Tuesday October 18th
The nice part about lodging on a fruit farm is obviously the fresh fruit for breakfast. The fruit of the day today was Ka-ki. Fresh bread and jam from the bakery up the road, and hot milk (which may just be a Sicilian thing, I haven’t figured that out yet) rounded out the breakfast. In a not so fitting send off from Sicily it poured rain all the way to the Ferry.
Tropea is said to be one of Italy’s best beach areas. The sand was nice, the water looked very clean, and there appeared to be plenty of places to rent umbrellas and beach chairs. One of the problems with being here in October is that you can’t see the beaches in full bloom. But I would guess that if you were looking for a popular place in the summer time, this would certainly be one. There is also a church that sits on top of an island that isn’t really an island. It’s a big rock that looks like an island, but it’s actually quite connected. But since the church is called Santa Maria dell’Isola I guess they figured it was close enough. This area is also supposed to be a scuba diver’s paradise.
Continuing up the coast is a little place called Pizzo, and an even smaller place called the Chiesetta di Piedigrotta. It was created by Neapolitan sailors rescued from a shipwreck. It is basically a masonry facade in front of a cave. But the interesting part is that a local father and son took to carving figures into the stone walls. So that the knaves all have praying figures and different scenes from the bible. A few generations down the line another member of the same family was inspired to restore some of the earlier work, and to create a large face of John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII, with what was described as a kneeling Fidel Castro in front, but I would say a sleeping Castro. Certainly very odd choices on that one. The church is right on the beach, so even if it doesn’t interest you, there is a great place to sit while you wait on the rest of your group. On an aside, don’t try to return to your vehicle by taking a short cut above the church. 8 foot high wild wheat plants, and extremely dense briar patches will prevent you from succeeding.
It took longer to get to the ferry, and it was much further between towns today than I had expected, so we didn’t make it to Cirella. On top of that we weren’t able to find an agriturismo for the night, so this will be a short update for the day.