A long day planned today with some logistics thrown in. My last day in Sicily, I needed to cross the Straits of Messina into mainland Italy and get to a campsite in Nicotera,near a town called Rosarno.

The plan was to cycle 36 miles to Messina. From there the only way to cross the two mile stretch of water is by ferry. Once on the other side I would cycle to Villa San Giovanni and take a regional train to Rosarno and from there I would cycle the final ten miles to the campsite. Nothing was booked , it was all to be done on the fly as it were . I’d got into the habit of not booking anything ahead if I could avoid it and today was no exception.

The ride flew by. Lots of downhill and even a coastal tailwind saw me in Messina in no time . As I dropped down to sea level I could see the ferries criss crossing on an East-West axis between Sicily and the mainland (if you make the journey by train, the whole train just drives onto a ferry with train tracks and carries on the other side, which is rather cool)

Going the other way on a North -South axis were huge container ships, car freighters ,oil tankers and others,like a big nautical chess board with constantly moving pieces -I assume there’s something like air traffic control to keep it all going but who knows ?

The ferries are every hour. My next one was boarding in fifteen minutes, I hadn’t got a ticket or any clue where to go. I wasted valuable minutes assuming wrongly I could get on with the foot passengers and then had to hot foot it halfway around the port to join the traffic queue. It wasn’t quite jumping onto a moving ship but it wasn’t far off ! And the James Bond theme in my head helped too 😊

I’d not taken a train since Pamplona in Spain and this was my first Italian rail experience. Trenitalia is Government owned and fares are cheap-most journeys under 100km cost no more than 3 or 4 euros. But the stations are a nightmare-a lack of lifts or even ramps mean an inconvenience for cycle tourists with heavy bikes, but a life changer for wheelchair users and people with reduced mobility . It’s a dry subject,and the UK is by no means perfect,but I get the impression Italy is years behind us in this field.

Rosarno was about thirty miles up the coast meaning that for the first time since leaving home I was heading North . I bumped my bike off the train ,down the steps,up the steps and out into the Southern Italian countryside. This was now the Calabria region .

By contrast to the wacky races kind of day ,Villagio Camping Mimosa was a tranquil place ,lots of grass and shade and right on the beach .

Crucially there was a restaurant and a bar and an “order your pastry for breakfast “ service too. Be rude not to…