Another beautiful day. We futz around in our big room and big balcony wasting time so we don’t get on the road too early. We figure breakfast should be fine since it’s a weekend, and all the business folks will be gone. Ha! That was a miscalculation. Some very well dressed group was meeting in the lobby to leave for whatever event they had gathered – and they had apparently already hit the breakfast buffet – and hit it hard. There was virtually nothing left. No croissants, muffins or any fresh baked pastry. Barely any fruit. It was decimated. There was at least some meat and cheese left over for Ed, and I scrounged for a bit of fruit. Cappuccino and Café Americano were delivered though – and really – at this point? Who needs more food?
We finally hit the road around 10 or so, this time heading out of Cosenza to the west and the Mediterranean coast. Alice gets us out of the city easily (Camila is still going in circles around and around, she doesn’t even know where we are!) and we’re quickly headed out past the A3 and up into the mountains. It’s a gorgeous drive, full of mountain scenery and glimpses of the Med – some vistas looking out over the distant horizon. Wish we could show you, but, crazy Italian drivers! No way in the world to stop on these roads to snap any pix. I tried from the window – no go. Not even worth the bother.
So, we just drove (or I should say Ed just drove) and we soaked up the scenery and enjoyed the trip. Eventually we make it through the mountains and down to the coastal road. This road winds all the way up to Salerno, weaving through every little – and big – seaside town on the Southern Med. Some towns are quaint, some are hugely overbuilt and touristic. Little cafes and gas stations line the road for miles at a time, then nothing but scraggly coast and houses. It’s an interesting drive, and sometimes very scenic. A nice alternative to the boring and construction riddled A3 Autostrada.
As we ride up the coast, one of the best pictures we missed was “mama” manning the gas station. Typical Italian Mama – big, sturdy, hair up on her head, sitting on a folding chair by the gas pumps fanning herself. Oh, if only we could have stopped there for gas! That would have been an even better story!
On, we go, finally turning off the coast and heading back inland to connect with the A3 to Pontecagnano. We make the A3 transition well enough, but the Pontecagnano transition doesn’t even compute. Oh Alice – whatever will we do with you! When we input the Olimpico as our destination, the map showed a couple of turns off the A3 then straight down one of the state routes to the “beach” road and the hotel. Suddenly we are off the A3, turning away from the coast, and Alice tells us to turn on SS 234 (you can’t even begin to imagine the pronunciation – it won’t come across in the written word – trust me!).
Well, SS 234 turns out to be yet another rutted little cattle track type road – I mean it looks totally sketchy out in the middle of the fields and houses – so we ignore her and keep going, looking for a place to turn around. But, she is INSISTENT! Every road we come to (well, little alley looking, teeny cattle trail road) she says turn left on SS 234. We passed probably 4 roads, all SS 234. All roads are SS 234! Yeah, right. Sure. But, then again….what the heck, we have nothing but time, so – here we go – the next SS 234 comes and we turn left, then right on SS 234, then left again..through farmlands and houses and little alleyways of roads. Dear me! We are finally heading in the right direction, but we’re still making way too many funky turns.
We stop to get gas (bargain too! cheapest so far – ok so at $8 US a gallon, it’s not really cheap-cheap, but it’s about 50 US cents a gallon less when converted from liters, cheaper than every other place), then pull over so we can reconnoiter. We look at her map – we look at our map – uh unh – CPS is on. We’ve already passed at least 2 roads that are straight shots to the beach – and the one we are on currently goes there directly. Of course if we listen to Alice – we’ve got 50 more turns to make. Nope, bye bye. Off we go – ignoring her strident “recalculating”, until we’ve had enough and we turn her completely off. We know where we are and where we are going!
Finally – the “beach” road! Right turn, few kilometers, and we are safely parked in the Olimpico’s parking lot. It’s way busier here now (well, yeah, it’s Saturday), and we’re just happy to be back and settled. The room isn’t ready – our nice desk gal – Laura – alludes to some big disaster that happened this morning and everyone is way behind – no biggie – we’re in no hurry. We sit on the patio and have beer and wine and share a sandwich – that really – is the size of a whole damn pizza just folded over. Delicious – smoky cheese, ham and that delicious bread. Way too much, but oh so good.
We’re just basking in the afternoon warmth, letting the long drive slip away. It feels good to just sit here with the cool ocean breeze and watch the world go by (at least the part of the world that is here at the hotel!). We finally tear ourselves away and head inside to see if our room is ready. Drama! As we are talking to Laura, in walks a German couple we had seen at the hotel previously. Laura immediately launches into all these apologies saying they tried to call the couple, the hotel has been looking for the couple all day, etc., etc. Turns out they were supposed to check out that morning, but didn’t! Laura very politely says “I know you just forgot, but check out was this morning.” So, while the couple was out sightseeing or what have you, the hotel staff had to pack all their belongings. A cart right at the front desk is full to the brim of suitcases and bags and all their possessions! The German couple isn’t acting very surprised by all this – it’s a little odd – when Laura says we tried to call you, the lady says I know. What? Hmmmm….did they really know they had to check out and didn’t? Interesting. The hotel is fully booked, there’s no room left at the inn – don’t know what happened to them after that – as we grabbed our room key and left. So that was the big disaster! The staff had to take so much time packing the luggage that they were way behind on their normal work. as we are leaving, Laura looks at us with a little smirk on her face and says, “Now, you remember, you will check out tomorrow.” LOL
Once again, the afternoon turns into evening with us just sort of relaxing, readjusting our bags, organizing, reading and writing. Nothing especially exciting. We head down to dinner around 8, and while my intention was to have my last real Italian pizza tonight, I am way too full from our afternoon sandwich for that. Yikes. So instead, I try the smoked cheese and grilled vegetables with lemon “perfume” for an app (awesome!) and the chicken involtino (stuffed with cheese, prosciutto and green beans) which is perfect done, rolled and grilled and baked to perfection (and small enough not to make me thoroughly stuffed afterward). Ed has his Caprese salad which is probably the best we’ve ever had – freshest tomatoes, best mozzarella di bufala– and Mussels and clams over a local pasta (can’t pronounce the name, or write it for that matter!). All was excellent as usual.
As we are eating, we are “serenaded” by music coming from the Blu Hotel’s Discotheque just down the street. Apparently there is a reception or anniversary party going on there and the band is playing all the old favorites - seriously – polkas and Sinatra standards. You can see the open patio from our hotel and can watch everyone dancing with the disco lights flashing.
We retire to our room on the 2nd floor with a balcony, and sit outside watching the party. We can hear it loud and clear from our perch here above the pool. Good thing that the hotel has been completely renovated and has very good windows and doors – otherwise we’d be in big sleeping trouble! As it is, after the party ends, the real disco begins, and even though we do have very good soundproof doors, we are still awoken at 3:15am by pounding music and deep bass beats. I fall back asleep (oh what a surprise), but Ed is up until 4am when the music finally stops. It’s a partying town here on the weekends! Quite the different feel than when we were here during the week, that’s for certain.
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