Lamezia – Tropea – Reggio di Calabria – (Train ride) – Salerno – Paestum – Sapri – Lamezia
600 km cycled
This is the second time we, Kurt and Ernst, spent time together on a bicycle trip. After our freezing experience last year in southern Switzerland, a warmer destination was calling. Lamezia in Calabria in Southern Italy would be a perfect starting point since it was new for both of us and easily reached by plane from Zurich.
Stage two of the planning involved dinner in a local pizzeria, run by a Calabrese chef. It took about three minutes to open the map and maneuver it between our plates, then three minutes to come up with a round-trip route before two hours eating, drinking and dreaming of what the Mediterranean would offer. So far so good.
Lamezia is a non-descript place with an airport. Temperatures were a bit cooler than expected, but according to the weather forecast, that was the case right across southern Europe from Cyprus to Gran Canaria. In beautiful sunshine we made it to Tropea, a cutesy little town on a cliff above a white sand beach. More scenic roads followed to the Capo Vaticano, but from there, the going got tough. We had two long 24% inclines and a third long uphill, but what was more demoralizing was the horrific rubbish dumping we encountered towards the end of the day. We spent the night in Gioia
Tauro, a town that’s so run down and defunct, it left us shocked and bewildered.
Quiet roads brought us up a hill above Bagnara and we had a wonderful stretch of road down to the coast and on to Scilla. The rest into Reggio was not memorable, just suburbia that had to be crossed. We liked the town of Reggio though, with its promenade and pedestrian road, but we also needed to come up with a Plan B. Originally, our route would take in four national parks, but with snow still on higher ground and my poor over-exerted knees this was not very enticing.
We opted for a five-hour train ride north to Salerno, changing provinces to Campania. While Ernst used the afternoon to cycle a bit of the nearby Amalfi coast, I spent the time exploring town and I liked what I saw. A walk in the park along the yacht harbour and city beach is recommended, and from there you could head into the nicely spruced up old town that has become the social centre of this town of 130,000.
The Greek and Roman ruins at Paestum (former Poseidonia) were our absolute highlight. Three big Greek temples (4th and 5th century BC) and the remains of a Roman town from their conquest in 274 BC were as much food for thought as a feast for the eye.
The coastal road from Agropoli to Sapri was another highlight with beaches on the right and snow-capped mountains on the left. This is earmarked for a future trip with Darina.
In Sapri, we had an amazing dinner in Bottega dei Golosi, a wonderful Enoteca where the owner’s explanation of his high-quality antipasti was just as convincing as the presentation was breathtaking. For the full show, check out our YouTube video or click on the picture below to access his website.
The road out of Sapri’s claim to fame is that it was the location for the latest 007 movie. For us there was a road closure after a couple of kms and no sweet talking would soften up the stubborn gatekeeper. We had no choice but to go back and climb over a 600m pass to re-join the road further south. Well, in the end we concluded that it was sweat well spent!
After our return to the region of Calabria we were mostly on the SS18, which was way too busy for our liking. The bicycle routes or domestic side-road detours we took were of very mixed quality. In the end, we just stayed on the main drag. San Lucido was another little hilltop town oozing charm, but for most part we passed housing and holiday developments from the 50s and 60s now crumbling away. The area is just too poor to give the young folks any perspective, so they move north for better incomes. Consequently, two generations have started a new life elsewhere, building up other economies, while Calabria can’t afford its own upkeep. Tourism does provide a little income, but competing with Spain, Greece or Northern Italy is hard.
In Campania, the local campaign was promoting tourism for a (healthy) environment. Alas, this forward thinking was absent further south in Calabria, where decay and disinterest are not going to attract or keep tourists any time soon.
A good indicator of the north-south wealth-gradient was the caliber of bikes we encountered along the road. Campania was full of racing cyclists of our vintage, kitted out in spandex out for a pleasure spin, while in Calabria cheap rusty bangers used by commuting farm hands from Africa were the norm .
As Ernst put it, coming home from a trip and being able to say that we had gone where no tourists go, gives us some standing. However, in the future, we would rather go to more touristy places like the Amalfi Coast or other “unexplored” shores.
What we enjoyed everywhere was the good food and to keep up a tradition, I’ll offer you here a mouth-watering carousel.
To end on a positive note, the Mediterranean did offer some gems and we’ll certainly head off together again. Maybe we need to leave a tad later in the year to get that real spring feel and minimize the risk of cold spells.