 After the marriage between a woman from Italy s north and a schoolteacher from Italy s south fails due to deep-seated differences in culture and tradition, the husband forcibly kidnaps his two young sons from the home of his estranged wife s parents and sets out on the road with them in a VW Beetle. Their low-key journey, set to songs from the period, is interspersed with flashbacks to happier times (including home movies in colour), while flash-forwards reveal the sons as adults, looking back on this memorable summer.