Campagnia and Calabria are down the south part of Italy and our first stop after the Amalfi coast. Our intention is to travel through the mountain range that dominates the centre length of Italy. We found out that this is not a tourist destination but starting to be recognized by the Italians themselves as the next upcoming tourist trail.

In Salerno we found a B&B run by an elderly couple Carmella & Vincenzo, and their 30+ year old son Alfred, a carabiniere (policeman). They have a small old dog named Willy who kept bumping into furniture and struggled to negotiate his way. Poor Willy was blind and deaf. As we sat up having a coffee (and a home brew Champers) with the family, we informed them that we are staying one night, but Carmella tried to encourage us to stay longer, and came out with brochures of day trips we could do from this base. But no we stuck to our original plan of making our way to Lecee on the Italian east coast noted for its Baroque architecture.

Our hosts turned out to be a delightful family with limited English, Alfred's English was a bit more fluent, with the help of his Google translate iPhone app to translate phrases. After half an hour he excused himself as he was going out dancing and had to shower. We stayed up late at night conversing in my limited Italian, translating between Leigh and the couple and the couple back to Leigh. We found out Vincenzo once work as a train driver retiring at the age of 52 and since retirement has renovated and extended this palatial home, putting in a swimming pool, has a boat moored on the coast, goes fishing and scooper dives. He also grows grapes and makes his own sparkling wine; and not a bad drop I might add; my scepticism soon evaporated after the sampling, not bad, a matter of fact pretty good!! He gave us the other half of the bottle to take with us and we gladly accepted.

After breakfast we were off, Carmella gave me a handful of pamphlets advertising their B&B to bring back to Australia for friends and family. Of Which I'm sorry to tell you all, I promptly disposed of at Potenza the next B&B we stayed in. I felt really bad, but had little intention of lugging them around Europe.

We drove into the mountains stopping at little villages on the way, residents wondering who are these strangers; we were somewhat a novelty. The shopkeepers were friendly as we ordered a sandwich and coffee and would shake our hand as we left enquiring 'Are you visiting someone in the village' one of the residents has a nephew who lives in Australia, you might know him? What part of Australia? I'll ask. I don't know was the reply. Mmmm large place Australia!! We were wished a good journey. People could not have been friendlier.

We arrived in Potenza early evening heading for the old part of town, with its ancient architecture and magical character. We parked and wandered into a church courtyard and stumbled across a charming converted convent advertising B&B. Perfect!! We rang the doorbell without response, a builder working on the church 10 meters away called out in Italian 'you have to ring the owner', who's phone number was engraved on a plate next to the front door, 'he will then come here in a couple of minutes'. The charming Italian came over and said he would ring, and true to his word another charming well dressed Italian drove in and introduced himself as the owner of the B&B. 'I have 1 room left but it's across the road' he said. Euro 80, breakfast included but you have to walk across the road into the dining room. we'll take it!! He showed us the dining room and walked us across the courtyard to a charmingly decorated basement bedroom with ensuite. It looked like something out of a Vogue magazine. Nestled down stairs in this old charming home we spent a quiet evening after discovering there weren't any places to eat out as the restaurant owner had closed down to go on holidays, we bought back a souvlaki and watched the Olympics on TV. I also must mention here when we said we would take the room, our host suggested he would come with us to see where we can park the car as all spaces were taken up in this tiny church square. As we returned with car he hopped out and saw the priest, they seemed close friends as they discussed church business. 'Leave the car here' he told us. So as ordered Leigh parked the car directly opposite the door of the priest's residence, and 20meters from our B&B. Come our host beckoned, 'leave your cases'. He and the priest ushered us through the door of the church and gave us a guided tour. A charming village church with large frescoes, some badly deteriorated over the years, what a shame, some won't last for future generations to see.

The following morning we went across the courtyard to have breakfast in the dining room. We found a middle aged well dressed Calabrian couple with little English, a young woman from Milan and a young woman lives close to Venice, her husband was in Potenza for business. Both the women had perfect English. We enjoyed our breakfast company, even the girl organizing our breakfast came and sat down joining in our conversation with her limited English.

We packed and drove out of picturesque Potenza, heading off to our destination Lecce through these beautiful hills.

See next blog for our journey to Lecce. xx..