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But of the dynasty, Bruegel the Elder — note the missing ‘h’ — is the original and best. There are only forty-five paintings or so in existence and one of the most famous is in the imposing Alte Pinakothek, which we visited that afternoon. There were plenty of pleasant Jans and Pieters along the way, vases of flowers and country fairs full of tiny detail, the kind of paintings that make fine jigsaws, but the Bruegel with no ‘h’ was something else entirely, hanging with little fanfare in an unprepossessing room. Das Schlaraffenland depicts a mythical ‘land of milk and honey’ — a roof tiled with pies, a fence made of sausages and, in the foreground, three bloated men: a soldier, a farmer and some sort of clerk or student, surrounded by half-eaten food, trouser flaps undone, too stuffed and bloated to work. It’s one of those ‘disturbing’ pictures — a live pig running around with a knife in its back, a boiled egg with little legs, that kind of thing — and I knew enough about art to spot an allegory when I saw one.

‘Eat smaller portions.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Connie.

‘The meaning. If you live in a land where the roofs are made of pies, learn to pace yourself. He should have called it Carbs at Lunch.’

‘Douglas, I want to go home.’

‘What about the Museum of Modern Art?’

‘Not to the hotel. Home to England. I want to go back there now.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ I kept my eyes fixed on the painting. ‘They’re dropping like flies!’

‘Shall we … shall we sit down somewhere?’

We walked into a larger room — crucifixions, Adam and Eve — and sat some way apart on a leather bench, the presence of the museum guard adding to the mood of a particularly difficult prison visit.

‘I know what you were hoping. You thought maybe if things went well, we might still have a future. You were hoping to change my mind, and I want you to know that I’d love to be able to change my mind too. I’d love to know for certain if I could be happy with you. But this isn’t making me happy, this trip. It’s … too hard, and it’s not a holiday if you feel chained to someone’s ankle. I need some space to think. I want to go home.’

I smiled through the most terrible disappointment. ‘You can’t abandon the Grand Tour, Connie!’

‘You can keep going if you want.’

‘I can’t go on without you. Where’s the fun in that?’

‘So come back with me.’

‘What will we tell people?’

‘Do we have to tell them anything?’

‘We’re back from holiday twelve days early because our son has run away! It’s humiliating.’

‘We’ll … pretend we got food poisoning, or some aunt died. We’ll say Albie went off to meet friends, do his own thing. Or we’ll stay at home and close the curtains, hide, pretend we’re still travelling.’

‘We won’t have any photographs of Venice or Rome …’

She laughed. ‘Never in the history of the human race has anyone asked to see those photos.’

‘I didn’t want them for other people. I wanted them for us.’

‘So … maybe we’ll tell people the truth.’

‘That you couldn’t stand another minute here with me.’

She slid along the bench and pressed her shoulder against mine. ‘That’s not the truth.’

‘What is, then?’

She shrugged. ‘The truth is that maybe this wasn’t the best time to be in each other’s pockets.’

‘It was your idea.’

‘It was, but that was before … I’m sorry — you’ve arranged it all, I appreciate the effort, but it’s also … well, an effort. It’s too much to take in. It’s too confusing.’

‘We won’t get any money back, everything’s pre-booked.’

‘Maybe money’s not the most important thing at the moment, Douglas.’

‘Fine. Fine, I’ll look into flights.’

‘There’s a plane to Heathrow at ten fifteen tomorrow. We’ll be home by lunchtime.’

And so passed our last day in Europe together.

We walked the remaining rooms of the gallery but, without Albie to educate, the Grand Tour seemed redundant now. Our eyes skimmed over Dürers, Raphaels and Rembrandts, but nothing registered and there was nothing to say. Before long we returned to the hotel and while Connie packed and read, I walked the streets.

Munich was a strange combination of grandly ceremonial and boisterously beery, like a drunken general, and we might all have had fun here together, I suppose, on a balmy August night. Instead I went alone to a vast beer hall near the Viktualienmarkt where, to the accompaniment of a Bavarian brass band, I tried to raise my spirits by ordering a lager the size of a torso and a roasted ham hock. As with much in life, the first taste was delicious, but soon the meat took on the quality of a gruesome anatomy lesson as I became aware of the muscle groups, the sinews, bone and cartilage. I pushed the thing away, defeated, drained the pail of beer and stumbled back to our hotel bed where I awoke a little after two in the morning, smelling of ham, a half-crazed desiccated husk …