A journey round Italy in a camper van. Walter drives during the night. Filippo gets the coffee ready. He also does the shopping when we stop next morning in a new village, a new city. He stores everything in the van’s fridge. We eat while we’re travelling, on the little table. On the motorway they reckon we are nomads. Walter keeps to the speed limits. He goes gently. Everyone overtakes us. We never stop. Sleeping in a camper van for a month and when you arrive you get out into a square, shake hands, and listen to the people. Smile, go onto the stage with the second hand sound system, dragged out of someone’s cellar, and you shout so that everyone can hear you. A Genoa-style election campaign without asking for money from the State. With a new court case at each meeting. The 5 star MoVement doesn’t want election contributions. In each Region we have spent 10 to 15 thousand euro, collected with spontaneous donations. This money has to stay in the community. It’s all beautiful. Very beautiful. The best experience of my life. In the camper van there’s the smell of true men. Every so often we allow ourselves a hotel room for a shower. I leave Matera and the next morning I find I’m in Andria and in Torremaggiore. I’m in Bussoleno at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, at 5 pm I’m in Novara, at 9 o’clock in the evening I’m in Verbania. I drop into the camper’s bunk bed and I wake up at 4 am in Veneto. I appear in Padua and then in Treviso. Some think it’s a stand-in, that there are many “Beppe Grillos” doing the election circuit. Others think I have Don Giovanni Bosco’s gift of ubiquity. It’s a long march of democracy, a “Giro d'Italia” of the future. By an enchantment, wherever you arrive, the squares fill up, in spite of the silent omertà of the media. A mysterious spreading of the word that reaches the people. Beautiful people. Youngsters. Older people. All genuine. Tremendous. I happened to go out of the van’s door thinking I was in Piacenza, but in fact I was in Voghera. On the stage with me there were “the others”, young men and women who are ingenuous, have clean records, excited, not used to speaking in public, with clean faces. They are the hope of this country. They have ideas and not ideologies. I supply the face but they supply all the rest. Blood, lungs, courage. They have collected tens of thousands of authenticated signatures on the streets during this infinite winter of snow and ice. To the indifference of many. Give them a possibility. Give yourselves a possibility. In the camper van I’m writing the blog articles, reading the comments, thinking. Walter every so often is playing the guitar, when he’s not driving. Filippo is reading, always reading. But what is he reading? One day I will find out. Today I’ll be in Mirandola, Ferrara, Cesena. Then tomorrow in Naples’ piazza Dante. On Sunday I’m going back home to Nervi. Who knows if I’ll find my family still there? They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.