A wolf at the door

We arrive home late to our rented room in Tuscania in Italy. As we get the key out we notice a huge spider on the doorstep. We grab quick photographs with our phones and then scrabble to get in the room past it:

“Keep it there”, says the Puffin Whisperer. “That’s not as easy as it sounds”, I think.

We get a metal mixing bowl to restrain it. As if to prove that a photograph doesn’t need to be in focus at all to still be effective, here’s one of my first shots:

Now I’ve got a compact camera out rather than my phone. I’d like a decent photograph of it so I can identify it. Surely it can’t be too difficult to identify since it’s so massive:

It’s quite some beast:

I put it back outside the door.

Is it a Wolf Spider? Is it a False Wolf Spider? It’s one of Italy’s largest Wolf Spiders, it’s a female and it’s called Hogna radiata. Now it’s time to sleep… if we can.