Beside the Seaside

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In Which Everything Goes Back To Front

June 25, 2008 by Mike

Catania

Route: Tropea - Bagnara Calabra - Scilla - Villa San Giovanni - Messina (Sicily) - Nizza de Sicilia - Catania

I wasn't going to do it. I really wasn't. Partly because it would take too bloody long; partly because I wanted some discipline and limits; partly because the ferries would cost too much.. this is a trip around the mainland of Europe. The continent, rather than all the islands. (I had to make an exception of Denmark, which is mainly islands, or else I wouldn't have ridden along either side of the Oresund bridge. But it meant I didn't have to traipse all the way around Britain and Ireland.. yet.)

So I was going to miss Sicily, the triangular football forever being kicked by the Italian boot.

But when I got to Italy, everyone said: "You must go to Sicily!"; "Tell me you're going to Sicily"; "Promise me you're going to ride around Sicily. It's so beautiful."

OK then, I will. Even though most of them continued "It's so beautiful in the interior." Which made me think they hadn't quite got the point of my trip.

But. If I'm going to do this big detour, I'm going to have some fun:

1. I've spend nearly 30,000 miles going anticlockwise, with the sea always on my righthand side. So for Sicily, I'm going to go clockwise, with the sea on my left. Freakydeaky!

2. I'm going to go fast. Not silly speeds, mind, but I'll ride every day. Find out what it's like to go on a biking *holiday* as opposed to a bike *trip*. Like most people - like *you*? - with two weeks' holiday and roads you want to ride.

I have to get there first. That involves a slow, crisscrossing, back-on-myself-more-than-once escape from the Tropea/ Capo Vaticano area. It's holiday home country, dotted with houses that all look the same, roads without signposts that seem to be going in one direction but buck round on themselves. After all this time, i can still get it so wrong.

Further down the Calabrian coast the town of Bagnara Calabra is reached from the high hills. The road is spectacular enough, but look at this for the view from someone's front room:

This is a little peasant cottage clinging to the side of a verrrry steep hill over the town. The red roof is almost hidden from the road, so steeply does it drop away. It must seem like bivouacking on the side of a mountain. They cultivate vines here: lawdy, but I hope they don't try and drink the resulting wine until they're safely tucked up (and strapped in) to bed.

But what a view on a sunny day! And how must it look at night, with the lights burning bright, the stars and a full moon out over the sea?

Lunch in Scilla -- I had a lorra lorra laffs with the name -- looking along the beach to the local castle. it reminded me so much of Peniscola I wondered if I was about to have another catastrophe with the rear suspension.

I was in Villa San Giovanni by mid-afternoon and on the ferry from there across the Straits to Messina by 1500 hours. On the clock: 35613 miles. Sicily.

Riding the coast road: how different is it from over in the mainland.. which is, lest we forget, only a couple of miles away?

Well, the sea is on my left. Freaky and, indeed, deaky. Back to front. Inside out. Through the looking glass. Backwards. It feels a lot stranger than I was expecting. For a start I have the other carriageway between me and the sea. And even though I see the sea on my left every day (getting lost -- see above -- is a habit that's hard to break) it's not supposed to be like this. It feels wrong.

And the towns are different here too. They're long and thin and follow the coast road.. very little open countryside so far. The houses are low, square-fronted, two-storied, unpainted, 19th century, shuttered, squat, dirty. They look uncared for. Unloved.

In other words it feels -- in case you're wondering, and have travelled in Paraguay so you'll get the reference -- like Asuncion-on-Sea.

Taormina was different: gorgeous beaches and a fascinating-looking town. But I'm in a hurry. Didn't even stop... this time.

I got as far as Catania today, where I found only the second open Tourist Office of the entire Italian trip. (The first was Paestum.) They piled me up with brochures for the interior and the bits I've already been through, but had nothing on the island as a whole or areas beyond Catania Province. But I can't complain. They pointed me in the direction of the only campsite in the area and they told me about a 'cultural park' in memory of the Prince of Lampedusa. I know you'll be as excited as I am about *that*!

Not even a cacophonous thunderstorm in the mountainous interior up towards Etna (not to mention a cacophonous teenagers' disco in the campsite about six metres from my tent) can stop me sleeping tonight.

Beside the Seaside

In Which Everything Goes Back To Front

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