calabria

After Piano di Sorrento we headed south to Calabria, to a small-town-turned-city (though still with all the qualities of a small, remote town) called Cosenza. We only spent two nights here, which was all we really needed, since you could easily walk the old town quarters of the city in about 10 minutes. Michael's Nonna on his Mom's side of the family is from Cosenza, so we wanted to check it out and get a nice sense of these roots. This was unlike any other part of Italy we had seen, and I am so, so glad we went (which we may not of, had we not had this excuse). There were literally no tourists. We stood out like a sore thumb, and everyone stared at us. Constantly. Non-stop. They even laughed and pointed at times. I can only imagine what they were saying to each other. Look at those stupid tourists who don't know where the fuck they are. Look at them try to understand this town. Stupid, stupid tourists. There were stray dogs everywhere and I found them adorable, although kept my distance since no one seemed to want to touch them. At one point I took some pictures of this really cute one who was lying in some grass, and this caused a gaggle of teenage girls to burst out in huge hysterics. They thought it was just SO hilarious how this stupid tourist was taking a picture of the town stray. I remember at one point someone talked to us, and basically asked us more or less, "Yes, but why have you come here?" But I'm glad we did. It was like stepping into the past. This old, torn up side of Italy that you don't often see. Less Romantic, more rustic. To and from the main train station, we had to take what we nicknamed "the ghost train" which was a single-car train, probably from the 1920's, and completely empty (except for us and the driver). And scary. When we got on it, Michael would say in a scary voice, "Welcome to the tunnel of hell!"
The food in Cosenza was great, and so inexpensive it was insane. We could get a large, delicious pizza for 3€. Just brilliant. We had a great time wandering around this sleepy little town, although I was pretty sick for most of our time there so I had to rest up a lot too.

Next, we decided to check out a totally different aspect of Calabria and so headed to the beach town of Tropea. Well, we technically stayed outside of Tropea, in a small town... of whose name escapes me. It was in the very far south of Calabria, where the mainland Italy just about touches Sicily. We were heading to Sicily after and decided to stop on the way. We were only going to stay in the Tropea area for 2 nights, but were having trouble getting in contact with Michael's Sicilian relatives, plus having too much fun at the beach, so we extended it to 4 nights. We stayed at a lovely little resort with an awesome pool, for same the price we paid at some of the cheaper youth hostels around Europe. It was just such a good deal, and the people at the resort gave us such great, warm service. They drove us around to nearby beaches and joked around with us all the time. We became good friends with the Dad, who ran this family based company. He would come sit down with us after our dinner and have a drink with us, or pick us up from Tropea when we missed the last train and make us laugh the whole drive. We made a day trip to the closest beach which was stunning, and the following day we spent the entire day in Tropea. Just so beautiful, and not incredibly touristy. This is the great unspoiled Italy, the much cheaper, prettier and more relaxed area that hasn't been completely stomped on by tourists. If you are thinking of going to Italy, go here! That's all I will say about that for now.

more pictures to come soon, and everything else...