Day 21 - 25 July Crotone

 We woke up this morning on Crotone, a town on the sole of Italy. It's not a particularly tourism-oriented place, which made a nice change, and we were the only cruise ship in a relatively quiet port.

Once again we'd organised to go out almost straight after breakfast to beat the heat. The tour today consisted of a shuttle bus into town, a map and some highlights to visit, including a location by a church providing drinks and a couple of dressed up actors.

We were dropped at Pythagoras Piazza, named as he lived here much of his later life. We walked past a few local shops and up a slight slope to the local archeological museum. It was small but of a fairly high standard, with pottery and carvings from a local temple. After that we walked down to a nearby church where they were giving out the frozen drinks and a man dressed as a Roman was explaining some Italian history, which was actually pretty good.

That was the highlights. After that we wandered the old town a bit, but it was mostly residential and so though quaint there was not much to see. We bypassed the several other churches and there is a large fort, but mostly just the walls remain.

So eventually we took the shuttle back to the ship and spent some of the day washing and ironing before resuming our usual inactivities.

By the time the ship left port there was a series of bush fires behind the town, a very large fire just beyond the port and two or three more scattered up the coast. It was hard to see the hills or very much else inland. The combination of 40+ degree heat and very strong winds will make them hard to contain. We're off to Scicily - where the temperatures have been into the mid-40s and there are also fires.