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The problems begin as soon as they arrive to discover that their much-anticipated romantic hillside getaway is a grotty run-down old farmhouse in a lonely isolated backwater of a village, complete with a grumpy old miser of a landlord who complains endlessly about the noise.

To top it all off there is no phone line, meaning no work and no money for pizza.

But just when the whole notion of the Italian Odyssey is looking like a giant mistake, our heroes manage to relocate to sunny Sansepolcro, which turns out to be every bit the country Italian town they’d been dreaming of — medieval and full of good food.

The next few months are spent living the dream, hunting out new bars and cafes, chatting with their kindly landlords and revelling in the minutia of small-town life in rural Italy. 

Then summer arrives, and Sansepolcro shifts into high gear with a endless succession of outdoor festivals, concerts and community events.

Meanwhile, our heroes find themselves steadily enveloped into the warm embrace of their landlords and treated to genuine long lunches on a daily basis.

All too soon summer is over, life quietens down again and the family is obliged to confront the thorny question of the return tickets. Do they belong in Italy? Could they stay on indefinitely? Do they want their children to grow up Italian?