BRIATICA (Wed 10 June)

“On the road again …” two hours to get to Solerno (where we were yesterday) and that is with Jenny (GPS) taking us the optimized route. We seemed to be driving around in circles for a while going through endless mundane narrow suburban streets. Followed the autostrada briefly and then we turned off and followed the coastal road down. Great to see long beaches and open countryside. Then back onto the autostrada, although the A3 seems to be having a major overhaul down here as it was almost continuous road works and down to single lane almost all of the way. Later in the day we started heading into the hills and reached an elevation of 790m at one point.
We were heading for a little place just south of Pizzo called Briatica to spend the night. This place is recommended by Lonely Planet. We found the town easily enough, finding the accommodation was another matter. With a place this small you wouldn’t think it would be a problem. As we first came into town we saw a sign that looked as if it had been put up for the benefit of the retreating Germans and hadn’t been replaced since. The first impression of the town is … “Oh my God”. Extremely run down, half finished buildings that look like they are partially inhabited, burnt out cars and evidence of abandoned restaurant buildings that have been trashed. On the other hand, look out to sea, and it is beautiful. Amazing blue water looking across towards Sicily.
After driving around for half an hour we finally decided that we would go into one of the buildings and ask for directions, as we knew that the hotel should be nearby. As it transpired we were at the place we were looking for. No signs or indications of any sort. They were very hospitable, as soon as I walked in the door the owner wanted to give us a drink. At least that is what we interpreted as he spoke no English and we only understood a few words of what he spoke, but it was enough to get by. After unpacking, we had out drink, which was some kind of almond milk, very nice. The hotel seemed very quiet with only a couple of other guests that we didn’t get to see.
We went for a walk and found ourselves down on the waterfront with the old fishing boats, which they winch right up onto the beach. We were just wondering how they get to launch them again when they gave us a demonstration. Next to the boats was an old tower that had seen better days, but it looked quite a few centurys old, so you would expect that. Up the coast further they had a series of small towers that they used for signaling in medieval times, so we are guessing that this was used for the same thing originally.
We finally got our long awaited beach walk, paddling our feet along the way, and chose to ignore the fenced off section of the beach as it was almost deserted anyway. Pizza on the rocks, watching the sun go down behind the old tower was a good way to end the day.
We drove about 475 kms today which took about 7 hrs driving time. It always takes longer than we think. We hadn’t calculated on the time/distance ratio before we left NZ. For much of our travels we have only been able to average about 25 km per hour.