Day 55 - Reggio Calabria

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1

I spent the morning at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale home of the famous Riace Bronzes.  These are two life sized bronze statues from Ancient Greece that were found off the Calabrian coast.  They are incredible.  They are housed in a special climate controlled room that you have to go through airlocks to enter.  Only a certain number of people are allowed in at any one time.  I managed to gain entrance as part of a small group of free range tourists, after a group of school children and before a bus tour group.

 

 

The rest of the museum was well worth a look too.  It was similar to the one in Siracusa but much better laid out.  Like the Siracusan museum, it showed the history of the region from prehistoric times through to the Romans.  However, it just had one display case per feature, not room after room of pots or flint knifes or bronze swords.  They also made an effort to lay it out by theme.  This section on farming practices, this one on religous practices, this on day to day life, this one for funeral practices.  They also had displays on various towns and villages in region.  I suspect this would have been more interesting for people who knew the modern geography of Calabria and could pick out when an ancient village was near/where a modern town is now.

I spent all morning wandering around and then had a couple of hours to fill before having to catch a train to my cousin's place.  There were signs for a hop on-hop off bus but I've gone off those.  Instead, I managed to get a gelati from the recommended place and just went for one last amble alomg the sea short and around town.

For lunch I went to a another recommended place, Fratelli La Bufala.  I'm in the home region of buffalo mozzarella so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have some.  However, I have to confess, when it is on a pizza I can't tell the difference between buffalo mozzarella and the sort made from plain old cow's milk.  

 

I had a minor success at lunch.  A waitress said something to me but it made no sense at all.  She repeated herself but I still drew a blank.  She finally repeated herself but this time in Italian.  I didn't understand before because she was speaking dialect, not because I've forgotten all my Italian.  There is hope I will be able to communicate with my cousin after all!

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Some time later.  

 

I arrived at Lamezia Terme and wasn't just met by my cousin.  With her was her sister-in-law, her younger sister and her younger sister's two daughters.  Once we got to her home another couple (whose relationship to me I didn't catch) and their two young children also showed up.  Much conversation happened which I didn't have to take much part in.  Then they all left but not long after my cousin's son showed up.  Soon after her sister-in-law came back, this time bringing her husband.  More conversation, with only occasional uses of google translate but I'm sure I'm missed more than I understood.

 

Once everyone had finally left, my cousin kept offering me the chance to have a shower or wash some clothes.  After the 2nd or third offer I took the hint and did a big load of washing plus had a shower myself.  I got so carried away with having access to a washing machine I washed so many of my clothes I stuck with wearing my special occasion purple dress and sleeping in my gym gear.  I hope some of my laundry dries by tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow we go to the beach to look at apartments (I think).  Not sure what the plans are for Saturday.  Sunday there is to be an even greater gathering of the clan at a restaurant for lunch.