REGGIO CALABRIA

 

We left Bagnara Calabra very early Monday morning and set off for Reggio Calabra. The trip to the beginning of the Strait of Messina was smooth and with very little wind, however once we entered the narrow straight, things changed. The sea became strangely forceful with a strong current pulling us along. Every now and then we could feel and see ‘eddies’ or whirlpools that formed part of the running tide that slowed us down. We’d chosen a very calm day to pass through the area so luckily all was ok. Once we came out of the narrow straight past Sicily and around the ‘toe’, the water returned to being calm with no swell. Some of the stories we’d heard about the area were very scary.

Around lunch-time we pulled into the rather depressing and somewhat unpleasant marina. Everything as usual was shut and we were struck by the isolation of the marina and the surroundings. The nearest coffee shop was more than a km away and only found after trudging up the highway, cutting through a very small dirty tunnel under the railway line and then walking, walking, walking.

The trains ran all night next to the marina and every so often the very loud garbled announcement was made on a loudspeaker that was impossible to ignore. That, and the ships going in and out made our night uncomfortable. Still, we did have free WIFI as a small compensation.