Day 1 – Travel day
It’s getting more and more difficult to come up with a snappy title for my travels. I do like a bit of alliteration though and I’m looking forward to writing “Zipping around Zambia” when the time comes.
Anyway, we are off to Calabria for 2 weeks and we have a mission – to walk from one side of Calabria to the other. We start on the Ionian coast and 3 days later, finish at the Tyrrhenian sea.
After that, we have 4 nights in a “villa” (I’m expecting it to be rustic, more on that later)on the Capo Vaticano and after that – to be decided.
Today we are flying (courtesy of Ryanair) to Lamezia, then getting a taxi to Soverato where the trek begins. We have 2 nights there to organise ourselves then off we go.
Unfortunately we are both nursing ailments namely a painful heel (Steve) and a gammy shoulder (me).
It’ll be fine.
Our flight was all good and we managed to negotiate the ridiculously useless entry and exit EU system without too much trouble and we were soon on our way to Soverato.
The journey revealed that Calabria looks quite a depressed place with abandoned buildings peppering the landscape. The grey skies and rain only added to the gloomy atmosphere. Apparently it’s one of the poorest areas in the EU and most of its young people have left. Throw in the Ndrangheta (Mafia) and in theory it’s not a great picture of happiness for the Calabrians left behind.
However, as is often the case, the reality does not necessarily match the theory especially around the coastal areas.
Our taxi driver was charming and helpful as is our b and b host and a saunter around the town and seaside of Soverato revealed families, elders and young people enjoying promenading and the dolce vita. There is an air of end of season as some of the restaurants and all of the beach clubs have closed for the Winter – the town is certainly not another Positano, but it has charm.
After beer, wine and a light dinner, we made our way back to our accommodation which looks out on to the sea. One issue – our room is above a railway line. Earplugs tonight methinks .
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