Harmony Hotel in Praia a Mare

"Gloria 2" once she started to talk was a great relief, mind you she is not as talkative as Gloria so a fairy peaceful trip and she kept us on the auto strata. 


After 4 hours on the auto strata and 1 hour coming over and through the mountains (we are in volcano country) and through the many tunnels to the sea on the west coast of Italy now 450km south from Roma. 
I was a bit brain dead from driving so thanks to Sandy for keeping you up to date with the last blog.
From around Naples we drive through the volcanic mountain in the north is Pompeii with mount Vesuvius and to our south is Mount Etna in Sicily so there has to me a bit!! of mountains driving ... unless we hired a helicopter!! hmmm maybe next time.

I just had to find a place to stay as the sun was setting in the west over the Tyrrhenian Sea and I didn't want to miss the sun set.
Gosh Pete ... so romantic ... Noooo I had enough driving and it was getting hard to see and well a glass or 10 of vinos were calling my name ... Loudly!

Sunset from the balcony Harmony Hotel in Praia a Mare.

 

Wow look at that view ... that view hasn't change for the guests looking out over the Tyrrhenian Sea over the past several decades that the hotel has sat proudly here and .....

well neither has the internal décor!!!!

 

 

 

 

 Built in the 60's when like some many of the seaside hotels around this area, so when we stumbled on it! or should I say once I saw the first hotel I was staying there even if it was haunted or owned by a axe murder. 

 

So as usual I left Sandy in the car to protect the luggage and the car park space and I went in to check it out.

With a smile from ear to ear I went out to Sandy to tell here its clean and a little bit quirky and where is the vino as the balcony is calling our names.

 

 

 The owners son was very Italian and I'm thinking his family has shares in a tile company as the varied selection was ... well displayed everywhere! and sometimes side by side!!.

 

 

Tiles are so flexible,

the beauty is if you need to do a repair that you would never pick the subtly differences!

 

 

The bar still looks like the brochure that was proudly displayed on the reception counter but just missing the man with the huge  moustache, thinking he was the original dad owner from the 1970's

Nothing has changed it was like a time warp, just loved it.

They even had a telephono booth the height of 1960's sophistication

 

 

Behind the reception counter were the keys and well let just say we were the only guest tonight, maybe a slow day!!!

 

 

 

 OMG they have done a soft reno since the 60's as these chairs weren't in the original brochure, not sure the colour is a match to the tiles!

 

 

Its the end of the seaside season and all the people have packed up and gone home so we had a nice quiet stay.

 

 

No noisy children, so we were able to get on the rides!!

 

 

 No beach restaurants they are all packed up just the footing to set up on next season.

Last night we found a great little pizza joint and had a salmon and cream pizza with peperinchino well we are in the south in the food region of Calabria and the spices are heating up.

 

 

So after a beautiful morning walk its time to head further south, we have a booking for 3 nights is the mountainous little town of Nocera Terinese to do some cooking classes with a chef who is doing trials for the Italian version of Masterchef.

Ciao for now