Sant'Agostino Paola

... stay. Beware though :) the population of Scalea doesn&#8217;t have any idea that the English language exist, so you have to learn a few basic words in Italian before you exit the hotel (The reception of Hotel De Rose speaks a good English).<br>Get ready to say &#8220;vino&#8221; (wine), when you are in South Italy you really need that word! Have a nice trip!<br>

... look at the schedule and the train we were supposed to be on got there a few minutes before we did and left without us. Grumble, grumble. We caught another train going in the same direction. Susan met us at the train station and luckily we were only 30 minutes late. She showed us around town and took us up the hill to her place in Carpineta where we would be looking after her four cats and dog for a ...

... ground. We clocked 103 km that day, despite a slow, hilly road until lunch. We camped in a field (again, sheltered by ruins, although not so old) with the blessing of the aging couple that we hoeing the crops. Didn't realize until morning that we were across the road from a federal penitentiary. Had a great stay though, and this morning I repaired my badly blown out tire sidewall. Ahh...duct tape. Where would the world be without you?

... extreme and the whole region pretty much lives in fear on the 'ndranghetti', the Calabrian mafia which is extremely active. We probably even saw an example on the train where one guy got on with suitcases, got off an hour later leaving the suitcases on the train, then another guy got on to look after them... dodgy! About 10% of all the buildings are unfinished concrete frames. I don't know what the deal is there but some families seemed to be squatting in them anyway.

... love/hate relationship with Italy. It is such a beautiful country and has some of the finest ruins, art and scenery in the world-not to mention the wine and food. But I feel the Italians have a very cavalier attitude toward the things they possess. There is virtually no movement to protect some of the precious antiquities this country has and I am appalled at how little they seem to value their art treasures. Then, of course, there is this ...

I have been told and read about the Amalfi Coast in Italy-its charm and beauty-- so I was prepared to be disappointed. I wasn't. Without a doubt this is the most beautiful place in Europe, perhaps the world, I have traveled to. I took the train from Naples to Sorrento and had forty-five minutes before my nearly two-hour bus ride to Amalfi. I decided to eat some lunch ...

... after worrying that it didn't look nearly dilpadated enough to be ours - and found that the Hotel Meditteraneo had lovely rooms with private bath for 60E a night, and that in high season. We giggled like idiots about our lovely room for awhile (a three star is quite a jump up from our usual one star), throwing open all of the windows and peering in every drawer, nook and cranny. There was even a mini-bar. We set off to find the internet in town, squealing ...

We wake in Palermo for a quick Italian style breakfast of bread (pre toasted and individually wrapped bread is just weird!) jam, and nuttella. They had yogurt too this morning so I put something in my stomach and we headed to the train. We are traveling through Messina today. Messina has suffered. A lot. Plague, cholera, earthquakes (one in 1904 killed 84,000 people) and Allied bombings in the 40's have left it torn to hell ...

... Italians in our train compartment and ended up speaking and debating in Italian for the whole time...it was great practice for meeting up with the relatives, since they didn't speak English. Paola, who's our age, understands English really well but didn't speak much so we finally had a full immersion in Italian that weekend. Matthew's family came to pick us up that night at the train station, and we spent the night eating (lots of) pasta and ...

_______________________________________ ____________________ 31 Oct, Monday Start point: Agrapidochori, near Simopoulo End point: Ferry from Patra to Brindisi (Italy) Via: Odom(Km): 40.0 Moving(hrs.mim): 4.20 Ave(Km/h): Total Ascent(m): Max Altitude(m) Max Speed(Km/h): I had a boat to catch and plenty of time to take the scenic route through the hills to the coast road. The villages on the way don't get tourists and I had ...