How has May disappeared so quickly? Maybe time has a different speed here in Scalea. A lot of people say that when they come for a holiday. Thinking about it, we say it all the time and we live here permanently. Or maybe, it is something to do with helping our friends getting their new restaurant ready.
John was quite busy at the restaurant, helping with all sorts of stuff. He felt like he had a job again after being 2 and a half years in retirement. Ha-ha. I went with him to help where I could.
A lot needed doing to get it ready. There were no lights, previous tenants pretty much took everything away, everywhere needed cleaning, new crockery, cutlery, tablecloths, cooker, everything really. They have done a lot. It is pretty much ready to open now but a mandatory food and beverage administration course must be completed and passed. Denisa is the lucky one who is completing it. It will not finish until end of the month so fingers crossed the restaurant can open very early July. Good luck Denisa!
I had the pleasure of helping them create the restaurant logo as I have the skills and relevant software. They also had restaurant sign, an advert, business cards, invitations and shirt name labels. It was fun and not too much toing and froing with changes etc., unlike in the past with various jobs. I think they were happy with it all.
Now writing this, it has made me realise that I don’t have one for The Calabrian Dream, maybe I should start thinking about that.
They now have a Facebook page so go and have a look at Facebook
A bonus of being friends with restaurant owners is that we have been there many times to try out their food which is always very tasty. So, we have had working lunches there. Also, the restaurant has a wood-fired pizza oven, which no one has used before. Therefore, the pizza oven had to be fired up for the first time to 1, see if it works and 2, to see if they can make pizzas from scratch. They made the dough a couple of days before and then shaped the pizzas for the first time ready for toppings. It didn’t take them long to get into it. We all brought some different toppings. And despite the fact it was their first time, the pizzas looked great and were very tasty. They tried again another day with equal success. So that can only be a good thing for the restaurant.
It was Tony N’s birthday in May. Of course, we celebrated at the restaurant. Again, the food was great, a good time was had and even the upstairs neighbours of the restaurant joined later. It was great day.
We also met Tony and Angela’s friends from Sweden, Gert and Ann-Kristin. They are lovely people and invited us to theirs for a Sunday lunch which was slow roast beef. It was beautiful.
John had an appointment on 28th to have his first Covid vaccine in Diamante. So off we went a few days before, to see where it was and to actually go out of Scalea, which we haven’t done for what seems like years. After a bit of lazy wandering, as Diamante is a lovely place to look around, we eventually found it with the help of a huge sign saying vaccination centre. It was near to the Comune offices so not hard to find.
On the way back to Scalea, we decided to go up to the ruins of Cirella which is the original town of Cirella on top of a hill, it also has an amphitheatre that is used for concerts when there were concerts, hopefully to return soon. Unfortunately, we could not get in to walk around as the gates were closed, but I did take a couple of photos of the area and the view to the sea.
After that little disappointment we thought we would stop off at the beach of Cirella, just to have a look and see what’s happening, if anything. We hadn’t been there since my birthday in 2019. Restaurants were just opening as it was around midday, so we decided to have something to eat at one of the seafood restaurants on the beach called Ristorante Lucio. We had a lovely meal overlooking the sea. It was a while since we went to a restaurant, we enjoyed it very much.
Cirella Beach 
Ristorante Lucio
As bars were able to reopen, we finally returned to Bar da Pietro. We met a lovely couple from Northern Ireland, Jim and Alan. They have basically been stuck in Scalea since October. To be fair it is not the worst place in the world to be stuck. We found each other on Instagram so thought we would meet up once restrictions eased. It was a lovely afternoon, thanks guys. Hope to see you again soon before you return home.
The day of John’s vaccine on the 28th came and in the morning, John received a call cancelling the appointment. He was told that he will be called again to receive another date in June. There was no reason given, just that his is cancelled. So that was a non-starter.
For those who have been following, you may remember our issues with getting driving licences. In January, we both received our licences, but mine had the wrong place of birth. Then lockdown happened again and the driving licence issuing office in Cosenza closed. Well, May 2021 was the time I had a call to say I must return to the autoscuola to hand my incorrect licence back to Paolo as he was going to Cosenza the following day where he will exchange it for the correct one. I went there straightaway and handed over the incorrect licence and then returned the following day to hopefully collect a correct one. So, now I can tell you that after 10 months, I am finally an owner of a correct Italian driving licence. Yippee! One thing is different though apart from the correct place of birth, the old licence said I could drive, I suppose the correct term is ride a large motorcycle, the new one states only a small moped. I think that is an incredibly good thing, as I have haven’t even sat on a motorcycle let alone ridden one.
That is that for the month of May. As the weather has warms up nicely, Covid numbers decrease and more people get vaccinated, we are hoping for less restrictions and people can have their holidays here. I guess time will tell.
See you next time.
A presto!
again really good
again very very good
Thank you very much! Always interesting to read your blog:)
Thanks