Card is down. - Come on...
- Oh, okay. - Card is down.
Never mind. At least I'm making friends.
If he plays the wrong card and lets you win
I'll chop his head off.
Paolo's rules are slightly fluid.
- Ah, clear as... - Oi!
- The last one doesn't count. - What? What do you mean,
- it doesn't count? - It didn't count for me, either, earlier on.
It's almost like he can see my cards.
Ooh. L'ultimo.
My team finishes
several hundred euros down.
Spiacente.
Excuse me, uh...
- Bye, bye, money. - Go! Go! You're terrible!
Still, in the quest for la dolce vita...
Get ready for cutting your head.
Grazie, grazie.
... one.
Fantastico.
Right, doppio or quits.
I lost both games of scopa,
and the forfeit was being sent back to Roman times.
In case you can't see me,
I'm the one in yellow.
It's almost as if everyone else has died.
Two things shaped my understanding of ancient Rome.
The first was sitting on the sofa watching
Derek Jacobi in I, Clavdivs, but the second, much earlier on,
was our school project on Pompeii,
the Roman city buried instantly by a volcanic eruption
and then left completely undisturbed
for over 1,600 years.
And here it is. These are the best-preserved
Roman ruins on the entire planet.
And remarkably, we have the whole place to ourselves
for the next two hovrs.
There are over a hundred acres to explore.
From cobbled streets and cafés,
to stylish villas for the Pompeiian elite.
Which is obviously where I'd find Paolo.
This is what would be called a "posh house," isn't it?
It's a very, it's a very elegant house,
and it was definitely one of the wealthy ones in Pompeii.
The house has generally
very nice decorations all around.
These four little statues that you see...
- Mm-hmm. - ...those are divinities
that protect the house.
They're called Lares.
They didn't work, then.
It's hard to appreciate the magnitude of what happened here.
What's needed at times like this is a relatable metaphor.
To give you an idea, it's as if 250,000
fully grown elephants were coming out of the volcano
every second for 48 hours.
Not actual elephants,
- rocks the size of elephants. - No, no. No, I understand.
Not actual elephants,
otherwise we'd have found one by now, yeah.
For you maths fans, that means Pompeii was covered
in 43.2 billion elephants.
In Roman numerals, that's MCMLXVIIVCLMLM...
This is the main street leading up to the forum.
These little openings are things like shops.
Through there is a big posh house.
And this would have been incredibly busy
at the time of the eruption,
teeming with Romans doing Roman stuff.
And it probably is worth remembering
that this, actually, is a mass grave.
Every artifact found in Pompeii ends up in labs
run by head anthropologist Valeria Amoretti.
And many were discovered still in their original glass boxes.
This is fantastic.
So this is genuine
- Roman day-to-day stuff? - Yes.
There's a fresco maker's tools of the trade.
- So, huh, these are artists' paint pots? - Sì.
And someone's dinner.
So it's a loaf of bread, and obviously,
like all the other food in Pompeii, it got burnt.
But just before it did, somebody had picked it up,
and there's the impression of somebody's thumb.
Look at that.
Those are actual Romans.
Do you get emotional?
- Yeah. - Yeah. With the...
'Cause you are, you are friends with all these people now.
You're connected with their lives.
We have emotions that are sometimes similar
to human comprehension and even tenderness.
I know that's not scientific but it is real, human.
Can I hold a pot?
It's heavy.
- But it's Roman. - Yeah.
- It's real. - It's real.
Now I've finally connected with the Roman world
by putting this in my hands.
It does, it feels incredibly special.
Also, quite moving.
And terrifying.
Okay, very carefully.
- You've definitely got it? - Yes.
I'm releasing the Roman world.
- Grazie mille. Fantastico. - Definitely.
Having touched Roman history,
I'm ready to dig deeper.
We've been admitted into the current level of excavation.
We've had to do a bit of persuading
to be allowed down here, but here is a wall fresco
that is currently only about half-exposed.
I've always wanted to be up close to this sort of thing.
How much further down do we think it goes?
