OK, now I'm really messed up.  It's been a while and lots of changes of location and WIFI problems and on top of everything, I somehow managed to delete about 2 days worth of photos, so I have filled in with some of Carol's.

I left off our story on Wednesday in Otranto, which is basically 4 towns ago, so I'll try to remember what has happened since then.

Wednesday night, we went out for some overpriced but tasty mussels and calamari in the Old Town at Il Castello.  Thursday morning, we headed back up north about an hour to Lecce, a much bigger city, but we were really only visiting the old town, which is quite large itself and interesting.  Had a very nice lunch of burrata salad for Carol and a meatball pasta for me.  Of course, having found our way into town with no problem and finding a street parking spot, we took a bit of a circular tour of the town trying to get out, but it was only about 15 minutes.  I hate one-way streets.  Then home for a little beach time and then out for a very tasty and entertaining pizza dinner.  The entertainment part was the staff dealing with the waiting list (and the reactions of the people trying to wander in and "poach" tables) at this extremely popular pizza place on the edge of the old town.  We and the German couple at the next table (who it turns out were staying int the same "complex" as us, but in an apartment) were quite amused by the goings on.

Then Friday, a major travel day.  We were going coast to coast, from near the bottom of the "heel" on the Adriatic coast to near the "toe" on the Tyrrhenian coast, to Tropea, in Callabria.  It is supposed to be a 5 1/2 hour drive, so I figured 7 hours, allowing time for getting lost along the way and not being able to find the place once in town (remember, no street signs in most towns) and that turned out to be about right.  Got an interesting trip across the mountains on back roads because I was sure we had missed our turn to get across to the other side of Callabria.  Actually, we hadn't got there yet.  Of course, it doesn't help, the F#%&ing google maps referred to the highway we were looking for consistently as the E45, when in fact it is (now) the A3 (or A2 on some signs), so we didn't even know when we were back on the right road.  Anyway, got some interesting views and gave the clutch on the car a good workout.   Did I mention that the Fiat Punto has absolutely no guts and hates going up hills?

But we made it into Tropea and (eventually, of course) found our place, the Hotel Valemar.  Tropea is kind of a prototypical English and German package holiday beach town.  There are tons of large hotels (of which ours was one) up on the hills and various stairs down to the "beach clubs" below.  There is an airport a short train ride away that has direct 1-hour flights from England (and I assume Germany),  An interesting place to spend a night.  A bit of a Centro Storico, with of course lots of bars and restaurants and we found one for some decent pasta.  There was lots of live music setting up and doing sound checks, but we had another travel day coming the next morning and headed home early, much as would have liked to listen to some blues. 

Saturday, a travel day, but not as long.  We headed down the coast to Villa San Giovanni and caught the ferry to Messina, Sicilia.  Of course a few wrong turns along the way, but nothing major--I'm getting much better at U-turns.  From there we made our way up the coast to Milazzo, where we were once again going to stop for just one night before heading to Lipari, in Aeolian Islands.  Of course, got an unwanted tour of town before finding our B&B, Solaris.  Then we got bonus entertainment during lunch--there was a big go-kart race on and the qualifying was going on right beside us as we ate.  Definitely different.  I had pork medallions and mashed potatoes for dinner--can't eat Italian all the time!

In the morning, parked the car at a garage for 2 days and headed off on the hydrofoil (Carol survived) to Lipari.