STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN? ALMOST.

Yesterday, I blipped the bridge to nowhere. Today, it's the stairway to nowhere. This is all there is, six stone steps and they are stone, not concrete. They go up a very steep bank.

I first heard about them in connection with a man called Bigongiare. He lived in the valley but had bits and pieces of property up in the hills -- a little vineyard here, a few olives there and an attractive block of ruins. He took up driving at the age of 70 and used to hurtle around the twisting roads where he terrorized all who live up here.

I did not encounter him until he was 90. One day, in a storm, he went up these steps and vanished. It isn't that he was missed because he was a bachelor who lived alone. A day later another man was walking along a path in the woods when he heard a faint cry for help. He found Bigongiare down a ravine with a leg trapped under a tree. He'd been there in the rain for 24 hours.

He was extracted and taken to hospital. It is fair to say that everybody who drives these roads was hysterical with joy at the prospect of less hair raising drives down to the valley. His recovery took some time but then he was back on the roads, more terrifying than ever because the leg that had been crushed was now considerably shorter than the other one.

Eventually, old age and pneumonia caught up with him. He remains in our memories, however.

Happy Independence Day to Americans everywhere. I may be a little slow on comments today. I have managed to acquire whiplash and am sitting here with a big collar around my neck.