Apologies for not blogging for so long, I had no connection :-)
It was amazing coming down from the mountain of Gambarie to the sea. I took the wonderful Road 183, dirty and narrow, but very charming.
A unique landscape of Calabria is the “fiumara”, an immensely large riverbed of stones able to contain the strong seasonal rains and lead immense amounts of water to the sea. The stones are fragments of mountain that have been washed by the water so well that they reflect the light of a full moon making them seem like shiny (rock) stars.
The itinerary brought me from snow to flowers, and on my way down, the village of Bagaladi was my first stop, linking the landscape of the mountain with the landscape of the Fiumara of Melito. Bagaladi is a happy and generous small village hosting a wonderful marble composition dating back to the Renaissance (XVI century) hidden in the church S.M.Teodoro. While it's March, surprisingly here there were farmers which were still picking olives from the Gigantic (really gigantic!) Calabrian olive trees.
The amplitude of the Fiumara gives the landscape a new breath and leads me toward the sea, to Melito Porto Salvo - the Finis Terrae - the southernmost land of Italy, where the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian sea merge.
A parallel Fiumara is the Amendolea, where Ugo Sergi is producing organic 'bergamotto' and welcoming visitors in his agriturismo. He was my lovely host of the day - big smile and authentic soul. He renounced many other options of life to simply be himself in his land, surrounded by a very eclectic community of local and international people. 'Bergamotto' is a fruit of fresh, citric, green, sweet, persistent and … addictive fragrance!
The fiumaras and bergamot are both unique staples from Calabria.
Additional contacts and locations useful along the way:
· Museo del Bergamotto in Reggio Calabria
. Cardeto il Tipico Calabrese – Slow Food Restaurant and an ethnographic small museum of Marcello (Antropologo combattente), Giuliano&Rosa
· Pentidattilo (meaning "five fingers" in Greek) a wonderful poetic borgo and a geosite of global relevance where Maria Milasi is organizing every year the International Short Film Festival
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