Tropaea

So leaving Matera behind, the idea was now to find a nice restaurant in a small town on the way to Tropaea on the Calabrian coast for a late lunch. The perfect spot according to the internet was in a town called Vassani.

Now to call this place steep would be an understatement. It was barely clinging on. Walking up the streets one was on the margins of where gravity takes over from friction. It is so steep that you doubt you can climb it without slipping back. Also difficult to navigate the winding "streets" on google maps, but we found our restaurant. And were able to translate the closed sign. They were taking a two week break. 

And everything else was closed too. We gave up on lunch, and resorted to my emergency rations of cereal bars. Frustrating.

So we arrived at our one proper hotel of the trip. We found we had ridiculously overbooked since we had booked separate "rooms". But each room actually came with two separate double bedrooms.

The back of the hotel overlooks the sea.

 So, settled in we went off to explore and find somewhere for a drink with nibbles before dinner. And wanted a view for sunset.

That little grey mound you can see in the background is the volcano Stromboli.

 Better view of Stromboli

Tropaea at night

And finally a well deserved and long overdue feast.

And then to cap the evening, there was a blues festival and we stayed watching these couple of guys playing blues in the main square for about an hour. They were brilliant ( I bought their cd). And a few little kids came out and danced, really natural like, just so cute.

 Hotel pool

Next morning while Thibault had a lie in I got up, enjoyed the very decent breakfast on the terrace....

 ..and then pottered down the steps at the back to the beach below.

I think it is fair to say that it wasn't overcrowded. Have very fond memories of Tropaea, as well as Matera. Would have been very pleased to have spent an extra night at both. Our nine day holiday would have very nicely stretched to two weeks if T had had the time. But I was lucky he had what he had😊