Scilla

The evening before we did a mad dash from Civitavecchia (Northern port of Rome) to the northern countryside of Naples. The road conditions in Italy are horrific compared to the rest western Europe. It isn’t just the undulating motorways, or the ditches, or the black craters which jump out at you in the darkness… It’s the other drivers.

Everyday is a track day to the Italians; they are mental: Hovering up your arse at all times, over takes in blind corners, swerving back and forth to dodge potholes… You get used to it, but the initial drive in the fog at night in the middle of nowhere was nerve wracking.

We finally got to our first stay in Italy after climbing narrow roads higher and higher into the hills and slept for the night.

The area around us was beautiful and the house itself was great. We would stay there again: Cheap, huge and scenic.

We couldn’t stay long as we planned to get to Sicily as quickly as possible. We skirted round Naples seeing Vesuvius in the distance. It was much bigger than I was expecting but then I don’t know why I thought it would be small.

Italy is split north to south like the UK, only their north in the rich area. The south by contrast is much more deprived. This is as clear as day as you travel further and further south: The roads get worse, the areas look dirtier, and you have more people begging. At one point I had a guy at a service station trying to sell me socks for food.

It is a common misconception that Italian is the dominate language in Italy but the correct order is:

1. Car horns as a sort of morse code;
2. A hand raised to the mouth to say give me money; and
3. Italian.

This information is particularly important the further south you go.

We finally arrived in Scilla in the evening, not Sicily you noob but a town just across from Sicily on the coast. We went for a meal out where Anna spoke perfect Spanish to the waiter only to be told:

Thatsaa Spanishhhhh…

After returning to our flat — where we were the only guests in the building — we attempted to get some sleep before an eerie woman’s voice echoed in the hall way.

…. O.K …

Now… I have never understood the people that get haunted. The usual ghost story goes:

1. Something strange happens;
2. The people say they are rational and stay in the house;
3. Something even weirder happens which defies all rational explanation; and
4. The people say they are rational so stay in the house

I would like to think I would get to point 3 and leave the house since the rational explanation to something which has no rational explanation is ghosts. So when we heard the same eerie voice again, repeating the same phrase in Italian

…. O.K …

I was ready to go; however, we decided to wait in the hall in our pajamas for the voice. 10… 15… 20… minutes

…. O.K …

Why...

would...

you have...

this!

❮ ❯

After removing the creep camera we went back to bed hoping that the ghost couldn’t speak through any other devices.