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In this article I cite some examples of mistaken fellow travelers, touring southern Italy.

In August 2020 with what I renamed the lady of the woods we went on a road trip. Why we got this nice nickname I tell in this article. We had also brought along our marbles and bucket, but I didn’t have as much fun. We basically argued h 24 for 2 weeks.

I had no intention of letting Covid castrate my desire to travel. There was no going abroad and it was potentially risky to use public transportation, so I decided to embark on a trip I had had in my head for some time. I had been working for months on the itinerary that, with several stops in between, would have me explore mostly Calabria, a region I knew very little about, alternating between sea and mountains; hotels and campgrounds; villages and towns, going down the Tyrrhenian side and up the Ionian and then the Adriatic.

We had been together for a month and a half; I would have been sorry not to see her for two weeks, so I proposed to her to do all or part of the trip and to share the itinerary possibly reevaluating it. She agreed to everything and for the return we included Matera where I had already been but I would have loved to see her again together. We were still in the idyllic phase of our relationship, but there were some warnings that I ignored. Traveling around southern Italy, as often happens by vacationing as a couple, structural difficulties emerged.

Consciously she was not 100% convinced and unconsciously her body sent her a signal, she got the flu in August! Moreover, at the departure she arrived very late and still we had to go through her house because she had forgotten I don’t know what.

I didn’t know yet that she would become my queen of the wrong travel companions.

Litigious spouse spoils, in part, by turning to southern Italy

We stopped in Orvieto. The next day we would have breakfast and a tour of the cathedral. On the schedule was lunch in Tivoli and arriving in Salerno in the late afternoon. We skipped Tivoli because we lost a lot of time in Orvieto, and because she insisted on navigating with decades-old maps. Even the right highway exit was not indicated. She suffered in silence the 45 degrees we had in the car. In fact, as she was still a bit ill, air conditioning was forbidden.

At 6:30 p.m. at his request we had stopped at a beach in Salerno where he wanted to swim. I forced me to move because we were already late for the bnb check-in. He accused me of being dictatorial. We arrived late anyway; the hostess had already left and left us a kind of treasure map to find the keys. Compared to what we had planned together, we also skipped the visit to Salerno, and I flooded my side of the bed with sweat, dreaming of the tent where we were supposed to be cool the next day.

Actually even in the tent there were problems because he took it out on me for not being able to get the guys who were next to us to make less noise. Also the location was never good, but in general everything was not good and we were constantly fighting and not fully enjoying the beauty of the places. We did at least one tour in both the Pollino, Sila, andAspromonte, as well as sea days. Going from the Mediterranean maritime vegetation, to alpine landscapes in such a short time is one of the aspects I appreciated most, as well as the many culinary delights. Already in Tropea I had suggested that she get on the first train and go home.

Example of wrong travel companions? The jealous girlfriend

She had told me about her unfortunate previous relationships, all with emotionally unstable people. For example, the one who, while they were talking, ran, she chased him, and he threw himself into a dumpster. In Matera I understood and justified that.

He would squeal when a notification (like credit card payments) came to my phone. Also in the restaurant it was not really appropriate to address a waitress, for example. So I would try to sit facing a wall. I had to be focused and look her fixed in the eyes all the time, at most in the cleavage.

In Matera we struggled to find a table downtown. She was reluctant to make reservations, and pointed me out as too much of a planner. It had not been possible to choose a table, and my observant nature came out. I think the beauty of being in company is also to make silly gossip about the people around, like rankings.

• who trounced whom
• people’s work
• Who has been pooping for less time

A not very nice but harmless comment escaped me about the physical assortment of 3 friends, all of whom were huge. She made a scene at me for looking at the others. We ended our romantic evening among the sassi of Matera by shouting at each other from side to side on the road leading to the hotel.

The next day we were to stop in Taranto and then Castel del Monte. I am a big believer that the best way to make peace is to make love. But it no longer worked on the twelfth consecutive day. Dispossessed, I pointed straight home. Since those stages did not interest her, she said nothing. But at the height of Numana where she wanted to stop at all costs, she exasperated me and I had to stop. Then she became indignant when she heard those in the tent next door talking about us saying we did not look like a close-knit couple.

Photos of Calabria and Basilicata

Videos of when I returned to Matera with a traveling companion I got along with is here.

Food and wine vacationers

Certain friends can also make for the wrong travel companions. As I’ve already mentioned, when traveling through southern Italy, food and wine are extremely important. But they can’t be the only focus. I’ve also taken a few trips with friends—for example, to Sicily. We were at a disco-pub in Aci Trezza, right in front of the cliffs mentioned by Giovanni Verga in *I Malavoglia*. At 3 a.m., there was no one else left, except for the sleepy bartenders who were giving us dirty looks. We had an hour’s drive ahead of us to get to Taormina, where we were staying, and from there we had to walk down the steps to the city center because the shuttle wasn’t running anymore at that hour. I’d have left a while ago if I could have.

But one of my two friends proposed: shall we have another drink?

I looked at him intensely, limiting myself to ask: Why?

And he smiled: To stall.

I, too, have taken company vacations, mostly to be with friends, but I soon thought that one can do that at home, too. Traveling is something else and it is mostly being in unusual and challenging situations.

Some people go out just to drink and/or eat; while for me that is (for certain destinations) only part of it. It certainly seems like a waste of time to me to have a morning at a club to wake up the next day at 11:00. That trip was the side dish to the highlight, which was the Cure concert in the Greek Theater in Taormina; they played more than three hours in a venue that was nothing short of fantastic.

Home set of travel around southern Italy

Next stop Nice encounters during trips to southern Italy

Trips taken, travel stories divided by continent

Anecdotes, divided by type in travel narratives

Countries visited in my travel stories

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Fabio Viroli

Ho sempre avuto tante passioni, ma da sempre più o meno latenti, le principali sono viaggiare e scrivere. Tra le altre cose ho una laurea in psicologia; ho fatto per più di 30 anni l’allenatore di basket; leggo tanti libri; sono stato molto appassionato di sport e di musica rock; e faccio improvvisazione teatrale. IL mio primo romanzo, che non parla di viaggi, si chiama LE TUE GAMBE SONO BELLE COME LE TAGLIATELLE

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