Approximately still a metre and a half to go.
Wow. That's still a lot of stuff to move.
Carpe diem.
- I'm being handled... handed the trowel. - Okay. Yeah.
- To use the Roman memus. - So you're...
you can remove gently, but whatever you do,
for God's sake, stay away from that wall.
I'm-I'm very careful with things.
I'm not a breaker, I'm a maker. Look at that.
I'm brushing away the dust of almost 2,000 years.
I knew people who did archaeology
at the university level, and they said most of it
was boring because most of it's actually done by reading books,
but when you get to the exciting bit, it's very exciting.
That's a Roman wall.
I did that.
That was looked at by Roman people
who died quite soon afterwards.
And nobody's seen that until now,
so... a man called Julius looked at it
and then I did.
Paolo, who also works as an official Pompeii guide,
was now too nervous, so we went outside.
So if you look over in that direction,
you can just see the sea,
which is what, two or three kilometers away?
Everything that you see from here to there
is volcanic material that was added
after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
And that means that this villa that we're standing in,
or the remains of it, was at the time a seaside house.
That's the worst example
of history not teaching anything to anyone,
because we've built exactly on the same spot.
So it could happen again?
But part of the key to being Italian, Paolo,
is to drink wine and not worry about the volcano.
Should have had a glass of wine here.
Should have had a glass of wine, exactly, 'cause...
I'm not worried, and I'm British.
Leaving the specter of ancient Rome behind,
we head on to the final stop
of our Southern Italy sojourno, Naples.
Other Italians will tell you Naples is filthy,
falling apart, and to keep a firm grip on your wallet.
But ask a Neapolitan,
and they'll tell you it's the life and soul of Italy.
Your honking was gentle.
It wasn't aggressive enough.
That's better. See?
- And they followed you. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all right.
Because that's it, they need somebody to start it.
- It's a fantastic tactic on the right... - Go, go, go, go, go.
Don't-don't give up, don't give up, don't give up.
- Don't give up. Yeah. - Yeah, exactly.
That's how you got to do it, yes.
Now, yes.
It's all a bit much for a polite Brit.
Luckily, there's an alternative.
Now, this episode has a bit of an underground theme,
so I'm going to travel around by the Naples metro.
It's cheap, it's very fast,
and in some places, it's a work of art.
Buon giorno.
Leaving Paolo in charge of La Mia Panda,
and the crew to enjoy the traffic,
I'm filming solo with my trusty scalpy stick.
Buon giorno. Uh, duomo ritorno,
per favore?
Grazie, signor.
To un-bung the roads a bit
by attracting commuters underground,
the stations in Naples have been jazzed up
by the same interior designer as the Starship Enterprise.
Very cool.
It changes color.
There you go. It's blue.
Now reunited with the crew, my next destination
will be another subterrestrial site
called the Bourbon Tunnel,
glamorously accessed via a car park.
Very nice car park. Doesn't smell of piss.
When the city was founded
in the sixth century before Christmas,
the stone to build it was quarried from underneath,
leaving behind lots of caves
and some very white trainers.
- Buon giorno. - Ciao.
This quarter-mile-long section
was begun in 1853 for the Bourbon royal family,
who, being considerably less likeable
than the biscuit,
regularly needed to flee from rioting mobs.
But then more tunnels were added later.
But this is not just a tunnel, though. This needs to be clear.
- Oh, - It's a lot more than just a tunnel.
- Shall we go and have a look? - Yeah.
Over the years, this became
a very strange branch
of the Neapolitan lost and found.
That bike that got nicked.
The taxi that never showed up.
A whole fleet of vehicles impounded in the '60s
that haven't seen daylight since.
Oh, Vespas.
Yeah, there will be some good bits on them for somebody.
It's quite sad, though, isn't it, really?
Yeah, for Vespa lovers, for sure.
- Yeah. - If they see a Vespa in these conditions,
they probably have a heart attack.
There are also some,
shall we say, "neoclassical" statues
from World War II.
- That looks a bit facsisty. - It's true, it's true.
