"Cool Travel Guide" about Calabria

Remember the travel writer team that was looking for an accommodation in Calabria with Internet access? Lara and her partner Thierry have been travelling across Calabria end of May and early June to research, write and photograph this Southern Italian region for a new English guidebook.

Although the guidebook is not published yet, I have some of Lara's thoughts about Calabria ... because she is blogging about her travel writing at Cool Travel Guide.


She has "10 Reasons to travel to Calabria" to read in part I and part II.

Pizzo is one of them!
And other than in the usual travel guide books were everything is seen from the bright side, Lara writes in her travel blog also about the other side of the story.

Here Lara's description "Pizzo: with elegant palazzi perched precariously on steep cliffs overlooking the ocean and a charming old town that's a tiny tangle of pastel-painted houses, narrow lanes and steep stairs reminiscent of Positano. Unfortunately, tourists outnumber the locals at the gelateria tables on the main piazza, and one too many shops have given over to tacky souvenirs, however, wander the pretty backstreets where life goes on as ever and you'll smell the mouthwatering aromas of lunch being cooked and find women hanging out washing over their balconies."

Her comment about Pizzo make me remember, that Pizzo has some potential for improvements. Different from her comment (above). And I am looking forward to my next trip to Pizzo (soon!) to meet some old and new friends, some Pizzitani, who think alike. I will try to keep you posted!

During the weeks Lara and her partner have spent crisscrossing Calabria to research the new guidebook they were relieved to find the southern Italian region to be such terrific value. They consider Calabria: Europe's best value destination

And here is the link to all of her posts about Calabria

At the moment, Lara and Thierry are still in Italy, right now in Milano, to further research and write for a travel guide book about Northern Italy. She has posted some interesting observations about Italians as well, here and here!

Pizzo Calabro - Spring Impressions





Old train station in Pizzo.





Since yesterday my parents are in Calabria for the first time. And they saw Pizzo and the house for the first time. I hope they like it.

Unfortunately the weather is not very spring like. It is rainy and fresh... I hope they will get some sunshine the next days, because everything looks so much friendlier when the sun shines on it!

It is not that the house and the location need to please my parents, but I would like to hear that they will come again - when the house is ready and the weather warmer.

Calabria and Travelling Back in Time

My MIL's cousin's wife wrote the second part of her story (see part I). It is about how she felt in love with Calabria. And I realised that we are both fascinated about something in Calabria that has to do with travelling back in time and with learning how to enjoy the simple life. Please read her travel experience:

In 1997 me, my son and L. (my MIL) took the sleeper from Mestre to Pizzo. Don't think of it in terms of "Orient Express" cause we are really miles and miles away from that. In Italy, modern and updated things stop in Rome, than, everything becomes Far West or Bronx as you said...

But, we arrived safe and N. (MIL's friend) was waiting for us at the station. That was the first time I met her and suddenly for me it was like paying a visit to a nice aunt. She gave us a delicious tomato sauce for our first pasta at home.


I have not been back in Calabria since '92 and was prepared to find things unchanged. But, little by little things in the house were improving due to many small renovations L. did during our stay. Lack of water was sometimes a problem but I sensed it in a bohemian way. Thanks to L. again I was figuring out better my approach to Southern way of living which is totally different for a person coming from the ultra operative North. From that year on I met and knew lots of friendly people always available to help and share with you what they have. Every year I can't miss the 'pantagruelian' (enormous) dinners of N. - each summer she cooks for around 10-15 persons in the typical southern way - I mean frying, baking, stuffing.... It's very difficult to stay in shape until the end of the vacations.

Through the years I've had the time to realize how wonderful the sea was, crystal waters and nice beaches that have nothing to envy to the Caribbeans.


Besides, I like how the natives are so bound to popular traditions, how they decorate and adorn the streets, the churches and the pure simple fun they have during the days dedicated to celebrate the Saint of the village.


It seems as they're still living in the 50ies. In the North we've almost totally lost this kind of genuine attitude.

You see now how positive I've become and I would go on telling you how many beautiful aspects I find in every situation.



