Just a two and a half hour drive this morning, mainly along the A3 motorway. We had spent part of the journey on this road yesterday and saw various stretches being improved. However today the first forty miles on contraflow sections with a speed limit of 60 km/hr (35 mph). They are doing an incredible amount of work on the motorway, new tunnels, replacement bridges and widening sections. It is a mammoth project and must be costing multi-millions of Euros. It is difficult to understand the justification for it. The South is undoubtedly poor but a dual lane motorway was already there and I can't see that the improvements are going to bring more wealth to the area. However, I suspect that the Mafia-run construction companies will be benefiting considerably. The roads are generally in a very poor state and I think that the money would have been better spent in a general road resurfacing programme.
We had rain in the night and more followed today although it started to brighten up and the sun shone at times. The A3 took us higher with mountain peaks around us and deep wooded valleys between. Last night's rain had fallen as snow on a couple of the highest peaks, there may have been more but swirling cloud often obscured the mountain tops and spilled down into the valleys. Is was very attractive scenery and well deserved the 'green road' status shown on our Michelin map.
We arrived on the coast at Tropea in the middle of a heavy rain shower and water was running down the narrow road with hairpin bends that descends from the town to the coastal road when the two campsites are located. We booked in at Camping Marina Dell'Isola where we had stayed in April 2008. The campsite is right next to the beach and, as it was very quiet, we were able to get a pitch next to the sea. The view out of the left side is over the sea to Stomboli and its smoking volcano whilst to the right, perched on volcanic pumice cliff is the town of Tropea. It really is a lovely position making up for the fact that the campsite facilities are rather basic.
After the heavy rain had stopped, I plugged into the power and as the skies started to clear we decided to explore the town. Last time the steps up to the town from the campsite had been destroyed by a flood caused by a massive thunderstorm. They had just begun to rebuild them and now they were completed giving us an easy, if steep, route into the town.
Tropea is a fascinating town, pretty is not the correct word as many of the houses are very run down and there is obviously a lot of poverty. However, the mixture of architecture and higgledy-piggledy appearance gives it real charm. We wandered around the street, finding where the Madonna had intervened to stop an American bomb exploding during the Second World War and just gazing up at the houses or to the lovely view out to sea.
In a tiny backstreet shop that I remembered from our last visit, we bought some local wine in a crown-top litre bottle for €2. Nearby was one of the many Pizza restaurants that advertised 'Forno a Legna', a wood-fired oven. I was intrigued by it last time but it was closed. This time we arrived just as he was lighting the oven ready for cooking that evening. The restaurant is dominated by the oven and preparation area with only four small tables available for eating. I watched the chef lighting the fire and managed to explain that we would return at 7 o'clock to eat.
After shopping for a few more provisions and a little more sightseeing we returned to Henrietta. Our table at the appropriately named 'Vecchio Forno' (Old Oven) had a good view of the oven but the pizza preparation was being done out of view so I couldn't get any tips from that. I showed the owner pictures of my partially completed wood-fired oven - “piccolo” (small) he exclaimed and it was compared to his! The oven must be two metres square by a metre high and his peels had handles that were about 3 metres long. Round baking dishes hold the pizzas and these are placed and turned occasionally using the peel. A pitchfork-type tool is used to move the wood around in the fire that is kept in the oven during the baking. The instructions on my oven suggest that it will only take about 90 seconds to cook a pizza, so I was surprised to find that here it took 10 minutes. Having said that, the larger oven and much higher roof would mean that the heat would be less intense than in mine. All the same, 90 seconds may be a little optimistic.
We had a dish of peppers cooked in the oven and served warm with lots of olive oil and then a pizza each to follow. It was very good, the pizza being slightly thicker and more bread-like than I remember the Neapolitan ones being but still delicious. Probably another reason for the longer cooking time.
Photos: Henrietta's pitch next to the sea; The entrance to Vecchio Forno isn't ostentatious; Lighting the fire in Vecchio Forno's old oven; The latest fashion in bathrooms for exhibitionists or those who simply want a loo with a view!
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