Where virtue can even stop the barking

Then began the frantic task of asking each driver - and we speak no Italian - if that particular bus was ours. But before we could complete the mission it was 2:10 pm. As if obeying the drill call of a sergeant major, all 20 buses pulled out of their parking bays in unison and in quick procession made for the exit. My friend and I stood there forlornly surveying the empty terminal.

That had been the last bus of the day heading for our destination, so we were left with no choice but to go by taxi. After an enjoyable 50-minute drive across rice fields that cost us an arm and a leg we were finally in Tuscany.

Pienza has been called the "touchstone of Renaissance urbanism", and if you have seen the movie Twilight you may recognize Montepulciano, a beautiful town that the vampire family in the film chooses as its retreat.

We stayed in Pienza for two nights. The town's dark yellow buildings are set against a backdrop of verdant rice fields that bask in the Tuscan sun. When night came, fireflies dotted the sky of the hilltop town.

Pope Pius II, a Renaissance humanist, is said to have been the mastermind behind Pienza, his ideal Renaissance town. He was born in the village that later became Pienza, and when he became Pope he had the village rebuilt as the first practical example of Renaissance urban planning.

A bus at the entrance to Pienza links a dozen hilltop towns in the region, among them Montepulciano, a 40-minute ride away. I had just enough wine there to be happily tipsy, which seemed an appropriate way to salute Italy's best grape, Montepulciano.

The bus went all the way north to the town of Siena, from where we took the train to Lake Como on the Italian-Swiss border. We had booked a room with a lake view at what was called a resort on the website where we booked it.

From the town of Como we took a one-hour bus into the hills where the owner of the place picked us up and drove us in his truck to the so-called resort, which turned out to be the family's summer home perched on the top of a hill. I and my two friends would have the place to ourselves.

As idyllic and secluded as the location was, it was also inhibiting, because there was no lighting on a footpath that passed through woods to the house so it was essential for us to be back in the house each day before sunset, about 8pm??. We pre-paid for three nights, and found we had little do in the evenings apart from chatting among ourselves and reading. I had just one book with me, the Lonely Planet guide for Croatia, and was able to read the complete book - several days after having visited the country. There is, as they say, nothing like hindsight.

One morning, I and one of my friends decided to go out exploring in the woods, and after about five minutes we were confronted by a dog about 100 meters away from us. This dog was huge, looking to be as tall as me, and menacing.

Terrified, we spun around and made a dash for it, with the yelping dog in hot pursuit. If there had been a gold medal to be won that morning, my friend would have won it because he managed to overtake me. Eventually the dog relented, and we got back to the house safe. Who knows? Perhaps the pilgrims of Assisi would say the patron saint of animals was looking over me that day.

We were soon back to the humdrum of Beijing, and after two weeks traipsing around three countries I began to feel that, for all the risks, there really is something alluring about the unpredictability of life on the road.