To Diamante: surviving a series of fiascos

May 6, 2019

Rachael and I face a difficult decision this morning, with the usual pros and cons: should we bike the 46 miles to Diamante, or take the train?

Arguments in favor of the train:

Rachael slept very poorly last night, and awoke this morning feeling somewhat nauseated.
This is one of the most convenient places to take the train. The station is just a few blocks from our hotel. We’ll gain some experience that may help us out at the end of the tour, when we need to catch a train back to Palermo.
It’s socially responsible to give business to the Italian train system, and support public mass transit.
The weather looks very unfriendly today. Cold, rainy, and very windy - a steady 20+ mph west wind (a direct crosswind the whole way), with potential gusts to 40. We’ve just finished reading of the Classens’ windy ride to Geneva, and don’t find today’s prospects appealing.
Today’s ride doesn’t look particularly attractive, with most of it spent on busy SS18 again. Who wants to share a highway with the big trucks on a wet day with strong crosswinds?

Arguments in favor of biking:

We’re on a bike trip. We should bike.
Weather reports are often wrong. Today could prove to be a fine cycling day, and we’d feel silly for sitting it out.
We would earn a better dinner by biking than by sitting on our duffs all day.
We just had a day off the bikes. Two in a row feels either faint-hearted or self-indulgent.
All our biking friends will think we’re wimps.

Five arguments for, and five against. The eternal decision-maker’s dilemma - what to do in case of a tie. I reach for a euro to flip, when we receive a sign from the gods: a huge thunderclap shakes the windows of our hotel room. The train it is!

The departure we’ve scoped out leaves at 9:02. We get an early start, showing up at the pasticceria before seven. Rachael wolfs down her pastry and two americani faster than I do, so she heads back to the room to start packing while I finish up. I’m just about to leave when she calls and reminds me to hurry up. Bending the truth ever so slightly, I say I’m on my way as I stand up and hurriedly step out the door so she won’t hear telltale sounds from the cafe.

A half hour later we’re at the train station, where I do the team proud by demonstrating half of my Italian vocabulary in purchasing tickets and getting directions. A few minutes later we’re standing on Binario 3, with almost a half hour until departure. We’re both a bit stunned when we discover that the sottopassagio is ramped, so we don’t need to lug our loaded bikes down and up the stairs to reach our platform. Amantea is definitely our new favorite town now.

Q: How often do you see this, a ramped sottopassagio at an Italian train station? A: Virtually unprecedented. We love Amantea!

What a beautiful sight! It’s even gradual enough that you could comfortably bike it.

With plenty of time to spare, Rachael heads off to find a restroom while I take a few photos. She returns a few minutes later to report that there is a restroom, but it’s locked. A minute later, I finally realize that I’m missing my rain parka. I’ve left it at the pasticceria, in my haste to depart quickly when Rachael called. So, her fault then.

On Binario 3, waiting for the train To Paola. We see that my green coat is missing from my bike, as well as from my shoulders. I won’t realize this it another ten minutes though, which is almost too late.

There’s a 20 mph wind blowing straight in off the sea today, and it’s really building up the surf.

We were so fortunate yesterday to have such a fine afternoon. We wouldn’t have seen nearly as much if conditions were like this morning’s.

Another good use of a superzoom camera: I can read signs too far away to resolve with the naked eye. It looks like our 9:02 departure is still on schedule and we’re on the right platform.

It’s really a good jacket - too good to leave behind. It would be worth missing the train in any case, but there’s still fifteen minutes. I race off on my bike, grateful that the sottopassagio is ramped. Five minutes there, one to retrieve the coat they’ve been hoping I’d return for, and five minutes back. Four minutes to spare. The train arrives exactly on time at 9:02, and we hurriedly find the car with the bike icon (as usual, the last car on the train), quickly board, and the train departs at 9:04.

On the dot. Why can’t we do this in America?

The bike car has racks for six bikes. Since we’re getting off at the next stop though, we just leave them by the exit.

The view from the train, north of Amantea. It’s dry for the moment, but it looks like we’ve made the right call today.

Our ride to Diamante requires a train change at Paola, the next stop on the line. We get off as fast as we can and hustle toward binario uno, grateful that the conductor instructed us on directions. We aren’t fast enough though - there’s a crowd that holds us up, and the sottopassagio is not ramped. It all takes us just a minute too long. Our train is still in the station, but as I reach for the button to open the door, the train jerks into motion as if I’d initiated it. So close!

The next regional train that allows bicycles does not depart for two and a half hours. A bit frustrating, and it’s cold and windy even inside the station. The first half hour goes by quickly though when we have a delightful encounter with Kirsten, a Scotswoman from Edinburgh who opens up a conversation with us while she waits for her own departure.

