OK, so we probably won’t be moving to Reggio Calabria. It’s not that there is anything wrong with it as such. I mean, it’s situated on the sun-drenched south-western tip of Italy with a gorgeous view of Sicily across the Messina strait. It’s pretty clean all things considering, perhaps owing to a recycling program that would make Vancouver mayor Robertson’s eyes well up with emotion. Much like the vibe I got in Catania, it’s where real Italians live and work, but it’s just a little bit out of the way of everything. To connect to pretty much anything you have to pass through, or switch to other connections in, a small place called Villa San Giovanni. This we will have to do when get out of here tomorrow, and it was what we had to do for our day-trip yesterday to Scilla.
Scilla, only 30 minutes and €2.40 away is a picturesque sea-side community that appears to have a GDP that is almost exclusively made up of tourism. Don’t be dissuaded however, there is some charm here too. The Ruffo Castle, the only attraction that we visited is situated atop a rock outcropping with a view of the Vatican (Faro Capo Vaticano, that is) that seems to split the town in two; the beach side and the Chianalea side. The latter provides a walkable and overall very appealing mix of seaside residences, nook-and-cranny B&B’s and, of course, the ubiquitous seafood restaurants.
In contrast with Sicily where the tourism season already had picked up decent steam in early April, parts of Scilla felt like Santa’s workshop in early December; frenzied activities to prepare for the main event, while other parts were more like the drowsy AM-edition of the woman I know and love: “Just five more minutezzz…”.
After washing our quite delicious pranzo down with some no-frills but very tasty vino bianco della casa at a fun and genuine-feeling little restaurant called Da Pippo on the beach side of the town, we were sufficiently wind-blown to want to head back. At that point we realized that, by virtue of only having taken one-way trips thus far, we had only purchased one-way tickets to Scilla as well. That would have been ok if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no kiosk to buy tickets by the Scilla station. To add insult to injury a local informed us (mostly in Italian, I’m proud to say) that the machine up at Piazza San Rocco, some 15 minutes walk away, was broken anyway.
With the train only a few minutes away, what to do? We decide honesty is the approach that will cause the least amount of lasting harm so once the train comes to a complete stop and we spot the conductor at the start of the train we exasperatedly jog towards him confessing our sin in terrible Italian that went something like this: “non compriamo i biglietti”; the Italian transit equivalent of a grunted “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”. The blessed conductor smiles and waves us on board. How about that? To atone for this misstep and since we don’t envision travelling through Italy like some hobos riding the rails for nothing, we get off at the next stop, which is Villa San Giovanni, buy tickets for remainder and take the next train. It didn’t matter that no one came and asked to see them.
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