Safe Return Doubtful

Just a quick catch up on the last couple of days in which I’ve moved on from Greece to Italy.

I spent 70 days in Greece all together, and would select the Pindos mountains as the area I most enjoyed. Other than the Mani, the coastal areas were as unsuited to my lifestyle as I expected. Many of them were humid and mosquitoes tougher to deal with than in Scandinavia. I’m convinced the accumulations of litter and filth encouarge them. Some coastal areas are worse than others, notably the north west coast where it seems there must be a strike on, as no rubbish had been collected for weeks.

The Mani is different. It attracts tourists more interested in history than beach-goers, and the middle of the summer is much quieter than the shoulder seasons. Litter is less of a problem here also.

I enjoyed the Peloponnese also, but there are more people here, more visitors, more city folk with second homes, busier roads.

I got to the ferry port at Igoumenitsa just after lunchtime yesterday as I had work to do in the afternoon. The ferry left on time at one minute to midnight, and was quite empty. I was told it is very busy the next three nights as the holiday draws to a close. I cursed myself for forking out for a cabin, as it would have been easy (though forbidden) to just stay in the van. Roja certainly would have preferred that. There’s an irony about the videos and other promotions that Superfast Ferries show to promote their work on improving the environment, the approach to each terminal, Igoumenitsa and Bari, has some of the worst dumped garbage than anywhere else in the country, and they still cannot or will not stop people from smoking both inside the vessel and out, just like the majority of bars; the law says no, the people say yes.

The Adriatic Coastal part of Italy north of Bari is particularly unappealing, and I sped through it, with my eyes barely open.

From Bari it was about a three hour drive to the small town of San Giuliano del Sannio, which is situated on a rise in the rock overlooking the wide plain of the Tammaro river, inside the ‘il Molise’ mountain group, almost at the southern end of the Central Apennines.

Here there is an attractively set restaurant that welcomes campervans at no cost, as well as offering services. This was a recommendation of my brother, who was here a few weeks ago, and it certainly is a good one. The owner is an extremely good host, with a greeting on arrival. There are some good trails through the surrounding forest also. There is one other van here, but he is opening the restaurant nonetheless, which I’m looking forward to. I haven’t eaten out in Greece for several weeks now. It became quite a predictable and usually underwhelming experience.

I’m keen to do a much longer trip in Italy in the relatively near future. This time, I’m limited to about ten days, and will head steadily north up the Apennines. It will get colder of course. It was a fine day here today up at 670 metres, with a high of about 16C, though it does seem it will be a cold night, it’s 2C at 7 pm.

My only previous long trip here was in the summer of 2012, bikepacking just over 1800 kilometres on tracks and minor roads down the backbone of Italy; from Bergamo to Sicily. I use the Dylan line from My Back Pages quite a lot, even for my old archive photo at the bottom of the page, but in this case it is highly applicable. I really was so foolish then.. let alone so much older.. who in their right minds would cycle down Italy, camping, in the heat of the summer, and to cap it all, Sicily in the August heat (as Camilleri writes about Inspector Montalbano..). My journal for that trip is on a website I don’t use any more, and I’m in the process, one day soon, of moving it over here.. stay tuned..