28 March 2024 – Le Castella

Miles driven today = 100

Total Miles to date = 2,944

If we had been awake at 5:47 this morning we would have had a glorious view of the sunrise over the Sea from our East facing bedroom window.  But we weren’t.  We were still gently snoring away under the duvet so I’m afraid we will have to wait until after the clocks change at the weekend to stand a realistic chance of witnessing the glory of a new day dawning over an aquatic horizon.

The lingering mist of yesterday had disappeared though and whenever the persistently obscuring railway line allowed us to view the Sea it was a brilliant turquoise with totally empty, golden sandy beaches.  You’d have thought the locals would have been out and about sunning themselves by now but they are all still resolutely sporting wooly hats and fur lined parkas, despite the fact it was 20 degrees before 9am this morning.

Looking to our left the hills had a pale, chalky complexion and with a sparse covering of coarse grass they almost looked like giant sand dunes as they rolled off into the distance.

What with it being Good Friday tomorrow we wanted to make sure that we were well stocked with provisions for the Easter Break so we initially headed for the new EuroSpin at Siderno.  But the car park there was rammo so we tried again with considerably more success at the equivalent in Soverato. We always carry a wine bag with us which has room for 6 bottles of cheap Italian plonk and on several occasions the person on the check out has picked it up and shown it to their colleagues as though it was the greatest invention they have ever seen.  Today was one of those days.

We reached today’s destination at Le Castella at lunchtime.  Anybody who has a smattering of Italian will be able to tell you that the name translates as “The Castles” (i.e. plural) but there is in fact only one, although legend has it that there were a number of other island fortresses around here in days of antiquity which have since disappeared into the Sea.

We fully expected the castle to be shut, if not completely then at least until after the locals had finished their usual 3 hour lunch break.  But the front door was wide open.  We wandered in to find nobody in the ticket booth but a fellow who we had seen having a crafty fag outside popped in, presented us with a couple of tickets and said “it’s free!”.  Fabulous!

The first thing we came across was the Castle’s old chapel.  We could still just about make out some of the frescoes which were painted on the ceiling.

The Castle must have had quite a sizeable community living within its outer wall.  We couldn’t access the area where they would have lived and worked but there is apparently a cemetery there too.

The central keep is open to visitors though.  Here is Lisa about to storm the drawbridge.

These are old catapult projectiles.  I translated the information which reckons that the Greeks had weapons of war powerful enough to launch stones weighing between 30kg and 70kg as far as 300 metres.

The majority of the Castle as we see it today was built at the time of the Aragonese occupation in the 15^th Century.  However the glass floor which Lisa is tentatively walking on here allowed us to see some huge stone foundation blocks which were exposed when a portion of the Castle wall collapsed during a storm in 1977.  The blocks have been dated back to Greek times in the 4^th and 3^rd Centuries BC.

The tower is thought to be 13^th Century as it is circular in design.  Later towers which were built after the invention of firearms were more angular.  The tower housed a dungeon over 3 floors and also a cistern for collecting rainwater.

This the view looking back along the stretch of coastline we drove to get here today.

And here we can see the town of Le Castella, as viewed from the Castle ramparts.

Despite the sunshine and temperatures in the low 20s there was still a stiff breeze which whipped up a spray and made it feel a lot cooler, especially in the shade of the castle walls, so we scuttled back across the Causeway to have a quick look around the rest of the town.

This soup pot was the size of a small car and in 1998 it broke the Guinness World Record for the largest Fish Soup.  I have no idea if anybody has had the inclination to challenge this record in the time which has elapsed since.  With the price of fish these days, I doubt it somehow.

There are two harbours.  The inner one here appears to be predominantly natural and provides safe haven for yachts and pleasure boats,  The outer one looks more manmade and had a smattering of larger fishing boats taking refuge behind its walls.

So this is where we are tonight.  Parked up between the trees at the Costa Splendente Sosta.  We have electric hook up, I can fill our water tank without moving from our pitch and we have made use of some wonderfully hot showers.  And the best bit… It’s only €10 a night!  

There is a gate a few yards from where we are pitched which leads to a track down to what would be a very narrow beach in calmer conditions, when it would also probably be quite a good snorkeling spot too.  But with another Sosta right next door I can imagine that the competition for any available beach space would be pretty intense during the Summer months.  I have a mental image of Attenborough documentaries with sealions squabbling over every spare inch of sand.

29 March 2024 - It Was All Yellow