I had never been to central or southern Italy so decided on a trip to Naples. The weather seemed better in late march but the flights were cheaper in early march, so when we were in Tenerife I booked flights for 2-16 of March.

The north of Italy was going through a horrendous time with covid-19 so a number of passengers didn’t turn up. Most on board were Italian, photo above. I assume lots of Scots didn’t show, one told me his friends expected him to cancel but said he could have caught covid if he had stayed in Dundee.

The first few days climbing we were based at Campobasso in Molise region.

One of the places we climbed at was Frosolone which was excellent, but at 1200m was unsurprisingly a bit cold with snow on a couple of routes.

During our stay the region had their first case of covid-19 but if I hadn’t seen the paper (while waiting for a pizza) I wouldn’t have known, nobody had masks or gloves.

I was thinking of going to the ‘foot’ of Italy but couldn’t face the drive so we went to Scauri on the coast between Naples and Rome. We alternated between climbing just to the north near the coast and inland around the town of Cassino.

We usually had the cliffs to ourselves but occasionally shared them with two (and once six) locals.

Then things started to go a bit odd with restrictions in supermarket numbers and a few people wearing masks; looking at the news you would think everyone in Italy was wearing them.

I wasn’t surprised to get the email stating our return flight had been cancelled.

Dear Colin,

As you may be aware, Italian authorities have implemented strict travel restrictions for flights to, from and within Italy until 3rd April 2020. As a result of these extraordinary circumstances, we're sorry to inform you that your easyJet flight EJU6992 from Naples (Term1) to Edinburgh on 16-03-2020 at 15:00 has been cancelled.

We were to book a rescue flight, but the wifi had stopped working. After a short walk I got 4G and saw the flights, most of them to Milan, it looked like we would be staying in Italy for a month or two. Two months in Italy would be fine.

The next day (the 12th) we did one route by the beach (it wasn’t the 9b) and I had a swim then we went for a drive and got stopped by the Polizia.

The Poliziotti didn’t have masks or gloves but told us to stay in Scauri, maybe two months in a small flat wouldn’t be so good.

That evening the wifi was back on and a rescue flight from Rome to Gatwick had been added. After a call to check with car hire I booked it.

Progress in Rome airport was slow but safe with distancing and temperature checks (unlike the chaos in Gatwick). There were 186 seats from Rome for 39 passengers.

Black Friday the 13th of March was slightly stressful but we got back to Glencoe just after midnight on the 14th.

The airline gave no advice but I decided to keep away from everyone for two weeks walking and climbing on Mull.

Nine days later the UK closed down.