Bergamo in Lombardy is in the area most affected by Covid-19, and is now in lockdown as Italy grapples with the virus. On a hill outside the town is the lazaretto, the pesthouse for the sick or contagious, a reminder of the plague of 1630, which killed more than half the town’s inhabitants

The children were young last time we visited the red zone. It was high summer, the corn in the fields as high as an elephant’s eye, an occasional splash from an errant irrigation sprayer the only relief from the oppressive heat. We sat the boy in his baby seat, precariously, unbalancing his mother’s bike. More than once she wobbled frighteningly and frightened, close to the edge.

We’d parked in a sleepy village on the banks of the Adda; then cycled down the path on top of the levee, downstream towards the Po, through enormous fields of maize.

There was that sullen silence that comes with the oppressive weight of extreme heat. When it was too much, we’d scuttle to the nearest shade, a bunch of trees along the river’s edge, gulping from our bottles. We saw barely a soul. The locals wouldn’t be so mad. We persisted, bloody-minded, for a couple of hours, then, shamefaced, retraced our steps.