On the way to TROPEA, we detoured to MORANO CALABRO, a city which ascends up a tall mountain. However, we did not ascend. The road, we suspected, would be complicated with narrow twists and turns. Additionally, the historic centers of Italian cities are protected from motor traffic via the ZTL designation, which stands for "zona traffico limitato". Forgive me if I have misspelled that. Few cars are issued permits to enter the ZTL's. There are cameras which catch offenders. A citation is mailed to the owner of the car's license plate. The fines are large, "un sacco di soldi", expensive, a bag of money. We did not drive up to the oldest part where there is a fancy ristorante. We stayed down below and visited La Cantina for lunch.
The dining room is a rectangle, large and plain. "Mama" was in the corner. There, she manipulated flour and eggs into pasta dough. Then rolled out her lumps of rested dough with a matarello. A matarello is a long thin pole of wood used for rolling dough and for whacking the Italian husband when he displeases mama. Mama seemed happy. The husband was safe. The matarello rolled her dough flat. She cut the dough into pencil length strips which she wrapped around a skewer and rolled back and forth. The finished spiral noodle, she slipped from the skewer and onto a linen lined tray. We ordered the antipasto della casa. We were surprised when, after a first plate arrived, a second plate arrived, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and an eighth. They were large plates piled with delicious things We were being fattened up! There were anchovies freshly caught, cleaned and fried. Thin slices of fresh and sweet zucchini, sliced into sticks, then bundled into stacks and fried. Three cheeses. Sardella, which is a paste made from sardines and red peppers pounded to a pulp. There were slices of a loaf, which consisted of chopped meat in a vinegared aspic. And delicious meatballs seasoned with parmegiano cheese. Creamy beans cooked with prosciutto. Thin slices of baked eggplant. It was too much food. and it would be followed by two main courses. Fortunately, I can be counted on to eat like a goose fattening my liver for fois gras. When mama generously bestows her creations on us, I cannot leave a bite on my plate. We ate everything including Wes's Cavatelli pasta with ricotta and basil. And my mixed grill of three meats. Mama treated me to a fourth meat, veal, because I had asked about it earlier. My mixed grill plate had pork loin, sausage, chicken and veal. So full! Oh no, I forgot we ordered side vegetables. A huge platter of sautéed chicory arrived. I practiced phrases of apology, "perdonaci", (forgive us), "scusaci", (excuse us). "Tutto erano molto buono ma non abbiamo spazio per tutti", all was very good, but we do not have space for everything. In the end, we ate everything. They offered dessert. We declined. Wes paid the bill and went outside. Mama sent dessert anyway. I had to. I ate it. Mama's just baked thin cake with fruit apricots in the batter was molto buona. We got back into the car. And finally, we drove to TROPEA.
The rural scenery throughout this area is quite consistent. Everywhere, there are high and low hills. Rolling. Undulating. Dry stone walls which turn steep hills into plantable terraces and identify the property lines. They zig zag up and down. There are vast vistas of olive groves and vineyards. It is, currently a great season for wild flowers. Everywhere, there are yellow and purple and blue flowers and red poppies. Eventually, we arrived at the shore, the Ionian Sea, I believe. Or maybe it is the Tyrrhenian shore.
Our room in TROPEA was on the second floor of a small inn, adjacent to similar inns, on the sand. The sand is fine and white. The water is almost transparent. The summer season has not begun. We had the inn, the sand and the water mostly to ourselves. On the sand, in front the inns are several platforms. They offer beach chairs, umbrellas, showers, drinks and food. We chose a random one and became regulars for our few days. The proprietor was a lively personality. He told us of his days working on ships and of the foreign and exotic locales he experienced. We recited our speech to him, that we are studying Italian and would do our best to understand. He spoke slowly.
