Another beautiful sunny day. The sea was very calm this morning at our overnight parking place at Santa Caterina dello Ionio. We drove south down the east coast of Calabria to the southernmost tip of mainland Italy.

This marked the end of our outward journey and the beginning of our return to Devon.

From here we looked across to the snowy peak of Mount Etna (3323 metres) on the island of Sicily, the largest active volcano in Europe.

Sicily is very close to the mainland of Italy across the strait of Messina. We had made the journey there in 2012 but had decided to give it a miss this time.

Instead we turn north and away from the coast into the Aspromonte, the most southern part of the Apennines chain of mountains which forms the backbone of mainland Italy.

We headed up through oak forests towards the ski resort of Gambarie.

Eventually after innumerable hairpin bends we reached a high plateau at an altitude of 1300 metres.

There were amazing views all around.

We arrived in Gambarie, a ski resort with currently not enough snow for skiing and hence almost deserted.

What you can absolutely guarantee in any ski resort is at least one very large car park and Gambarie is no exception. As there is hardly any snow we've more or less got the car park to ourselves tonight.