Frustrated after having an argument with his wife, an Italian man walked for 280 miles (around 450 km) to calm himself down but ended up being caught by police for breaching the country’s strict coronavirus-lockdown. The 48-year-old man left Como, in the north of Italy, and traveled more than 400 km south over a period of a week in an attempt to soothe his anger, according to the Independent.
After a week, the man reached Fano-a beach resort on the Adriatic coast. Meanwhile, the police found him “wandering aimlessly” at 2:00 am and charged him for breaching the country’s lockdown curfew norms. When he was questioned, the cops were baffled to know that he had walked so far. However, when the police put his details into a database, it was confirmed that his wife had filed a missing report back in Como a week earlier.
Subsequently, he was fined €400 ($485) for breaching the curfew. According to the Italian newspaper il Resto del Carlino, the man told the police he hadn’t realised that he had covered so much ground on his week-long journey, and that he had been given food from people he met along the way.
He told the paper: “I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.”
Later, the police officers put him up in a hotel, where he was fed and given lodging, while the next day his wife set out to drive the 450 km to collect her husband. As his story went viral, the man has been dubbed “Italy’s Forrest Gump” on social media, with Italian daily Corriere della Sera commenting: “Had there been no police checks, who knows where he could have ended up”.