Cimina - Reggio de Calabria

We arrive in Naples and after a few days in the sun soaking up the sun at Capri, the ashes at Pompeii and making our excuses as a body is found floating at the private beach of our caravan park, we head to Calabria to Vince's grandfathers.

We catch a scenic train headed south along the coast to the toe of the Italian 'boot'. For five hours be hug mountain ranges on our left and on our right a beach that looks like road fill, as if someone was due to come and bitumen the shore any day now.

We connect with the smallest train I have ever been in to Locri, the closest town to the village of Cimina. The train is visited frequently by the local Policiza and we are never able to find out why. At Lorci station we are greeted by two uncles, Fillipo and Mimmo. After Vince's customary introductions Jac makes a good impression with all when she throws in a third kiss on the cheek where traditionally two are ample. We head straight to the nearest bar. I'm surprised its open at 11am and thinking it's a celebration of our arrival I order a beer whilst Jac has a coke and the Italians (I include Vincenzo) order something in Italian amongst a flurry of conversation. I find out that it's a caffe (espresso) and so in the time it takes them to shot this I feel obligated to skull my beer.

We throw our packs in the back of Mimmo's twin cab ute and cramp into Fillipo's black Fiat 500. We cover the 5km north of Lorci up a single lane highway at breakneck speed, with cars overtaking simultaneously in both directions as cars obligingly pull towards the shoulder. We turn inland towards the mountains and start the climb to Cimina at approximately 200m altitude and 5km from the coast. It may not be far as the crow fly's but the road follows a path cut out with a low gradient originally made as for ease of donkeys and vespa's to scale, but the route has not changes course over hundreds years. If I was driving it would have taken me over 90 minutes but Filipo and Mimmo scale the hill with all the skill of rally drivers that suggests they have driven the road many times before.

In half and hour we reach our host Nonna Pietro, Vince's mothers father. He has a cheeky smile and when he isn't picking on his grandchildren he is wandering around with his homemade walking stick. His home is beautiful, quartered off into a sitting room, master bedroom, guest bedroom and kitchen. It was very modern being tiled throughout with a new bathroom and much needed washing machine as well as a new kitchen. Vince and I share the share room and our French doors lead out to a balcony which is lucky as it's the only place I can get mobile reception with the added bonus that it has an unimpeded view down into the valley to the sea. Directly across the road is the families kitchen plot (where house scraps go to a few chickens, rabbits, two pigs and a cow).

We meet all the cousins which speak more English then we do Italian and learn that it is the local school holidays and that there is a festa on that night in a nearby town. We pile into the same Fiat and one of the cousins drives us to the festa where a huge crowd wanders markets before having a dance to a local band. On the drive home we reach over 140km on the highway and arrive home at 3am having started the day pre-6am.