66. A Mediterranean Autumn on Italy's Calabrian Coastline
Stumbling upon curated gardens in an uncurated paradise, and Italian caffeine orders
Over the past month, literally everyone I know here, and even a few back home in Canada have succumbed to this covid-feeling flu variant that completely fucks your system. For the majority of November, I’ve been totally bedridden by whatever the hell this flu is, with insane brain fog and not able to do much, so I apologize for ghosting. And if you have also been stuck with this or something similar, I feel for you and I hope you feel better soon. It seems to take most people 3-4 weeks of hell before it leaves you with a lingering cough and ptsd sick migraines. yayy.
Let’s rewind to the end of October, before this shit went down, before we had another embarrassment with terrible hair in power, and we were in Italy for a little holiday….
Calabria, a region in Southern Italy is one of the few places in Italy you can find secret spots along the coast with nary another soul. Nico and I love to travel to more offbeat places when we can (Yes, I know Bali isn’t exactly offbeat, but we visit to see his family and always try to find more unique activities and places to check out on the island). For our travels to Italy, we always find ourselves drawn to Napoli and taking road (or ferry) trips from there. Our most recent Italian holiday found us driving even further, past Campania and into Northern Calabria to stay at an Agriturismo in Parco Nazionale del Pollino, the largest national park in the country.
Agriturismos are a popular way for Italians to travel around, they are often a farm that serves half board (breakfast), or full board (all the meals), with food mainly sourced from their own land and supplemented with local ingredients/wine etc. Normally nestled in nature, agriturismos provide a respite from busy city life with a guarantee of amazing food. Also, they are incredibly affordable for the service/food on offer. We stayed at TerreRosse di Massadita, tucked into the mountains of Pollino with a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea. I will delve more deeply into our stay there in a later newsletter <3
Today I’ll focus on Pollino National Park. We spent an afternoon perusing Orsomarso, a small village in the park with easy mellow hike access to a cute waterfall.
Coffee first though, always heavily caffeinated during Italian escapades…my go-to order is cappuccino with breakfast, then caffè nocciola senza zucchero for early afternoon. Evenings are for my favourite decaf caffè corretto con baileys (which I enjoy con ghiaccio and not just in the evenings during warmer months). I say these with such confidence like I can actually say those words in Italian, but really Nico orders for me while I smile awkwardly and fumble with google translate on my phone.
Any caffeine-induced anxiety is cured by campari aperitivo (I find aperol too sweet and a tad overdone - no worries if you love it obviously, I’m just an ultra snob raised by gays and masquerading as a nice canadian person). oh and the cure-all of filling up with pasta, ovviamente.
Orsomarso is also home to the insta-famed La Casa Dei Peperoncini. Perhaps you’ve seen 'Nduja as a trendy pizza topping in your favourite pizza place? ‘Nduja (a spicy spreadable sausage) and Peperoncino are just two of the many edible delights from Calabria that have cast their fame across the world.
Along the hike, we found some curated botanical corners, like this cute garden with view.
But also more structured set ups, such as an official arboretum and a medicinal plant garden.
Complete with a cute pond:
According to their website, this part of the National Park “was born thanks to the great sensitivity and attachment to their territory of its inhabitants who asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to establish a reserve to protect and safeguard this environment which is still uncontaminated today”. There were fountains of spring water along the hike where we filled up our bottles and truly it was some of the freshest water I’ve ever tasted.
The area protects indigenous flora such as juniper, elderberry, thyme and myrtle. It also protects the native Orsomarso deer, and birds such as the golden eagle, peregrine falcon, black woodpecker amongst many other fauna, which you can read more about here. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any wild animals during our hike but we did spot a wild boar, ferret-like animals and many adorable foxes strolling around country roads. I’ll share my shitty nighttime captures of those if I can find them, in another newsletter.
The arboretum boasted trees as tall as the natural forested ones surrounding the garden:
Plants grown in the gardens included oregano, periwinkle, ivy, primrose, columbine, and so many others. Each affixed with a plaque detailing botanical history and possible medicinal uses.
Forever cheating on my furbabies when we travel, sorry Elvis & Lulu
Feel free to check out my recent Adventures of a Garden Writer on Youtube <3 of which I am horrible at sticking to an algorithm flirting schedule since I tend to function as a grandmillenial trying to stay above water in a gen z world.
Thank you so much for being here, I’ll work on clearing the brain fog and getting back into writing again <3 See you next time for more about our Italian travels! Btw my holiday playlist, best shuffled, if you are interested:
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