A Day of Rest in Reggio - Pentidattilo

12/7 - Or, to you WW2 buffs, A Day that Shall Live in Infamy

As I had decided to stay one more day before the Sicily landing, I was able to sleep until late, eat a leisurely breakfast (at an actual table!), and enjoy my minor victory with my new friends. This happened to be a Sunday, so as there was a group who was free, it meant we could take a little excursion outside of Reggio. So, piling into Enzo's car, Pasquale, Sandro, and I headed toward the Ionian sea, on the opposite coast to that which I had just walked.

We turned inland, and driving into the hills, landed at a rustic Agriturismo, which was serving a delicious family-style luncheon to a packed local crowd. We sat down at the bulky, dark wood table, with an old iron stove for heating and various farm implements decorating the walls, and proceeded to feast. There was no picking from a menu, no separate plates: we shared from gigantic platters of appetizers, 3 different types of pasta, 3 different meat dishes, 3 different vegetable dishes, and big bottles of locally produced wines. While I can never fully adjust to the custom of lunch being the most important meal, I throughouly enjoyed this expansive two hour feast in the middle of the afternoon.

We toasted to our health with a digestivo, in this case grappa, distilled from grapes, grape stems, leaves, etc., and let it settle a bit before thanking the owners and heading out.

With a fully belly and a nice sipper of midday liquor sloshing around, we surveyed our surroundings, and found ourselves in the midst of a glorious landscape, with a dried river bed, orange groves, and jagged rock formations backlit by a sun just an hour away from setting. This, I realized, was what I had missed by having hugged the coast all the way down Calabria. I, who had covered more than 200 miles in eleven days of walking, who had spent hours looking in every direction as I walked in an effort to absorb my surroundings, had only seen a fraction of what Calabria had to offer. The areas of Sila and Aspromonte, both apparently mountain wonderlands, the entire Ionian coastline, the medieval and ancient foothill strongholds, all of these were left undiscovered. There is nothing to do but be thankful for what you have succeeded in seeing, so I did just that, thanking the guys for taking a day to show me a new side of Calabria. They said you're welcome, and proceeded to pay for my lunch, insisting and pushing away my money. It's not fair, I said, but there's no arguing against ancient rules of hospitality. We Americans have a lot to learn in this arena, and I intend to start practicing just as soon as I have a place to live. Come visit and see.

The next stop was Enzo's campground, where he had spent most of his summers since he was a baby. Now deserted, the massive plot of land echoed the sounds of the car engine as we drove around, checked out Enzo's RV, and listened to stories of birthday parties and girl-chasing antics. As the sun was setting, we made a final stop at Pentidattilo, a rock formation resembling five fingers, the picturesque setting of an abandoned town, and explored the silent, winding paths alongside shuttered houses.