The Black Volcanic Sand of the Maratea Beach

The beautiful colors of blue in the sea.

The day  started off a little slowly as we tried to connect with the travel agent about car rentals and tours offered.  Our biggest challenge was going to be how to get to the town where our car rental was, but a plan began to fall into place.  On the way up for lunch we connected with Joe and Cyndi from Iowa. They invited us to go touring with them later in the week, as the intended to seek out the town that Joe's family had originated from prior to immigrating from Italy two generations earlier.
We made ourselves a lunch of cheese (Brigante) which we are falling in love with on crispy crusts of bread.  Something totally foreign to our way of eating. Messy, but delicious. Then we headed off to catch the bus for the beach. This time we actually managed to get there!
The Colors of the sea are awe inspiring, as the scenery takes your breath away. It was a long walk down from where the bus dropped us off to where we managed to get to the water, and we realized that the stairs that we used to go down are also used by the cars of the restaurant/bar owners to drive up.
There weren't too many people down at the water and we found a quiet cove at the end of the beach to sit on the pebbly grey volcanic ash that is the standard of sand here. The sun was hot, the waves splashing, and the wind comforting.
As usual, I traveled to heavily to really relax, as I had my camera, wallet and who knows what else with me, so made myself a promise that the next time we came down to the beach I'd  leave all of that behind, and allow myself a day of splashing in the magnificent waves. My problem of course would be, that if and when I did that, I'd see the most amazing thing to take a picture of, and would not be able to...but I vowed to take that risk!
After about an hour, we decided to head for shade at the little bar above the sand. A couple of drinks, and a great tomato/tuna/olive/mozza sandwich later, we made our way back up to wait for the bus.
As we sat up on the stones at the top, the chattering behind me caught my attention. I went to explore, thinking it might be birds of some sort, but instead I found a collection of squirrel like animals, brown and white. They were the size of cats, very fast and very noisy!
Upon returning home, we got our car rental straightened out for tomorrow and had solid plans for a lift to Lauria to pick it up. Cec had a rest and I  had intended to, but got working on travel plans and computer stuff, and the time for resting flew past as it so often does on me. 
At 7:30 we headed down to the restaurant for a light supper.  Mine of Caprise Salad, Cec had Swordfish, and we each had room for a Canolli, which could easily become an addiction for me as I love them!  I didn't quite finish mine, but came close! They are sooooo good!

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