Monday 24th April
The traffic noise died down on our parking spot and we had an unexpectedly peaceful night’s sleep. The village, in which we were staying, had built a special walkway for people to promenade along the seafront. Ever since we had arrived it was busy with Italians taking their daily constitutional, often only ambling along, but in tracksuit and trainers! Sarah and I both joined them to take Skye for two morning walks. The sun was shining and all was right with the world – or so we thought!
Todays journey was intended to be a 70 mile trip south on the coastal road. We had only travelled a few miles when the road started ascending and turned into a vertigo inducing corniche. The road clinging to the side of mountains and the sea several hundred feet, almost vertically beneath us. Sarah’s seat was next to the edge and although she has a good head for heights she was less than comfortable. It will give a good idea of the road when I tell you we travelled only 16 miles in the first hour.
We had just passed through a cramped village when we saw a small yellow sign next to the road saying “Chiuso” and some other words that were too small to read. I know “Chiuso” is Italian for closed but we didn’t imagine this referred to the main southern coast road. As we passed some workmen one of them made an unintelligible hand gesture, but we sailed on.
About three miles further we rounded a corner to find the road blocked. This was a road that was only eight metres wide, with a steep mountain on one side and a several hundred feet drop to the sea on the other. Basil is 7.3 metres long! We had no choice but to try to turn round. The alternative was reversing for hundreds of metres in the hope of finding somewhere more suitable.
Sarah got out to assist and I gingerly shuffled Basil backwards and forwards with Sarah signalling me to within millimetres of the wall protecting me from oblivion. It took numerous manoeuvres but eventually Basil was pointing in the right direction. Sweaty palms all round.
I had previously identified a potential parking spot in a nearby town where we would stop and rethink our journey. The last thing we needed was for SatNav to pull any of his tricks, but that is exactly what he did. As we entered Maratea, hoping for a relaxing break, the road got narrower and narrower until a few metres ahead of us was a series of electronic bollards preventing us from progressing! The road was not much wider than Basil and so a 20 point turn was out of the question. Out Sarah got again and assisted me in reversing 100 metres or so, down the narrow lane, into a parking area where I once more manoeuvred Basil’s bulk, backward and forwards, trying not to hit any of the parked cars. Eventually this was successfully achieved.
We found a place to pull over, take a breather and replotted our route. There was no obvious alternative to the coastal road, so we decided the only choice was to cross the coastal mountain range and use the inland motorway south. This was another 15 miles of climbing and descending through innumerable hairpin bends. The last section of our journey was also hampered by possibly the worst roads we have seen in Europe. I don’t know if there has been an earthquake in the region recently but the road surface was twisted and sheared in many places requiring Basil to be steered around the deformities.
Finally Basil pulled up on a lovely aire/sosta next to a lake called Lago Sirino. The lake is less than a kilometre in circumference and Sarah correctly described it as looking like a miniature Lake Bled, a famous lake in Slovenia. It’s a mountain lake at 2,500 feet (750 metres) and we are enveloped in low cloud and occasional drizzle. We can see sun in the valley below but it eludes us. It is still a pretty stop, despite the weather and tomorrow perhaps we can find blue skies again.
