Our driver, a local, a rough peasant character, informed us that he was there to look after our every wish. It was all too good to be true. We were shepherded to a boutique and encouraged to buy some coral jewellery. I think, out of a sense of obligation, I bought a necklace. We were served a stupendous dinner. Piers began to panic. He didn’t think the BBC would pay for all this. I was thinking cavalleria rusticana, rustic chivalry and all that, and tried to make myself believe everything was going to be all right.

After dinner, we were led to a dimly-lit pavilion of tables out back, where our guide had herded six or eight of the hotel’s chambermaids, all young girls, and produced the largest bottle of grappa any of us had ever seen. So we sipped grappa while he chased the girls round the tables, trying to goose them, as they laughed and screamed with joy. Then suddenly the girls broke out into song. It was some strange melancholy wail or keening, something primitive and archaic. It seemed to express exactly what we admired in Deledda and what D.H. Lawrence had admired in the Sardinians. Piers dashed to his room for a tape-recorder. The girls sang or keened or wailed. We all got tipsy. Sufficient unto the day. The three of us eventually retired and left any worries about the bill until the morrow.

In the morning light it was obvious that we were in the Gennargentu all right and a considerable distance from Nuoro. Our guide and driver, despite the late night and the grappa, was up early, all bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, cleanly shaven, and ready to look after us.

We had mentioned that we wanted to see some nuraghi, the prehistoric round stone towers that dot the island’s landscape. And so that’s where we were headed on a fine June morning. But first our escort thought we needed coffee, so he took us to a village that seemed to materialize out of nowhere and a well-frequented bar. We drank coffee, and when we went to pay the bill the barman serving us shook his head. We did not understand why he refused our money and turned to our driver, who stood far back in the doorway shaking his head, instructing the bar that we were his guests and therefore were not to pay. Rustic chivalry.

And once again we wound our way over the hills for some miles until we stopped at a place where in the middle of a field with grass three or more feet high rose a nuraghe. There had been a heavy dewfall in the night and the grass bent under the weight of it. The stone tower was some distance off. It looked like we would be soaked and maybe even half drowned before we reached it.