Badolato

I boarded the ferry in the morning and floated across the straits back to the mainland. After getting off the boat I picked up where I left off and continued down to the southern most tip of Italy along the coast and right around the toe of the boot headed for a small hill town called Badolato. My friend Gary in Susanville had stayed there before and happened to make friends with a man who has a business of restoring the midevil houses of this semi abandoned village. Gary said it was a great place to visit and had made arrangements for me to stay in one of the renovated houses for a couple of days.

You arrive in Badolato Marina, which is right on the Ionian Sea, then take a small windy road 5km up a hill to Badolato Superiore. It’s common to have two small towns of the same name like this, as the original settlement was on top of the hill to guard from vandals, but since people don’t go around sacking villages like they used to they were able to move down to the more convenient flat ground by the sea. When I arrived I called Gary’s friend, Domenico, and he said he would be on his way up. The ride there was easier than I had anticipated and I arrived a bit early, so I wandered around and took in the sites. When you arrive at the top of the hill you are greeted by the main square which is surrounded by several small to slightly larger buildings and a nice lookout spot with a beautiful view of the town and sea below. While I was waiting I saw a girl go into Domenico’s office on the square so I went in to say ciao. The girl was Francesca, Domenico’s secretary, and he had sent her up to greet me. Gary had told me about her since he has had conversations with her by phone, and even though he has never seen her he insisted she had to be pretty. She’s a southern Italian, so how could she not be? She welcomed me speaking very good English and took me over to my cottage.

Everything was brand new inside and very high quality, made from stone, tile, a little wood and copper accents. It had a main room with a fireplace and small kitchen, a full bathroom, and a loft with a kingsize bed and a balcony with a spectacular view. It was located just off one of the main little cobblestone paths, near the big church, town hall, and tiny supermarket. Francesca then took me for a short walk around showing me some of the “new” houses and introduced me to a couple of the locals. I think there are only about 400 or so people living in Superiore, so when someone new shows up pretty much everybody knows about it. After she left I got my things settled in and Domenico called me and I met him at the office. We then went to one of the two bars located right on the main square for a beer. There were a handfull of guys in there, young and old, just hanging out and playing cards after working. Domenico introduced me to all of them and bought us all a Peroni. We chatted with a few guys, which I could do, but only if they spoke Italian. You see, there are several different dialecs throughout Italy, and when you are in places like this they have all have their own language. Even the hill town 5 miles down the road will have a different dialect because they were all so isolated in the past. All the men were maybe a bit dirty from working their respective jobs, weather it was sheep herding or hauling rocks, but one of them, Giuseppe, was sharply dressed with his hair slicked back looking just like a guy in a mobster film. He was about 25 I think, and totally excited to meet someone from California. He spoke to me in Italian and a little broken English and I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to a friend’s house where they were cooking a pig in the ground and having a party, then to a club in a larger town nearby. He invited me to go with him but I had already made plans to have dinner with Domenico and his family, so I told him maybe I could go to the club after. After meeting the guys I went home to get cleaned up, then rode down the hill to meet Domenico for dinner. We went with his girlfriend and her daughter, his sister and her husband Pepe (short for Giuseppe) with their twin daughters to a restaurant in a place called Soverato just a few miles up the coast. It was good and I had a good time talking with everyone. Domenico’s sister was particularly surprised by the trip I was on and by how I wasn’t too worried about having any problems along the way. She said it must be a good avventura, adventure. On the way home there was a line of cars stopped in the road because of an accident near a small bridge and no one could pass until the tow truck showed up and cleared the way. I think we waited there for almost an hour before we got going again. When we finally got back we called Giuseppe and he picked me up to go to the club in Catanzaro. We picked up his friend Gianluca on the way. He was into motorcycles so he was cool and we all got along good I think. The club was basically located in a field somewhere. I just realized I allowed two southern Italian guys take me into a field in the middle of the night. Turns out it was a lot better than you see in the movies. The club was big with one large room where they danced to typical house music, another smaller one with techno music, and yet another with only salsa music and dancing. There were quite a few people there. Giuseppe told me all the hottest girls were in the salsa room (and he was right) so that’s where we stayed all night. Wow, as much as I love Rome and Roman women, the girls down south are even more beautiful. They are more natural looking I think, with long dark flowing hair and beautiful eyes, without the fake tans and heavy makeup that many of the Romans have, che bellezza! The guys of course knew a lot of the people in there and introduced me to their friends. I particularly remember Maria. We talked a bit and she wasn’t too bad looking either (major understatement!) But in the end, I was about the only person in the room that couldn’t dance salsa, so I spent most of the evening just watching everyone, which may not sound like a whole lot of fun but I had a blast! Salsa is a beautiful dance and all these people were great dancers, including my friends, so I really enjoyed watching everyone. We all had a good time and I enjoyed the fact that I had just rolled into town that day and now I was in a cool club hanging out with new friends that evening. Actually, I should say the next morning, because it was probably after midnight by the time we arrived and around 6:00am when we finally got home.

