SOUTH ITALY ROAD TRIP Malta to Sicily to Calabria

4 am Saturday 27 April. The car is already on board the new fast catamaran ferry Saint John Paul II. She is the largest aluminium catamaran ferry in the Mediterranean at 1000 tons, built in Tasmania. The interior is almost identical to her smaller, older sister which we have been on before.

At 5 am she glides out of Valletta’s Grand Harbour Malta and speeds across the “slight” sea to the largest Island in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily (Italy). 

Hazy sunrise......

Pozzallo Harbour

By 7 am we are driving north to Catania to buy some camping equipment and food for the week ahead. Our destination in Italy is Brindisi , almost 700 km by shortest route from the Port of Pozzallo, but we will take a longer route to enjoy more of the coasts of Calabria.

We are used to driving / camping in our motor home but this is the first time we took a car / tent camping journey together. We use the ACSI camping card giving us known and discounted prices (except in July and August) at thousands of campsites in Europe. Checking the book we chose for the first night a campsite at Riposto with views to Mt Etna, Sicily’s 3350m tall active volcano, and a few metres across the road to the Ionian Sea. In the evening we walked to the town of Riposto.

Mostly we enjoy the morning at the camping before moving on. Anita makes her breathing and yoga routines and I “break up” the camp and pack the car.

 Blood orange juice

 The camping / travel fridge

 Mt Etna from the campsite

Driving north we stopped at a small Commercial Centre where we were able to buy a travel kettle and a new memory card for Anita’s phone as the old one had died and the phone memory was full. We continued to Messina (Calabria can be seen across the water)

and joined the ferry queue. 

The ticket one way for the short drive on drive off ferry was 38 euros.

Now on the mainland of Italy and in Calabria we drove north to Scylla, a complete contrast to the rush and haste of ferry traffic. 

This is just one of many beautiful coastal towns in the far south of Italy. In Greek mythology Odesseus had to contend with the twin hazards of Scylla where giants threw rocks at passing ships and Charibdis, the sea monster who could suck ships under the water in whirlpools. There are indeed whirlpools near the narrow Messina Strait. I have sailed my boat through there on my anti-clockwise circumnavigation of Sicily in 2005.

From Scilla we continued north to the next campsite Villaggio Camping Mimosa, at Nicotera Marina on the Tyrrenian Sea (West) Coast of Calabria. This was a peaceful place south of Capo Vaticano and we chose to stay for two nights to relax after the busy weeks leading up to this trip.

One thing we observed in Sicily and in Calabria was the amount of rubbish piled up everywhere, in towns and in countryside. People seem to dump rubbish anywhere but even large piles in towns are not cleared. One visitor said that Mafia get the contracts and money but don’t pay well and the job is not properly done. Someone else denied that Mafia are around anymore. For sure major Mafia rings were broken but it seems that any business in this area can still be targets for extortion for “protection”.

Calabria is green, mountainous and beautiful with it’s long coastline. Spring flowers are everywhere, many poppies at the road side, acacia trees in blossom and many more. The sweet smells though and some cut hay / grass are giving us allergic reactions. I suffered badly in my teens from “hay fever” and the best solution has always been to remove myself from the problem when possible.