“Long legged Italy kicked little Sicily….into the Mediterranean Sea”….an aide memoire from my school days sprung to mind as I crossed into Italy’s “toe”

The Calabria region of Southern Italy is apparently the place where the greatest number of Italian Americans can trace their roots back to-not sure what that means really, probably that there must have been a compelling reason to leave all those generations ago.

Calabria is now being described as “up and coming” and “unspoilt “ by travel companies which usually means the place is fairly insular with little infrastructure for anything other than domestic tourism ,and that’s certainly the impression I got.

My ultimate aim was to cross this region ,with the sea on my left until I reached the town of Lamezia del Terme. Once here I’d take a cheeky train across some boring and hilly country to reach the other coast at Sibari, with the sea now on my right . From there I would ride up the coast, to Taranto and then across to Brindisi.

A bit north of Brindisi was the port of Bari and that’s where I was originally headed for, to cross to Vlore in Albania before riding South into Greece.

I’d decided though to skip Albania and instead cross straight to Greece (in the shape of the port of Igoumenitsa) and for ferry schedule reasons this meant diverting to Brindisi.

Why skip Albania? I’ll come to that another day but for now a quick look at the “Safety and Security” section of the Foreign Office travel guidance gives a bit of a clue. I didn’t want to be a flake but I was struggling to un-see the section that said “Albanian driving can be aggressive and erratic…road deaths are among the highest in Europe..roads are poor and minor traffic disputes can quickly escalate ,especially as some motorists could be armed” . Rationally, I’m sure it would be absolutely fine and dandy, (and after all, I’m a hard core veteran of the Mountsorrel Mad Mile,) but I wasn’t feeling the Albanian love and so off the itinerary it went . No point having a mind if you can’t change it etc etc .

So today was a 35 mile ride between campsites, my end point being Camping Il Calabriano. The coastline scenery was certainly stunning,the shingle and stone of Sicilian beaches giving way to white sands ,and once again I spent the majority of the day in sight of the sea .

The perfectness of the landscape though started to provide a marked contrast to something that was everywhere -rubbish. Fly tipped piles,casual stuff thrown from cars, unofficial waste sites, it was everywhere and it was a bit depressing. Similar to the UK I just couldn’t understand the litter mentality . Look at these two pictures . A lay-by on a coastal road, specifically designed to be a view point to the beautiful bay below. The first picture shows the view, the second picture is from the same spot but different angle and shows that some people have gone there not to gaze at the scenery, but to dump their rubbish over the crash barriers . Lack of pride? Or facilities? Or just laziness? Puzzling for sure.

But don’t think this spoiled the ride, it didn’t, but it was just noticeable everywhere ,and even more so on the quiet off road tracks I was often routed down.

I’d heard that Southern and Northern Italy were very different ,almost to the extent they could be different countries. The North is wealthier,more industrial and cosmopolitan and aligned to Western Europe,whereas the poorer South shows its history of Arab, Spanish and Greek influences in its attitudes and even its food ( I’ve swotted up on this by the way, I’m not professing to be Mr Italy 😊)

In any case, it was pretty quiet and not much happened. Apparently the region is known for its red onions, the famous (really) “cipolla rossa de Tropea”(which has a stronger and sweeter aroma with a juicier inner part apparently 😊) and every couple of miles I’d pass a lay-by with a van selling nothing but stringed red onions (three strings for five euros if you fancy them), and normally a queue to buy them. Trust the Italians to elevate something as simple as an onion to specialist food status.

I made Il Calabriano in time for a beautiful sunset and some big skies.

I’d got one more day of riding before picking up a train and I ended the day on the Trenitalia website ,hoping that actually catching a train was going to be easier than trying to book a ticket…..