Tyrrhenian Sea

This evening we're staying at the Costa Verde campsite near Tropea, Calabria.  We were surprised to find out that the area is quite a popular summer holiday spot – it's not a place we'd ever heard about in Britain.  A local man in Tropea, practicing his rusty English, said that most foreign visitors come from Germany, Austria or the Netherlands, so he's not had many opportunities to speak English since he left school.


Calabria doesn't have a good reputation in Britain.  All we knew it for was its reputation for poverty and particularly nasty gangsters.  Historically, it's been a poor area.  The old towns are cramped, a warren of tiny alleyways and stairways, with none of the ostentatious public squares, churches and palaces of the north.  Maybe part of the reason for the difference is that they always seem to have been governed by outsiders (Aragon, Normandy, France, Austria) who might have tended to take the profits home rather than spending it locally. Northern Italy was a patchwork of competing states, where at least the Prince or the Doge lived in the town and bought his silver tableware from his neighbours.

Face to face Calabria's been a friendly place so far, with soaring mountains, tightly packed hill towns, beach resorts and incredible blue sea.  We've not seen much of the inland towns (it's hard work in the van once you leave the flat coastal roads), maybe the stereotype lives on in the hills.

Last night was wet and stormy, but today was hot, sunny and calm.  We celebrated the 150th aniversary of Italian unification by visiting Tropea and eating pizza in the sunshine.  It was a bank holiday, so there were a lot of people strolling and shops and bars were open – probably the first reasonably busy day of the year for the tourism businesses.  No-one was making much of a fuss about the unification celebrations, there were just a few posters saying 'Happy Birthday Italy' and a few flags flying that were still obviously creased from the packet.

At this time of year the Costa Verde is one of the few places that's open.  Well, not so much open as the gate is unlocked, the power is turned on, the proprietor lives on site and is happy to take 15 euros if anyone turns up.  The bar and shop are closed, the showers are deep in fallen leaves but we can park up in a safe quiet spot, get water and mains power which is really all we need.

We are the only people on the campsite tonight.  We've chosen a pitch less than 100m from the sea, we can hear the waves crashing all night but we're just far enough away not to get splashed.  From the edge of the campsite there's a sandy beach that runs along a row of campsites and holiday cabins that are all closed, so we have it to ourselves.

We spent the last hour sitting on a terrace with mugs of tea watching the sun set behind the Aeolian Islands.  The nearest and most famous, Stromboli, stands out as a perfect volcanic cone on the horizon.  As Stella said, this is one of the moments we'll have to remember in the future when life gets hard again.