We have hardly begun walking before I spot the side alley, curving away from the main road in a patchwork of sunlit yellow walls, shuttered windows and shadowy archways. “What’s up there?” Elena, my guide to the city, pulls a wry smile. “That is Carmine. As a kid, I was warned not to go there.”

I turn up the alley. There’s a lot of graffiti. Next to an anarchy symbol, someone has sprayed “morte al decoro” – death to decorum. I’m intrigued. We go further, finding a labyrinth of colourful streets filled with bars and restaurants, a few just opening up for the day.

Like the bohemian quarter at its heart, Brescia is an Italian city that is easily missed: it’s near the Dolomites and Lake Garda, but not close enough to be a base for them. Tourists tend to speed past on their way to Milan or Verona. Fiercely proud of her city, Elena is on a mission to convince me it is worth a stop. “You’ll see. We’ve got everything you’d want from Italy, all in one place.”

Her confidence is matched by Andrea, the manager of i Dù dela Contrada, a Carmine bar that we step into for a coffee. Quirky bric-a-brac is dotted around, the bar itself plastered with passport photos, donated by its many fans. “Twenty years ago, this was an area for prostitutes and thieves,” Andrea tells me. “Now it’s safer but still vibrant, and growing.”

I tell him Elena’s mission and he nods. “She’s right, ask anyone.”

“OK. Who shall I ask next?”

“Piera at Ostería dei Mercanti. She’s a real character.”

And so begins a magical day in the city where we wander, one person leading to the next, each encounter enriched by Elena’s deep knowledge of her home town.

We find Piera sitting among a gaggle of friends, the table covered in coffee cups and one or two glasses of Brescia’s favourite aperitivo, pirlo. “The drinks here are special,” she tells me. “We’ve got the Franciacorta wine region on our doorstep. I came 17 years ago and knew instantly I would stay.”

She sends us to meet her friend Maria. That means passing through the medieval square of the city, Piazza della Loggia, which is dominated by the Torre dell’Orologio, a magnificent clock that features two lifesize automatons, “the lunatics of time”, who have been bashing out the hours on a large bell since 1581. We can’t find Maria, but bump into her amiable friend Antimio, whose Lestro restaurant is both a homage to the 1970s and a laboratory where he experiments tirelessly, perfecting the pizza.

Next thing, I’m in his kitchen getting a swift lesson in the mix of special flours, the best kneading methods, how to prep the cheeses … “I like to mix smoked scamorza and mozzarella, but my favourite is bagòss, a local speciality.” Within 20 minutes, I’m sitting outside, listening to the lunatics hammer out the hour and eating the best pizza of my life – for breakfast.

Thus fortified, Antimio sends us around the corner to visit Roberto at Brescia’s sumptuous Teatro Grande. The theatre was founded in the 1660s and is considered one of Italy’s finest. The palatial cafe with its murals is a popular spot for merenda, the traditional afternoon cake stop, but the tour adds wonderful details, such as the way horses were steered on stage and how Puccini, chastened by the rejection of his new opera, Madama Butterfly, at Milan’s La Scala, brought it here in 1904 and won acclaim.

Roberto’s tip is the church of San Cristo, but first we divert through Piazza Vittoria which Mussolini, at the peak of his power in 1932, had remodelled on fascist principles, kicking out residents to erect monuments to youth, energy and strength; in other words thuggish neo-classical blocks round a massive male nude statue. A decade later, Mussolini was back, this time as a German puppet, governing the republic of Salò, a rump state that included Brescia. In recent years, the piazza has been renovated, but the male nude remains warehoused, and the large capital letter “M” on one building does not refer to the fallen dictator.

I’m beginning to understand why Elena believes Brescia is a microcosm of Italian history and culture. She now takes me back to the medieval Piazza della Loggia to point out something I had missed, a small pillar marking the spot where a bomb exploded in 1974, killing eight people. The political forces of the Mussolini era reached a terrible climax in the 1970s and 80s, the anni di piombi, “years of lead”, when fascist groups and the leftwing Red Brigades traded lethal bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. The extent of the carnage is revealed in hundreds of pavement plaques that lead up to Brescia’s medieval castle above the city, each plaque representing a victim.

After this sombre digression, we cool off in Chiesa di San Cristo, a 16th-century church known as “the Sistine Chapel of Brescia” for the luminous murals that cover every available space. A few doors down the lane is Osteria del Savio, a famous spot for local cuisine where we tuck into casoncelli, a ravioli made with sage and butter, then malfatti, a local mountain gnocchi, while owner Michaela explains why there is a Roman column in the middle of her restaurant. “It actually goes down another 5 metres and my neighbours have the capital off it – they use it as a coffee table.”

Finding history hidden under columns is a Bresciano tradition. Back in the 1820s, archaeologists decided to dig under the top of a Roman column in a city garden that was being used as a picnic table. What they discovered was a vast temple complex and a bronze statue, the Winged Victory, that has been dated back to the first century BC.

A short walk down the lane brings us to that spot, now a partly subterranean archaeological site. Other Roman artefacts are in the nearby Santa Giulia Museum, a warren of ancient buildings that could easily occupy a day, but we whip through because it is time to go and taste some wine.

If Brescia keeps below the mass tourism radar, its wine district, the Franciacorta, is also a well-kept secret. Planted on volcanic soils south of Lake Iseo, these vineyards produce sparkling wine so good that the locals drink most of it.

I stay by the lake shore in Sulzano, a 30-minute drive from Brescia, then next day catch the ferry across to Monte Isola, an island in the lake. Ringed by mountains and a popular day trip for the Bresciani, the island still keeps its home-spun friendliness. At the fishing net shop, Paulo demonstrates the knots to make a net using a double-ended needle that “is the same tool they found in Pompeii”. Further on, in the small net factory, owner Daniella points to a photo of her grandmother mending nets, then tells me that most Serie A football nets are now made here. In the shop round the corner, they give me a taste of their local salami – they are very proud of that. But the climax, for me, is when I wander, unannounced, into the Arquette boatyard.

This is the kind of place where royalty and billionaires buy handmade wooden boats, but Andrea and his dad have no time for airs and graces. They are craftsmen, proudly showing me works in progress. “Our ancestors were gondola-makers in Venice,” says Andrea. “In 1640, they came here and liked Brescia and its surrounding area so much, they stayed.” It was a decision, I admit to Elena, that I can heartily endorse.

The trip was provided by Visit Brescia. Doubles at Hotel Lenel in Brescia from €183, and at Hotel Rivalago in Sulzano from €209. Kevin Rushby travelled to Brescia by train, via Milan. A 7-day Interrail pass is £331 for adults