“EXCUSE me, but what are you doing?” Italians phrase things so delicately. Even this one, who was cradling a sub-machine gun with a pistol strapped to his thigh, Rambo-style.

It was proof that I had penetrated what, until next Friday, when the world's leaders end their latest G8 summit, will be the most sensitive, heavily guarded location on earth — Barack Obama's basketball court.

It was created, outside the president's temporary residence (“Building P1”), as a gesture of goodwill by his host, Silvio Berlusconi. There again, it might be thought Italy's prime minister owed him a gesture or two.

After once describing the US president as “tanned”, he then decided Obama and others, who had been looking forward to convening by the balmy waters of Sardinia, should meet at a barracks in an earthquake zone.

On Friday, there was yet another after-shock of the disaster that, in April, left almost 300 dead. The tremor, magnitude 3.6, sent workers fleeing into the streets from the regional government headquarters and other recently reoccupied buildings in L'Aquila.

The mighty of the earth will arrive by way of a flying club hastily turned into an airport. Officials say the new Aeroporto dei Parchi, whose control tower is made of pre-fabricated units, can handle planes with up to 40 passengers.

But that is on a rare stretch of even land in a valley ringed by mountains, and the first planes to touch down on Thursday were making spine-tingling turns to line up with the runway. Once the presidents and prime ministers are over that little adventure, they will be driven to the barracks through an area still visibly shattered by the earthquake.

The natural route is through the village of Coppito, many of whose inhabitants are living in an encampment beside the main street. One of the first sights for the illustrious guests could be of a house that has lost an entire wall, revealing the contents within.

Though some activity has returned, the area round L'Aquila looks like a war zone lorries ferrying humanitarian aid, helicopters clattering overhead, buildings that seem to have been shelled, and roadside stalls run by shopkeepers unable yet to return to their usual premises.

The barracks, three miles from the centre of L'Aquila, must have been an awkward choice for Italy's flamboyant leader.

This is a branch of the armed forces which comes under the finance ministry and whose duties include checking on tax fraud — an offence for which Berlusconi, who denies the charge, is currently on trial. Not for the first time.

The site has another link to the global financial meltdown that will be top of the G8's agenda La Repubblica reported that, in 2004, it was privatised by the last Berlusconi government to a consortium in part comprising the now-defunct Lehman Brothers and the nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland.

Visiting the site on Thursday, Berlusconi said he would have “everything ready with days to spare”.

— The Guardian, London