The quickest part of our journey yesterday was walking to Europcar. We left the apartment at 08:50 and by 09:10 we were on the road. I think there was a young lady earning money at the entrance to the autostrade. She charged us €5 and gave us a ticket. If that’s the case she must earn a fortune. Etna was smoking away and we exited the autostrade at Taormina (€1.70), parked and had a quick walk in and out of the old town.
We had espresso at Franco and granite at Gelatissimo Taormina. Dave had arancio and I had limone.
We then got back onto the autostrade at no cost and exited at 12.05 in Messina (€2). Not only did we get caught in traffic, we went to the wrong ferry! There is more than one leaving Messina and I suggest if you ever need to use one, buy the ticket at the ferry. Mrs Garmin actually took us to the correct one by chance but it looked like a train station so I ignored her. Actually, the trains go onto a ferry!
Eventually we left Sicily at 14:35, getting to Villa San Giovanni at 15:05. I had wanted to buy Marsala in Sicily and thankfully the shop we chose had 1 bottle!
Our long drive began and our first mission was to find a shop to buy food and then to get to the resort before reception closed.
We did our fresh fruit and vegetable shopping at a farm stall – IGP Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Calabria. We bought more Calabrian chillies to take home and to send to Mark. We managed to get to the resort with 5 minutes to spare. There are two roads up to the resort but the one is closed. You need to go into Maratea itself and then climb the steep, winding road. Finding the reception was not easy but the security guard helped us. We rewarded ourselves with prosecco (€6) before heading to our apartment to unpack, unwind and eat. Today there was a lot of driving. 9418 steps, only 4.97km walked.
Italy 2018 