PiraPora

Well, here we are in the south of Italy. It was no easy task to get here. We said goodbye to our friends in Crete and boarded the ferry around 8 pm. Normally it leaves at 9 but on this occasion it waited till midnight before departure. I am guessing some military reason, seeing as Crete is so close to Libya. Anyway it didn't really matter and in fact worked out for the better for us as we got to Piraeus at 8:30 am instead of 5:30. We knew where the bus stop to the Athens airport was and were at the ticket counter by 11 am. Our flight was set to leave at 1. We arrived in Rome an hour flight later and sat around for a three hour layover in the lovely Roman airport. After faffing around for a while we flew to the little airstrip of Lamezia Terma. This flight was delayed an hour for security reasons. A short taxi ride, whose driver tried to scam us by saying the train did not go to Zambrone, took us to the train station. The scammer taxi driver turned out to be almost right as we had only 5 minutes to catch the last train of the night. It was a 40 minute train ride and about 8 pm when we were greeted by our hosts here in Italy.

There are two brothers and their respective families living on the agrotourism farm PiraPora. There are 3 really nice huge dogs and 4 kids besides our own, ages 3-16. Many kinds of fruit trees, sweet lemons like lemonade lemons, olive trees and huge garden space make up the farm here. They also farm another parcel farther down the hill from us at their parents house. Many chickens provide eggs and the farm is self sufficient enough that shopping at the store is rarely done.

It is stunning here. Quiet and peaceful, and immensely beautiful. The sea is a 20 minute walk down the hill and the train runs every hour to the south and north. We went to the ancient town of Tropea on Saturday for market shopping and just dinking around. Tropea sits up on a huge cliff above the sea some 300 feet. Super tiny streets and good gelato and pizza, although it is rather touristy. There is a museum there and an over abundance of dudes in track suits with gold chains. Really.

We have spent the first week here cutting back the hundreds of trees and burning huge bonfires. This must be done at this time of year to prevent fires in August. We are working about 4 hours a day from 8:30 or 9 til 1 or 1:30, six days a week. We take lunch together with everyone and have eaten well since our arrival, everything fresh and homemade. Sausages are made here when the pig is slaughtered and wine is made in October, 2000 litres. This is all part of our reimbursement for working. What a deal!

When we have time we go to the beach. This Sunday we will all go for the day and have a fish fry at one of their favorite places. We have til the middle of May here and plan to explore as much of the region as we can. Hopefully Sicily and Rome as well.

Everyone here is great, friendly and working together. Language is not a problem as everyone speaks English, although they speak Italian together. And now we are learning a bit of it. The tourists begin to arrive in mid April and we have much to do until then to get the place ship shape.

Ciao bella!