With the fascists being here, um,
all these statues, like, popped out of the city in many places,
but then, obviously, at the end of the war,
nobody wanted to have anything to do with fascists anymore.
In fact, the tunnels
were pretty crowded during World War II.
They also gave refuge
to Neapolitans escaping the air raids.
We're now in, like, the bomb shelter.
Okay? So down here, you needed to have everything
you could possibly need to survive
hours, maybe days, sometimes weeks.
And always imagine this with everything shaking
and the sound of the bombs falling up the top.
Yes.
But then, what really makes it sad are the toys.
I wonder if whoever played with that is still alive
and occasionally comes down here and looks at it
and remembers being here in 1943 aged four.
The thing I really like about the way this is being done
is that it hasn't been dressed up.
They've just left the relics pretty much as they found them.
But it's far more poignant just like that.
Don't over-restore things. It takes all the ghosts away.
The more you explore, the further back in time
these strange tunnels take you.
In the Roman olden days,
this was a thriving underground city,
with homes, markets and even a theater.
Down here.
- Seriously? - Mm-hmm. Torches.
And I hope you didn't have too much pizza last night.
It's as if history is a cone,
becoming narrower as you go backwards.
Oh, Paolo. This is tiny.
And narrower...
- Oh, seriously? - No.
How much smaller does it get?
Until finally, at the pointy end...
And there's one last, final surprise.
...is the Fountain of Youth.
That is quite surprising.
You'll notice in the next scene that it hasn't worked.
These big cavities underground,
down at the bottom, you have cisterns of water.
So you would have a well at the top of this.
Pour a bucket down, get the water, pull it back up.
That's rather nice, actually.
It goes on and on and on.
Yet more tunnels await.
On the outskirts of the city
is another underground wonderland.
We're now going to move back to the 17th century
and il Cimitaro delle Fontanella.
Originally, this place was a harmless stone quarry,
but then, in the mid-17th century,
a terrible plague ravaged Napoli,
and it's reckoned that of the 400,000 inhabitants,
only 150,000 survived.
That's a reduction of five-eighths, or .625,
if you're a machinist.
Anyway, all the dead were brought here,
so this is another doloroso...
Buon giorno.
...ospizio.
Essentially, it is a cave...
Buon giorno.
...full of dead Neapolitans.
I bet you can't wait. It's through here.
There are around eight million bones in these here caverns.
Following the plague of 1656, the city graveyards were so full
that at funerals, they pretended to bury bodies
and then stashed them down here instead.
Oh, geez.
- Shall I hold your hand? Okay. - No, it's okay.
These caves were never consecrated ground,
and in Catholicism, that means the bones' owners
would never make it to heaven,
doomed instead to wander between worlds forever.
However, for some enterprising Neapolitans,
this was a business opportunity.
Now, you would choose a skull
that you wanted as your link with the other world.
You would clean it, put it on a cushion,
put a rosary around it,
and you start worshiping that skeleton.
Because the whole point of this is that these skulls
should appear to the live people during their dreams at night.
And what do they need to give them?
Lotto numbers.
Rather than resting in peace,
your adopted skull
earns its keep by sending you colorful dreams
which correspond to a series of numbers.
So if I dreamt that I was fishing,
but I got a bite, but when I reeled it in,
it was a supermarket trolley,
i-is there a series of numbers for that?
Yeah, we would probably play
the fishing, the bite
and the supermarket trolley.
I'll keep a notebook by my bed.
As well as hosting a supernatural gambling racket,
this was also the main hangout for the Neapolitan Mafia.
What you see here, three crosses.
At the base, you see the skeletons.
And according to the Neapolitan dark history,
this place here is where the Camorra headquarters
would meet and take all the decisions
they had to take for the city of Naples.
Well, I think that's enough
nightmare fodder for one day.
What an amazing day out.
We had bones, bombed-out people,
superstitions, New Age woo-woo,
but most importantly,
I've learned how to win the Italian lottery.
