How many days too many?

There have been moments at Camping Cala Dei Ginepri, despite being being camped among beautiful Mediterranean pines, under a deep blue sky with the sun 'pouring down like honey', when a mere half hour here can seem like one day too many. It is difficult to pin down our nadir given the rich mix of tricky incidents, odd behaviours, and dis-functional services we have experienced over the past few days.

A few examples:

1. The soundtrack: most of the day music pumps out of the big sound system at the bar and entertainment area about 150m from our pitch. It commences about 10.30am, and apart from a 'quiet time' lull between a  2pm - 5pm continues non-stop until midnight. On weekdays - the morning shift consists of best forgotten classics of Italian euro-pop; most tunes resembling some minor hit that didn't quite make the cut as Italy's  Eurovision entry in the mid noughties. The later shift has three distinct phases, a late afternoon period of Ibiza chill, an early evening interlude of anthemic uplifting ballads, followed by a DJ set of second rate dance oriented floor fillers.

Come Friday the basic pattern stayed the same, except the 8pm -10pm slot was replaced with a disco/dance competition for the under tens. An 'animateur' belted out pop classics for kids using a karaoke machine of death; each song featured a terrible sing-a-long chorus sung in a squeaky, upbeat falsetto more toxic than the worst Jpop monstrosity imaginable. Ninety minutes in I could feel my tenuous grip on sanity begin to slip, one more 'ba-ba-boo-doh-dee-doh-dee-dumb refrain and I would snap, it was just a question of deciding which of Gill's lethally sharp kitchen knives would be best to dispatch the hapless entertainer.

Somehow I made it through, but it's only Friday, what horrors await us tomorrow when it's the adults turn to party? 

2. Dramatis Personae:

Being the only Brits on a big family orientated seaside site in the south of Italy is like being the sole members of the audience in an all encompassing immersive theatrical experience. It's very animated.  Good old fashioned British stiff upper lip that counsels against making a drama out of a crisis would be lost on our fellow campers, who manage to transform every humdrum moment into an opportunity for dramatic exposition; even routine stuff like sweeping twigs from a ground sheet, taking last night's empties to the recycling bin, or ensuring the bambini brush their teeth to required parental standards, it's all recounted, commented upon and performed with a swagger and panache guaranteed to fascinate onlookers from colder, more introverted cultures. When, we wonder, will this interminable, but deeply felt recitative blossom into a full blown aria? But it doesn't, the mundane but over-dramatised charade just drones on endlessly like the plot-line of Corrie performed as Grand Opera. Like a soap opera, people watching on an Italian campsite is highly addictive, but is it good for the soul?

3. Designed to fail:

On paper the site is well equipped, it's just a lot of the stuff either doesn't work or it's not fit for purpose. 

Rather than a big central sanitary block each area of the site has a terraced row of individual bathrooms. We were allocated 60a.

Along with our happy camper blue plastic wrist bands, when we booked in we were handed a key with a numbered fob.

 

Of course the first thing I did within ten minutes of arrival was to close the bathroom kiosk door while leaving the key on the shelf inside. It must happen a lot, even before I had finished my sheepish explanation the receptionist reached for the master key on her desk and handed it to me with a wan smile.

Nothing works properly. Only after I had removed the cistern lid and fiddled with the gubbins could I get the toilet to flush properly. The washbasin does drain, but very slowly and the shower on good days, after five minutes or so, almost gets tepid. 

We needed to use a service point to empty the Thetford and dump grey water. I checked the usual spots - next to a sanitary block, near the entrance, in the car park near the recycling bins, but simply wandering about was not going to work. Gill asked the receptionist when we arrived if she had a site plan. No, was the reply, her slightly puzzled expression indicating this she considered this a highly esoteric request. In the end I had to head back to  reception to ask for directions to the service point.

An older, slightly distinguished looking chap was behind the desk. His English was as minimal as my Italian. Somehow I managed to communicate my need by repeating the words 'camper' 'chemical' 'toilet' 'empty', but changing the word order while making a chain pulling gesture every time the word 'empty' occured, as if on each repitition an image of a WC cistern might magically materialise above my head. I must have put in an impressive performance because after the third run- through his face lit up, he raised a clenched fist to his left ear,  his fingers sprang open - a lightbulb moment gesture I presumed. 

"Come!" He exclaimed, and we both marched off down a side road, past the swimming pool and tennis courts until we approached a dilapidated entrance, one stone gatepost leaned at an alarming angle, a rusting wrought iron gate lay in the nearby ditch, the other post prone  beside it. The area seemed to be the site's maintenance yard, it was full of junk, broken basins, old ehu poles, piles of gravel covered in weeds. In the corner, half overgrown, was a narrow culvert covered by two rectangular metal grids.  One of them had a bit rusty wire looped around it. Now embracing the role of technical director my new companion carefully raised the grid while making exaggerated tipping gestures. I resisted the temptation to emulate his lightbulb moment charade, I just nodded and repeated "si" lots.

You need to be a motorhome owner to fully appreciate how gross this arrangement is, where you pour the contents of a chemical toilet cassette down the same drain as the waste water, basically it's an open sewer with a grid. Municipal Aires in France used to specialise in them, though they are less common these days. The problem doesn't just lie in the design of the thing itself, but the disgusting behaviour of some other users. Lifting the grid is too much like hard work for some people, they simply pour the contents of the cassette through the grid, the more solid matter and used toilet paper clogs-up the mesh and in  hot climate the material solidifies into a truly gross form of papier maché. Yeuk, but I'm the designated on-board 'Thetford technician' so on departure it's going to be on with the Marigolds and get get stuck in...  There are challenges as well as joys as we wander about.

