In the ancient epic poem, The Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer tells the tale of Odysseus’s journey home from the Trojan War. He became lost on the way and had to brave numerous trials and dangers including the brutal cyclops, the sirens with their bewitching song, and the Scylla and Charybdis. As the story goes, the Scylla was a six headed monster, and Odysseus’s crew had to navigate the narrow passage between the beast and Charybdis, a massive whirlpool.
My train ride from Reggio Calabria up the Southern Italian coast this morning took about an hour, hugging a precarious line where this mountainous land drops beneath the waves, along the way ducking in and out of tunnels, weaving through quiet towns and solitary farms.
At the end of today’s voyage, I stepped with my bags into the station at Scilla, a small town perched on the promontory represented in that tale. With that sort of connection to ancient myth, there was almost no chance I would miss out on the chance to come here.
The town of Scilla is divided in two, with the train station being south of the ridgeline. My hotel stands on the northern side, in the Chianalea neighborhood.
The fastest route between the two is a narrow highway that passes upward and over the ridge line and is distinctly unfriendly to pedestrians, so I chose the route that would take me around the edge of the cliff, along the shore of the sea.
The path led me down a pitted blacktop road between weathered buildings whose gold color had long since faded to a jaundiced shade of brown.
And beyond the buildings end, the road opened up to a glimmering sidewalk on a beguiling shore.
I wasn’t expecting this in the least.
As I walked bemusedly northward along the shore, the sun warmed my face and I slid my light jacket from my shoulders, tying it loosely around my waist. To the west, the sea lapped lightly against the small gravel making up the beach, and ahead of me and to my right the buildings of the town rose precipitously, perched one on the other like a game of Jenga, gazing out to where the sun set every evening.
My path would eventually lead back to the highway I had tried to avoid (the route around the promontory appeared more perilous), but there were few cars on the road and I managed to hug the roadside whenever a vehicle approached.
On the far side of the promontory, I found steps leading down into Chianalea, where the daily wash hangs to dry between the houses and there is barely enough space for two buildings and a narrow lane.
On the waterfront here, hotels and restaurants abut the sea, and in summer they set out dining areas over the water.
Between the buildings, the ocean laps gently against the stone, and an occasional boat is pulled into dry dock.
Along the way I find fishermen mending traps and nets; their bright green and blue wooden boats are ages old – they don’t have the newest technology or design. But these men have been fishing these waters for generations – they have these craft – their craft – in their DNA. They have surely changed over the centuries, but these changes are certainly evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Further down, one woman stands in the road and has a boisterous conversation with her friend folding the laundry on her balcony.
I am in Scilla, my friends, and there is nothing monstrous about the place. It is yet one of several seasonal waterfront towns on the coast here. I’m in the offseason, so much of the town is closed, but I like it better that way.
Perhaps I miss something, but I gain something as well, and that’s for the best. During the late winter in such places, the work of living goes on, in the grinding of the saws, the mending of the nets, the hanging of the laundry, and the gossip of everyday existence.
It’s humanity, and it’s beautiful.
butterblogger 
Gorgeous!