All I have to do is go to one of the local restaurants
and eat the local fish soup-- bit of a speciality--
have an amazing dream, and then pick my winning numbers.
Mmm.
The next morning, over a cappuccino,
I'm ready to become rich.
So, I had the fish soup...
- Uh-huh. - ...which famously makes you dream.
I can tell you that it involved una donna,
uno strumento enorme...
...e formaggio.
- A woman. - Yes.
An enormous tool.
A spanner, actually. Yes.
- And cheese. - Yes.
Okay, okay, okay.
Ooh, is it secret?
You can have it.
This is a book that gives a-a number
- to everything that you dream of. - Farfalle.
- That's a butterfly, isn't it? Here we go. - Yeah.
- Yeah, that's from... Hold on. - 21.
- Yeah, but hold on. - Oh, there's lots of donnas.
What donna do you want here? A sleeping one,
that she was sleepy, she beautiful,
is she not beautiful?
- If she's clever, if she can cook. - She might be watching.
Is the lady hairy?
- No. - There's a 66 for that.
- Is she frustrated? Uh... - Probably.
- Let's put it at 25. - Okay.
- 25. - A beautiful woman.
Then we said, "a big tool."
- Right. - Spanner. It was a big spanner.
I'll put it at six.
- Okay, 25, six... - 25 and formaggio.
Formaggio. Is it a shape of cheese?
Yes, so number ten.
Six, ten, 25.
So, so I need some money?
What was it, 6, 10, 25?
- Yep. - Okay.
Believe what you like,
but there are more lottery winners from this region
than any other in Italy.
Looks like somebody succeeded.
Yes. The only trouble with this is
that bloke now knows that I had a dream about a girl
with a massive spanner and some cheese.
- Yeah, yeah. - My dream, your nationality.
Just send me a text when-when the winnings come through.
- Obviously. - Oh, yeah, yeah, trust me. If you,
if you win, you'll have a text from me.
Right, if you're binge-watching this,
don't expect to see episode three.
Until then, it's back to the day job.
And another golden rule for being Italian.
There is one thing that you need to know in Naples.
If you put Parmesan on spaghetti vongole...
...like, spaghetti with clams.
If you do something as bad as that...
- Parmesan on fish, mm-mm-mm. - Which I think is probably
- the worst thing that you can do. - That's one of those, isn't it?
Somewhere around Italy,
a chef is gonna die.
How odd that Paolo should say that.
How did he know that's what happens next?
We can argue for the rest of time
about who actually invented pizza.
Yes, there is evidence of something
rather like a pizza oven in Pompeii.
And of course, people have been putting things
on top of flatbread ever since bread was invented,
because why wouldn't you?
But the fact remains that the modern pizza,
that is, with a thin crust and a cheese and tomato base,
is a Neapolitan invention of the 19th century.
I dare you to come here and claim otherwise.
So, since we're in Napoli,
I thought I should show you how to make a pizza.
And I'm going to do this at--
guess what, they do have one--
pizza school.
If Naples is the birthplace of pizza,
the Association for True Neapolitan Pizza
are the rule makers, and Chef Enzo
is head of law enforcement.
That's very close. 0.94.
Oh, this is engineering precision.
The yeast must weigh one gram exactamente.
- Oh... Whoa! - Yeah!
1.00.
And for the base, the flour must be type 00.
Accept no substitutes.
Okay, so it has to be an even paste.
- Mine is a bit lumpy, it must be said. - Okay.
Why are you treating the dough this way?
What has it done to you, James?
The dough is my friend.
Doesn't look like it.
- So, could we just... - Okay.
- Grazie. - Ah, voilà.
Can we just pause for a moment
to compare my hands and Enzo's hands?
So there's my hands, there's Enzo's.
I don't know why. It's a mystery.
Anyway, the dough must rest for at least eight hours,
so on that note, I'll see you tomorrow.
Oh, all right.
Here's some Enzo made earlier.
We push the air from the middle to the edge.
Uh, okay.
The base may be no thicker than 2.5 millimeters.
Excuse me, what technique is this, James?
