Passing by a running drinking fountain amid the maze of narrow streets, passageways and arched Gothic architecture that form the bones of the fabulous city of Siena, our guide and friend, Brett Naisby, adroitly halts the wasting flow of fresh water.
He understands only too well the value, and history, of this priceless commodity to the city - and, today, to the entire country.
When he and his wife, Eve Hope, are not resident in Christchurch and laying plans for the next year's tour itineraries, they live in Gaiole in Chianti. Eve, a fine arts graduate from Canterbury University, has been there since 1992 and is chief designer for local company Rampini Ceramics.
In good old Kiwi-Canadian "can-do" fashion - and without the Under the Tuscan Sun literary hullabaloo, but with all the attendant bureaucracy - they converted an old barn into a villa.
"Our water bill can be as high as what we pay for gas," Eve tells me, adding that gas, cheaper than electricity, is used for all their heating and cooking. So Brett's instinctive gesture in Siena is born of experience and the keenly felt economic heft of running water.
Even in the 13th century - or perhaps especially in the 13th century - the good burghers of Siena understood the importance of water. The city had become a crucial stopover on the commerce and pilgrimage route from Northern Italy, and thus from the rest of Europe, to Rome. As Siena grew in size and affluence, the lack of a fresh supply became a serious impediment.
Vying with neighbouring Florence for influence and wealth, the city fathers hatched a water reticulation scheme that today defies belief. The nearest source of water was about 16km distant.
History - and my Tuscany and Umbria (Lonely Planet) guidebook - tells us that two teams of engineers set out with nothing more sophisticated than plumb lines and pickaxes, one from the source and one from the city, to construct a steady-gradient underground tunnel to channel the precious resource.
With what one imagines must have been a degree of serendipity, they met somewhere in the middle. Today, the resultant network of tunnels bringing running water to the city's fountains still operates.
These past two or three weeks, Tuscany, and most of the rest of Italy, has been in the grip of a late-summer heat wave. The parched countryside has been tested beyond its usual patience. The vines, heavy with ripening Sangiovese, Merlot or Vernaccia grapes, are stressed, their roots reaching deep into the soil in search of nourishment and nonexistent moisture. It could be an excellent vintage.
It is not until the walking trails of Tuscany are behind us and we are installed in the Umbrian hills for a day or two that we catch a glimmer of the long-awaited rain.
But it is short-lived and the breeze, even on the high slopes of Monte Subasio outside Assisi, is parching.
Assisi is the birthplace and final resting site of St Francis. His tomb sits in the vault of the lower cathedral built in the 13th century to honour his memory. It is a magnificent memorial consisting of two basilicas, one atop the other. The lower is an exquisite Romanesque temple to the saint's memory; the upper a masterpiece of Gothic architecture adorned with a procession of unsurpassed Giotto frescoes.
Tomorrow, we are off to Spoleto, where the young, privileged St Francis had his road-to-Damascus experience and turned back to Assisi - where he would cast off the riches of his wealthy merchant family and enter the lifestyle and brotherhood which would eventually give rise to the Franciscan order, and to canonisation.
One of Giotto's frescoes is The Sermon to the Birds. Not only did the saintly monk denounce worldly goods, but developed his ministry and concept of Christianity to include the whole of creation - a world in which God, man and the world of nature harmoniously find their place.
The radical St Francis included hallowed positions for the sun, the moon, the stars, fire, wind and water in his divine universe. As one observer has noted, St Francis "contemplates nature with the stupefied and reverent eyes with which the first man saw on that first radiant morning of the world".
He would not have been overjoyed to learn that in modern Italy water services are largely privatised. Beyond pockets of the Canterbury Plains and the odd outbreak of dirty dairying on the Taieri and in South Otago, we have by virtue of its comparative abundance been spared grappling with the issue of water: its distribution, conservation and ownership.
But this apathy cannot last. Water is the coming issue of the 21st century, the world over. And sooner rather than later, we will have to meet it, just as they did in Siena and Assisi 700 years ago, and do even more keenly today.
- Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor of the Otago Daily Times.