Later that afternoon after getting some sleep I decided to go get something to eat. It was Sunday and the two bars on the square were closed. The little store was surprisingly open, but I didn’t feel like cooking anything so I deciced to ride down to Marina and find some pizza or something. When I got down there I realized that there really wasn’t too much there, and everything was closed except for a bar. Again, what they call a bar is basically a café, and they often have panini or cornetti to eat, but they are there primarily to drink café and talk to the neighbors, and they are usually the only thing you will find open on a Sunday. Unfortunately this bar only had a few pastries to eat, so with no other choice I had one of those. Feeling totally unsatisfied I decided to go back up the hill and get something from the store to cook. Too late, it was now closed. Beginning to starve I decided to raid the cabinets in my house. There were cooking utensils, plates, glasses, etc., so maybe someone left a morsel of food. Jackpot! There was a small package of pasta, maybe left by Gary when he was there two years ago I don’t know, but I cooked it and ate it plain. It wasn’t that good, but not too bad and I had to eat something, geez. This is the one thing I don’t care for too much and have to get used to. At least here in the south and in the smaller towns, if you don’t have food in the house on Saturday you don’t eat on Sunday. Oh well. I was hoping to catch up with Domenico today but since I slept half the day and it was Sunday I decided not to bother him. Instead I took a little ride around the surrounding hills and got to see some impressive views of the hills and the sea.

By that evening I decided to head back down the hill to see about dinner since I was starving again and the girl at the bar had told me something would be open for dinner that night. So I’m on my way down the hill not far from the bottom when the bike runs out of gas! Cazze! So I casually put it in neutral and coast down to the main road and park the bike in an empty lot. Yes I knew it was low on gas, but I thought I had plenty to go a couple miles down and back, and besides, the gas station was of course closed all day anyway and I had to eat! At this point I really didn’t care about the bike I just wanted to find some food. So I walked around and still absolutely nothing, was open. Great, now not only am I starving but I have to walk 5km uphill in the dark and go to bed tired and hungry. So I started walking and within a minute a car stops and it was Domenico’s sister with Pepe and the kids. Che fortuna! They asked me what had happened and I explained it to them the best I could. She said now I was having an avventura!. Fortunately they knew of an open pizza place the other direction not far away, so they took me there and then Pepe gave me his cell number to call him so he could give me a ride back up the hill. They were really nice and I was so happy to get out of that one. The pizza place was tiny with basically nobody there, but they made the pizza fresh just for me. I ordered three big pieces and a beer and ate two of them while watching the Italian version of "Deal or no Deal" and talking to the owner of the place. The pizza was probably some of the best I’ve had and I felt so much better I can’t describe it. I decided to take the other piece with me so I would have food in the house (I’m learning) and called Pepe. He said he had talked to Domenico and that he would come get me. Finally I was home and had a full stomach. Buono.

I had decided to stay another day since Sunday was a flop and I wanted a chance to see some of Domenico’s houses, not to mention my bike was still sitting down the hill without gas. Domenico picked me up in the afternoon and took me down the hill to my bike and I pushed it a block to the gas station. We then took a walk around Superiore looking at many of the renovated houses. They were really incredible, especially when you see the 500 year old remains he starts with. Each one was unique and I could tell Domenico really worked hard on this and took a lot of pride in it, as he really got excited when describing everything. He’s a good guy and I can see why he and Gary got along well. Oh, and that day I bought some food from the store and cooked for myself.

My last morning in Badolato I finally met up with another one of Gary’s friends. Her name is Michelle, she is about my age and she is from Pensylvania. Turns out her greatgrandfather was born in Badolato and she decided she wanted to live there. So she bought one of Domenico’s houses and now lives there full time. I had emailed her before and was looking forward to talking to her and getting her impression of Italian life. We sat in the other bar and she told me how most people either go to one or the other, but not both. She seems to really enjoy it there and has adapted pretty well, and even has a boyfriend named Paulo who works for Domenico as a painter. He was able to join us since it was going to rain that day and you can’t paint in the rain. It was nice to talk to an American for the first time in a couple months too. Although I’ve spoken plenty of English here and there, it sounds more familiar coming from an American so that was nice.

It was now time to be off, and yes it was about to start raining again….