Kirsten, a linguist who lives in nearby Cosenza and teaches at the university there, is very warm and outgoing and has interesting stories to share. She tells us a bit of her family history, and of her cousin and his partner who are also bike travelers and make our own modest adventures sound tame in comparison with their rides from China back to Scotland, and then across the Atacama Desert and on down the coast of South America. She tells us of how unseasonable this weather is today and that they’re seeing snow in the interior just east of here. And, she also glowingly describes the North Coast 500, a large recently dedicated tour route that circles the northern half of Scotland. If we bike it ourselves someday we’ll think back with fondness and gratitude on this chance encounter. Regardless of what happens with the weather today, it makes us glad that we took the train.

After Kirsten moved on, we retire to the bar for the next hour and a half before moving on (under the unramped sottopassagio again) to Binario four and the regional train for Naples. Our stop, Diamante, is about a half hour up the tracks. We watch our progress carefully on the cellphone, because we want to be sure to be ready to detrain - we have to get our bikes to the door and haul the bikes down from their racks. We have it all worked out mentally, so when our phone indicates we’re three minutes away we quickly spring into action. We’re out quickly and efficiently, and the conductor waves a red flag to the front of the long train to give the all clear. The doors close, the train starts moving immediately. So efficient!

We look around, and at the station. This isn’t Diamante. We got off one stop too soon. Our well discussed plan didn’t include checking the name on the station to be sure we were disembarking at the right spot.

No worries. We’re only a flat five miles from Diamante, it’s not raining now, and has hardly rained at all since leaving Amantea. We could have biked after all, although then we would have missed our serendipitous visit with Kirsten. After crossing the of course unramped sottopassagio we start biking toward Diamanté, and it almost immediately starts raining. We take shelter in a bar, and for the next hour and a half stare outside as it alternately pours like gangbusters and then stops for a spell.

It looks like we made the right call this morning after all. Definitely better weather for taking a train than riding a bike. It’s a pity that we can’t figure out how to get off at the right stop though.

Not a bad refuge to hang out in for awhile. Dry, not too chilly, and with good WiFi and room inside for the bikes.

We debate a bit whether we should bike back to the train station and hop on the next train that takes bikes, which leaves in about 90 minutes. I lobby against it - I don’t really want to schlep our bikes under another unramped sottopassagio again, and I’m also not certain that we’re legal to get back on again. So we wait.

While we wait, we get ready to bike. We wrap up for wet weather, and change into bike clothes so our street clothing and shoes won’t get soaked. At this point, I discover that my bike shorts are missing. I’ve apparently left them in the bathroom of our hotel room, hanging behind the door. I have a spare, but the ones I’ve left behind are the newer ones. The ones I’m left with are old and broken down and Rachael laughs at me when I wear them because it makes my butt look saggy. No one likes being laughed at for having a saggy butt, I don’t think.

So there’s argument #6 for biking: in our rush to catch the train, we break our normal routine and are more apt to make mistakes.

Finally a bit of a clearing spell appears, and we take our chances. Two minutes later, the train we chose not to take races by, taunting us with the fact that it will get to Diamante before we will. It’s fine though - the weather holds, it’s a quiet ride, and before long we arrive dry at our hotel. All’s well that ends well - particularly since the good folks at our hotel in Amantea have agreed to mail my bike shorts forward to our hotel in Matera, where we’ll arrive in about ten days. I really like Amantea.

And I really like Diamante too. I’m surprised at how great it is, and fall in love with it just as much as I did with Scilla, Tropea and Amantea. Calabria is really fantastic!

There’s enough to show and tell about Diamante to fill a whole post, so I’ll stop here for now. See you later.

The sea and sky are incredible here in Diamante when we arrive. Amantea is about forty miles south, off in that gloom somewhere. We definitely made the right call taking the train today.

The view from the small balcony of our hotel. Not bad.

We ended up the day at a so-so waterfront restaurant, but the view from our table of the sunset was perfect.

Ride stats today: 6 miles, 200’ elevation gain; for the tour, 1,194 miles, 81,300’

Today's ride: 6 miles (10 km)
Total: 1,194 miles (1,922 km)

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Susan CarpenterWhat a day! Great read - glad that everything worked out.
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5 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Susan CarpenterIt was a pretty great day, really - one we aren’t likely to forget soon. A comedy of errors, but it all worked out.
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5 years ago

Bruce LellmanWhat a great and dramatic day. Lots of twists and turns and you weren't even on your bikes for them!

Whenever we are on a long cycle trip and I lose some weight Andrea says I have "old man butt". So, I empathize.
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5 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Bruce LellmanRachael makes a nice clarification here, in my defense. She says I don’t have Old Man Butt; I have old man shorts. I do have the other, related OMB condition though: Old Man Brain.
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5 years ago

Jen RahnGlad they were able to forward your shorts! Always good to do what you can to minimize Saggy Butt Days.
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5 years ago

Bruce LellmanI'm starting to have that particular OMB also. I guess the only saving grace here is that we can bandy about these OMBs with ease as long as we still are riding bikes on long rides in other countries. It somehow makes up for any OMBs.
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5 years ago