- Scusami. - I... Well, I was just,
I was trying to fudge it.
- Okay? Perfetto. - Yes.
That was a very polite way of saying that was utter crap.
- James? - So that's it?
Prego.
So you can just do it for me
and then we'll pretend that...
That'll do.
Topping time.
And this is a big moment for me, viewers,
because, if what I'm about to suggest
goes down well with the Associazione,
it could change the course of pizza history forever.
80 grammes of cheese.
I do not need
to put the cheese on my pizza
because I am making a special pizza: no cheese.
- It's okay. - You're just going to agree to it,
not kill me or anything?
It depends on the ingredients.
We want to try and make a full English breakfast pizza.
Oh, my God.
It's not possible to use all these ingredients.
Yes, it is.
If Enzo can loosen up a bit
and forget those rules, I think he might be won over
by my medley of black pudding, bacon and sausage.
That's probably enough.
With what I hope will be a cooked egg centerpiece.
Ready? Are we getting this, cameras?
This is an important moment.
There is the egg.
Garnished with a baked bean jus.
- Hello, this is the pizza... - - I don't know if a Neopolitan
oven will allow a pizza like that inside it.
What, you think the-the oven
might actually regurgitate my pizza?
- Let's see. - Sì.
- Whoa, ah. - Bravo.
I am speechless.
This is going well,
in that I haven't ended up in the oven.
Oh, for God's sake. You'd think in Italy,
they'd make a top box that takes a pizza.
No matter, I'm delivering it to a very important customer.
Avanti.
And to do that, I get to ride an actual Vespa
through the actual streets of Naples.
125cc Vespa,
one of the machines that made Italy what it is.
Original design from 1948,
Corradino D'Ascanio, former aerospace engineer.
Which is why it has some aeroplane-like features to it,
such as, uh, pseudo-olio front suspension leg.
He made it like that so it would cope with
rough, unmade roads, like the ones in Naples.
Cobbles, cobbles.
Buon giorno.
See how the pizza box remains balanced on the top box?
Nothing can stop pizza.
Except cobbles.
Anyway, this imposing figure
is Don Antonio Pace,
the president of the Association of True Neapolitan Pizza,
and it's said he's not a patient man.
La mia pizza e getting freddo.
Now while we're alone, viewers, I must own up to something.
Scusiamo, scusiamo.
Molto importante pizza.
Adding bean jus to my pizza
may have compromised its structural integrity.
- Buona sera, Signor Presidente. - Buona sera.
Buona sera.
The full English Breakfast Pizza.
What's this?
Can I give you a compliment?
You have made the most terrible pizza I have ever seen.
Ah, grazie, Signor Presidente.
Uh, nevertheless...
Uh...
It's you who should be paying damages to the city of Naples and me!
This pizza is an insult to pizza!
When are you leaving the city?
Now.
Well, now I'm Napoli's public enemy number one,
I should probably say goodbye to my number two
before I go into hiding in episode three.
Well, Paolo, it's time for me to say goodbye to you,
which obviously I find very awkward because I'm British.
You've been excellent. And you've given me a top tip
for my collection of rules on being Italian,
which is always make sure that your shoes
coordinate or match your belt.
Yeah. I'll tell you one thing.
It's terrible news, but somebody has to tell you.
- You've not won the lottery. - You're kidding.
After those numbers came to me in a dream?
That's probably because you're not, you're not Italian yet.
You need to complete your evolution into fully Italian.
And once you come back, with all the knowledge
you've acquired along the trip,
play those numbers again.
Well, I'm sure if my numbers do come up,
Paolo will let me know of my good fortune.
Well, that's the end of Naples.
And I'd like to say that Naples has a bit of a bad reputation,
and to a large extent, I'm afraid it is deserved.
It is quite tatty, a lot of it is falling apart.
But... how can I say it without being clichéd or disrespectful?
It's enjoyably rough-arsed.
Anyway, on that note, I think I'll go to Rome,
since I must already be on the way
because I'm on a road, and that's where they all go.
See you there.