Misadventures on the Italian Coast
… whilst scouting out the best spots for Sailing Italy 2012
Cath and I have just got back from our trip to Europe, checking out all the great places we’re planning to take you on the Italian Sailing Adventure in May and June this year.
Large parts of Italy simply shut down over the Christmas and New Year holidays and this made our trip ‘interesting’ to say the least. But we found some amazing gems hidden away.
Our first stop was Agropoli on the South Amalfi Coast. As we entered the town, we were promptly lost and anxious to find a place to stay. Cath jumped into action, spotted ‘a local’ and nipped out of the car to ask him for help. He just so happened to be the local travel agent (in fact the owner of thirty seven travel agencies!) and to cut a long story short he helped us out a lot with our plans. We ate that night at his restaurant, and now have a food and wine tasting evening on the beach there organised as part of the trip!
Our visit to Positano, Amalfi and the Amalfi Coastline yielded some wonderful places which we intend to visit… fabulous hospitality, stunning coastline, bays and islands.
We had a similar experience in Calabria, which has again resulted in some additions to the itinerary we think you’re going to love.
In Italy, particularly in the South, ‘Agriturismo’ is very popular, which is where you visit and stay or dine on a farm or villa property, where the food and wine served is mainly sourced from that property. These places are very “ethnic” to each region and generally hosted by the family.
Our visit to Villa Santa Lucia in Cetraro, on the Calabrian Coast resulted in one of the most enjoyable meals and hospitality experiences of the trip… not to mention the stunning views over the town and coastline. Again we were in a small town and were having difficulty finding our destination. With very little Italian on our part and hardly anyone speaking much English, we named the place we were looking for and got a finger pointing ‘up’ into the hills. Then someone gesticulated to follow them in their car and off we went. Wondering if we’d made the right decision, it didn’t help that he actually took us to the wrong place first, but eventually we did get to the right place. And it didn’t look too promising then either – it was 7pm, there was only one light on and when somebody came to the door it looked like they were getting ready for bed!
But it all got a lot better – we sat by the fire drinking some local wine, looking back down the mountain at the town and the water – absolutely breathtaking.
Later that evening the owner’s grown up children arrived and – again another coincidence – his son-in-law is involved in the Calabrian Tourism Organisation. So, suffice it to say we’ve got some other great culinary (and other) experiences lined up. And the food was just fantastic.
Driving around the area, it’s incredibly difficult to navigate the narrow streets and you just can’t get to some spots by car. This was particularly harrowing in places like Procida (our start point) and Tropea (our finish point).– that’s why coming in by water is so much better, avoid the roads, avoid the tourist buses and, above all, avoid the masses alighting from the cruise ships.
All in all, this was a great exercise for us to look and listen – but what about the food, I hear you say… ”fantastic”… from the local pizzas, farmhouse meats, the best mozzarella, interesting seafood dishes, fresh artichokes, speciality pastas from each region and, of course…the Limoncello! You can check out our photo gallery here of the trip.
We can’t wait to get back and take our group to all these wonderful places.
While we were in Europe we also scoped out a couple of other possible locations for future trips, and we should be able to give you some details on these soon. Each trip has its own flavour – it’s interesting to see how completely different Italy and Croatia are from each other, despite being so close (in Australian terms at least).
We’re putting together numbers for the Italy trip now, so if you’d like to grab your spot please contact us now. You can also download our “Sail Italy” brochure.
We’ll give you another update soon, in the meantime,
Happy sailing.
Pozz & Cath