I really like her narration. I experience the same every summer. And after I realised that I especially enjoy our stays in Calabria due to that feeling of travelling back in time, I know better than before how to decorate our palazzo. I definitely do not want to see too much (or any at all) modern furniture in our house. I really enjoy the simple decoration of my family's vacation apartment. It is still decorated like back in the 60ies, 70ies when my husband was born. This orange lamp in the kitchen, the chairs, the tiles ... It is like coming home after travelling the world. And I want to have a similar feeling in the palazzo.


Check the writing and pictures of sognatrice at bleeding espresso... She moved from the US to the little village of her ancestors in Calabria. A real travel back in time.

Photos 1 - 7:
Fiat 500 in Pizzo; one of N.'s famous pasta dishes, near Capo Vaticano via flickr; Pizzo Marina; fiesta della Madonna del Carmine; fishermen at La Seggiola; il trenino a Vibo Marina - the little train that my husband took as a little boy more than 30 years ago - and it still travels from 7pm until midnight all summer long.

Calabria in the 90ies


I got a very interesting email from one of my favorite Italian family members in Venice, my mother-in-law's cousin's wife.

In her mail she told me her first impressions about her first holiday in Calabria back in the early 90ies. Read what she wrote:

(...) I'm so fond of all Calabria that coming there on vacation for me now it's like coming back home. I feel so comfortable and enjoy all the aspects of the surroundings. But, it hasn't been so since the very beginning. Let me tell you my first terrible impressions of the first time I arrived there.

It happened in 1992, after a never ending journey by car. The house had been closed for many years and we arrived in July. It was hot of course and no air conditioning nor ventilation in it. Many times I slept in the beach-chair on the terrace. Along with the bad impression I had of the constructions which always seems so uncompleted and ruined, most of the time we hadn't water for showers or cooking. We had to spend part of the day stocking bottles and bottles of water for the main necessities.

I was desperate and wanted to go home. Much probably I wasn't in the mood to accept those things cause we mostly spent our holidays in the mountains in Suedtirol where everything is so accurate, clean, tidy, you know what I mean.
Anyway I couldn't help it and we finished our vacation.
Next time I'll tell you how I changed my mind.



The 'house' she is talking about is the appartment of my in-laws in Vibo Marina, 4km from Pizzo. Here, my husband spent the first 6 years of his live. When his parents, originally from Northern Italy moved on, they kept this home as the family's holiday residence.

I really appreciate this story as it is so true. I had the same experience back in 1996! I spent the first summer in Calabria with my husband (boyfriend at that time). It was an adventure for both of us! He hasn't been back there for years.

Of course meanwhile many things have improved, we got aircondition and water is secured. Even the construction ruine of 30 years in front of the house is finished and painted since last year.

I am curious to read the prosecution about how she felt in love with Calabria. Thank you for sharing!

picture 1: taken 2006 at restaurant Go, view of Vibo Marina, picture 2: taken 2005 at my family's house, view of Vibo Marina's port

The Clock of the South

My son, 4 years, is still suffering from the 'southern jet lag'. The clock of the South ticks different from the one in the North. There is a long break in the afternoon. People and of course children have a nap (fare il pisolino) after a late lunch. It is just too hot to do anything else. Then in the evening after dinner, that normally does not start before 8.30 pm people go out for a walk in the street. There is a little train (here in Vibo Marina) for children that drives around in a circle since more than 30 years. It is still the attraction for the local children. The engine is from a Vespa and real smoke comes out of the chemine. This train does not start before 7.30 pm. The last circles of the train, you can here the horn all over the bay, are around 11.30 pm. And there are still plenty of children in the street. Of course it is summer holiday and no school.

Some days ago we went to an open air concert of the 'Policia del Stato' in la piazza in Pizzo. It started at 9 pm and when we left around 10.30pm there were still families with little children arriving. Children in strollers and children with milk bottles in their hands.

But my son is still wondering why he has to sleep in the middle of the day. And when he gets up he asks for breakfast. And when the sun goes down he is getting nervous, because he thinks he needs to go to bed again. Some days ago he said: 'Italien ist komisch' (Italy is stange).