When we asked about local foods, he made them for us. One day at lunch, he had just received from his fisherman friend a bucket of six-inch long fish with rosy skin. Of course, we wanted them. They practically jumped from the sea and onto his platter. Catch of the day in that setting is special. They were lightly breaded and sautéed. Their meat was sweet and outstanding. In another instance, we had heard our housekeeping staff talk about, doo-yah. That is how they pronounce, 'nduja, a sausage from CALABRIA, (the Italian state which TROPEA is in), made from various cuts of pork which are slow cooked with spicy red chilis. It is used as a condiment on pasta and meat. Our proprietor whipped up, for us, a plate of spaghetti with 'nduja and and slow cooked "cipolle rosse di TROPEA", the famous,red, torpedo-shaped local onions. The spaghetti was red, delicious and savory from the 'nduja. And the sweet onions melted into a sauce. It was spicy and sweet and seductive and made our happy tongues red.
On another day, we went up hill, from the shore to the mesa where the town proper is located. And this is what I wrote ......
We are in the historic district of Tropea. It is on a mesa. The sea is down below. The sand is white. The water is transparent. Invisible with a hint of blue. We are in the town square, the piazza. It is perfect climate. We are in shorts and light sweaters. The main drag runs about four old cobble stoned ancient streets. There are eateries one after another. They are attractive. Some have music. We are seated in a wine bar and into our second glass of fine local wine. It is red. It is seductive. The winemaker is a woman. Her winery, Terre Nobili, was started by her father. The red wine is Alarico. It is one-hundred percent the "nerello cappuccio e mascalese" grape. I have never heard of it. But this region, this province has had wine since the year eight-hundred before-christ. Hercules lived here. The original Olympic athletes drank these wines, (or so legend has it.) So, we are seated in an outdoor wine bar, drinking multiple glasses of this Olympian, Herculean wine and feeling no pain. Life is good. We are in the old world. I cannot explain it. I cannot put my finger on it. But it is different here. The pace of life. The appreciation of taking the time to sit outdoors in Tropea on the Mediteranean and wallow in the simple pleasure of an ancient product hand crafted by people who care intensely about doing something as passionately and finely as it can be done, not motivated by fame or ambition, just personal satisfaction. Our wine is part of that. And as if our wine was not enough, platters of food, come with the wine. not just a potato chip or a peanut, but platters of delicious things. On our platters were steak tartar and oven roasted long green peppers sweet as could be, thin sliced zucchini rolled around something irresistible and on and on and on. The music playing is a mix of Brazilian samba and American jazz.
Everything, the music, delicious wine, the hours we spent on the white sand and in the blue water and eating our lunch of seven-inch rose colored petticine fish just plucked from the sea, which we ate as if playing a harmonica, our teeth pulling the sweet meat off the tiny skeleton and there were the sweet gambero rosso shrimp and the swordfish caught by young fishermen from a few miles south and the amaro digestivo made from local herbs, then there are the Italiani so full of life, so willing to interact, if we smile and say buon giorno, as if they are all, to a person, our host at this party of our trip.
We are here, in TROPEA, for less than forty-eight hours. It is an entirely different ambiance than the inland, hilltop villages. It took me a few moments to adjust to the coastal seaside setting which has not got the
urban antiquity to wander through. But the sea is antique, the shore needs nothing manmade for it to be extraordinary and beautiful and I should appreciate the beauty. But I love the man-made stuff that is old, old, old. The buildings with plaques that say Pythagoras lived here. Or Caesar was assassinated here. Or Dante in the year thirteen-hundred wrote about a man who lived in this building. At the sea, I have to shift gears. I am slow to do so. I am a work in progress. But it happens. It has happened. And we are wallowing in the old world pleasure of TROPEA in Calabria in Italy on the European continent on this our magnificent globe with it's abundance of good things.
We were sorry to leave, but we packed up, waved good by to the sea from our second floor, ivy and bougainvillea fringed, patio and drove the car forty-five minutes north to the train station In La Mezia. Wes returned the car. One hour later, we boarded the train. Two hours later the train arrived in VILLA SAN GIOVANNI where the most remarkable thing happened. A ship, parked at the dock, opened it's giant upper mouth and our train rolled right inside it. Totally, Noah, in the belly of the whale. The ship's mouth closed and the ferry sailed across the strait to MESSINA where the mouth opened and the train rolled out and two hours later we arrived in SIRACUSA on the mid-eastern Sicily shore.
Wes and Marlow
Tropea, Italy
May 18, 2016
