Maiera’

I wasn’t in the mood to drive much today, so we explored the local area. First of all we drove up to Grisolia, the hilltop town you can see from the piazza of Maiera’. It is separated by a deep and just about impassible ravine from Maiera’, so the only thing to do was plot another course down the mountainside and up the next.

Grisolia is clearly much larger than Maiera’, but not nearly as nice, although probably as ancient. We drove in, parked, walked about 50 meters past grey buildings with crumbling exteriors and weather-beaten, unpainted doors. My enthusiasm for the project had folded, and I suggested that we just bag it. So we did, and headed down to check out the beach.

The beach looked blue, warm and inviting from our hotel.

From the shore, it looked calm out to sea, but the waves pounded the shore with a thundering boom, and looked very rough. How rough it was, I found out when I waded out into the surf up to my knees. The force of the surf all but knocked me over, although the water was not cold at all. There was only a little sand, the rest of the beach was stones ground fine from the rocky shore by the sea. It was hard to walk on. Without sandals, it hurt your feet, and with sandals, the stones got caught under your feet and hurt, too.

The beach experience on these shores is very different from that in the USA. It seemed to me to point to a very different philosophy about the ownership of natural resources in a country. There seems to be little or no idea that the shoreline, for example, should be owned by the public. Theoretically while this is true, it is in fact under the control of the government, which uses this resource to garner more income, rather than for the enjoyment of the public. Sorry, public, you have to pay.

As in Castiglioncello, a lot of the shoreline was given over to beach concessions, where you have to rent your chair or lounge, and you get an umbrella. Since it was a weekday, the concessions were deserted, but so was the beach, except for one group of women with a small boy. We had brought our bathing suits to Italy, and were hoping for another swim, but it was clearly not a swimming beach.

We got to the hotel last night after a spine-tingling drive up hairpin curves after dark. We were greeted at the hotel by oil lamps set on the ancient stone steps, like medieval travelers arriving at a hostelry.

The village is called Matiera’, founded by the Greeks at the time when southern Italy was a Greek colony.

Our room is a marvel of modernity, high ceilings, but not a lot of floor space. The space problem has been solved by creating a very modern sleeping loft with a king-sized bed. The bathroom is attractive and comfortable, and there’s the original balcony, its stone floor set securely into the wall with a stunning view of the plain below and the sea.

We hadn’t had dinner, and were starving, but I wasn’t up to driving around looking for food. We were asked what we would like, and asked for bread, cheese and some meat. There arrived a plate with a selection of cheeses, prociutto, bread and a plate of fresh fruit.

In the morning, we explored this ancient town, which has the flair of an artists’ colony. The main road (a few residents with small cars drive it), and the pedestrian streets are all paved attractively with stone and tile. Ceramics are imbedded along the walls of houses, which are well-kept.

From the tiny piazza at one end of the town, where I sweated out my ten-point car turn of the night before, you can see the next hilltop town of Grisolia, separated from our mountain by a scary ravine. At another side of the town, we discovered another view of the sea from someone’s patio.

amsolomon18

Day 16: Grisolia and the beaches of Calabria,

Day 14: Calabria