The South West Med Coast of Italy

 The South West Med Coast of Italy

Tropea

Our two day stay in Caserta was good but now we are pushing south. Given the high winds and rainy weather that's been off & on I look at the 4-5 day forecast and decide to outrun the weather by heading to the south end of our travels and then work back, rather than have the weather follow us down.

Out of Caserta we head down towards Salerno and the Reggio-Calabria Autostrada that  would take us all the way to the ferry to Sicily. Our destination is Amantea, a Mediterranean coastal town about 150 kms off the southern tip. We've been here before on our 2014 trip and enjoyed the weather, accommodation and people we met. 

What we missed is taking in Tropea, a Banff like tourist town, so we decided we'd stay in Amantea at the same hotel we stayed in before, and do a day ride down to Tropea.

The ride down was as expected interspersed a bit with a few sprinkles of rain, but as we headed south and climbed the weather got really quite cool, reminiscent of the Columbia Ice Fields. At one point we stopped put our jacket liners in and at a rest area/ gas stop had a nice chat with two riders from Malta doing the same thing trying to outrun the weather and head home from their Swiss Alps adventure. 

As we exited the autostrada at Cosenza toward Paola we finally saw the weather start to break in our favor and we arrived in Amantea about 45 mins later sweating from now being overdressed. A funny but weird thing happened. We had stayed at the La Tonnara in 2014, and had booked it again for this trip. On arrival we walked in only to see the front desk empty ad in a few minutes someone came over and asked if they could help. We advised we were checking in and they said we're full, maybe you booked with La Tonnara Grande Hotel, next door. So we walked over and sure enough we had. The mistake was in our favor over the extended time we decided to stay as the place was definitely an improvement to the other hotel, which appeared a bit tired now. We were treated so well and the place was just so classy with a pool that I've never seen so clean. It was really well decorated and Sandra wanted me to take a photo of a divider in the breakfast room with the chairs and table set-up to illustrate what we were experiencing.

Tropea

As we were heading out the next morning for our day trip down to Tropea and family came running over to us and asked if we really were from Canada. They were from Hamilton, saw the Cdn flag stickers on the bike and wanted to inquire. We chatted for a few minutes as they were waiting to be driven to the airport to fly home. Their children were a bit younger than Shannon and Blair were when we had taken them in '91 but we remarked about how it impacted their development and they said they hoped for the same impact.

As I said at the outset Tropea

is a Banff like setting only in a south Med coastal environment. The weather and scenery were equally spectacular and we spent a few hours checking out a Cathedral devoted to Santa Maria from Romania, and the monastery run by the Benedictine monks who brought education to the masses of children. 

We ended our day their in the early afternoon, drove back to Amantea and enjoyed a very relaxing
afternoon at the pool.