4. Part shanty town part campsite 

We are familiar with Italian seaside campsites. Most only operate April to September but a few offer an ACSI discount during the winter months to serve a few foolhardy souls who attempt to tour Italia in the low season. If you read the campsite reviews then the the most  common terms are - dilapidated, shanty town, refugee camp, gloomy and depressing. In February or November this is the case, because most sites consist of serried rows of ancient caravans (some even have wheels) extended with hastily knocked together shed constructed from marine ply, stained tarpaulin and ragged plastic sheeting. 

In the winter we have ended up in these places in Sicily or Calabria, sometimes we have been the sole occupants and their post-apocalyptic emptiness felt un-nerving. This is hardly surprising given you are ensconced in what amounts to an abandoned film set, where skeletal 'flats' remain but the props and actors have gone. Come high season 'the production' resumes,  the rusty caravans and dilapidated shacks are embellished with pavillion sized canvas gazebo, next to it a big square kitchen tent with an impressive cooking range and a tall fridge freezer.

The central gazebo forms the heart of the encampment, pride of place given to a long plastic table big enough to seat a dozen. Scattered about here and there - the big TV, laptops, games consoles bikes, a hammock, sunloungers, an empty paddling pool, and In each corner of the extensive pitch smaller bambini' tents'. The entire encampment is draped with strings of twinkling fairy lights looped from pole to pole or threaded though the lower branches of the carefully pollarded pine trees that shade each pitch from the merciless heat of August afternoons.

 

Across the enormous site there are scores, hundreds maybe of similar set-ups.

Hidden among the over-crowded blocks of this ephemeral, summer metropolis you happen upon the occasional bewildered outsider, motorhomes or caravans belonging to interlopers from more northerly climes.

They gaze around in amazement at the mores and rituals of this strange, exotic land they have inadvertently happened upon.

We never meant to stay more than a night or two at Camping Cala Dei Ginepri. It simply happened to be handy for Brindisi ferry port, close to the famous 'white town' of Ostuni twe wished to visit, also we needed to do some laundry and the site was one of the few in Puglia where the Acsi discount applied in late August. We did get the washing done, so far as everything else was concerned we were assailed by unforeseen glitches which resulted in us staying four nights without ever leaving the site.

Ostuni was close, maybe four or five kilometres away an a low hill, in plain sight from the track that led from the rear of the site down to the beach. There was one bus a day, but it left before nine and the return arrived back at midday, not really a practical option. On Google maps it was clear there were minor roads between the site and Ostuni. If you were happy to deal with the tendency of Italian drivers to scream around blind bends on country roads at breakneck speed with little thought about on-coming traffic, then cycling to the town would probably have taken less than twenty minutes. I didn't feel up to it.

Grimaldi ferries emailed informing us that our noon crossing on Saturday had been rescheduled for 3pm. This meant we would not arrive in Corfu until after 11pm. too late to check into a campsite. I didn't fancy trying to find an overnight parking place in Corfu town on a Saturday night so we opted to change our crossing to Sunday at 1pm.

Given we now were committed to a four day stay, instead of getting annoyed that this had suddenly doubled - two days too many rather than just one - mysteriously a feeling of beatific acceptance overwhelmed us both. We began seeking out the positives, appreciating the beautiful golden green light between the pines. After an overcast day that threatened thunderstorms the clear blue skies returned.

So we walked down to the nearby cove, it was too blustery to have a drink in the beach bar, but the light was stunning and the sea wild.

 We mooched about the rocks, Gill spotted some fossilised crustacean shells and lavender growing in crevices metres from the boiling surf. 

An extra day also meant we needed a few bits and pieces from the camp site mini-market. We stared blankly at the delicatessen counter. The manageress tried to help us choose, despite her limited English and our non-existent Italian we managed to have an interesting discussion about Puglian specialities. We bought half a dozen sausages, a mozzarella, cherry tomatoes from Sicily and a big round green vegetable that we had not come across. We did not quite catch the name of it, but Google came to the rescue later, it's called a 'barretiere' and is like a cross between a cucumber and a melon.

All basic fresh ingredients, but we ate well. For lunch a simple mozzarella and tomato salad, but the crunch and freshness of the barretiere definitely lifted it. 

In the evening out came our Cadac, it's always a little tricky grilling unfamiliar sausages, they were thinner and not as firm as something like a Cumberland sausage, it would have been easy to accidentally 'cremate' them, but more by luck than skill they turned out great. 

Accompanied by rosemary potatoes with fried peppers and a side salad made with our newly discovered vegetable - considering it was cobbled together from stuff which just happened to be available in the campsite mini-market, it was an impromptu feast.

Conversation began in familiar territory - that that the foundation of Italian food culture is the way great local ingredients are universally available. Then as ever I went off on one, getting very excited about just how the delicious the sausages were. Where exactly did these humble but delicious bangers rate in our food pantheon. We recalled the excellent Toulouse we bought in an epicerie in Montolieu (19.11.14, 3pm-ish) or the fennel flavoured Tuscan sausages from the macerria in Montopoli (11.4.15, 11am-ish), you see we know these things, they matter to us, and some time in the future we will recall with fondness today's delicious Puglian sausages because they were up there with the best.

So, with bad Ibiza trance pulsating in the darkness and a half inflated moon peering through the branches of the pine trees I propound my latest half-baked theory - that when we we travel, lazily we let our visual senses predominate."That's why we call it sightseeing," I asserted. At this moment I became utterly convinced that the sausages we had just eaten were as great an expression of Puglian culture and history as, for example, Albarello's trulli or Lecce's celebrated Baroque edifaces. "That's ridiculous!" you might think, and you may be right, but then you didn't taste the sausages.