The Amalfi Coast

 THE AMALFI COAST

Another thing we could do nothing about -- the weather -- literally dampened our enthusiasm today.  It rained all morning and some of the afternoon.  Undeterred, after breakfast our group boarded a bus to begin our tour down the Amalfi Coast to the towns of Amalfi and Ravello.  

I've mentioned the narrow, winding cliffside roads on the Amalfi Coast that make for slow sledding.  Our tour guide told us that there are times, as the traffic picks up during summers, when the highway (and it seems an exaggeration to call it that) actually alternatingly routes traffic one way because the tour buses take up so much roadway. On some curves the larger vehicles can't make the hairpin turns and cannot back up. To help ameliorate this issue today we traveled from Positano to Amalfi by bus, then changed to vans to go the rest of the way to Ravello. For some of us (note the first person plural) an exponential complication to the narrow cliffside roads is acrophobia.  When traveling in the backseat of the car from Naples to Positano, I found that I could make myself gaze straight ahead and ignore the sheer ~100' drop-off to the sea just outside my window.  But sitting up high in the bus, not being able to see anything out the window but thin air and the sea waaaay down below made me spend the majority of the trip with my eyes closed praying, meditating, doing deep ujjayi breathing, etc. As folks said in the rural South of my youth, I was askeert!

As we reached the city of Amalfi the rain was not torrential, but steady. The hard rain did fall, as Bob Dylan had warned us in the 60's. We had packed our light raincoats and small folding umbrellas.  The former were critical; the latter almost useless. 

Flavio Gioia

 As we disembarked from our bus beside the harbor in Amalfi beside the statue of Flavio Gioia, who is credited with inventing the sea compass in 1302, we clustered under a shelter as we were handed off to our local Italian guide.  The group took a short walk through parts of the city that had a real medieval feel. [Note: A critical tool in helping us to get the full benefit of our tour guides was the Vox Box, which each of us had.  It was a high quality sound device with a small, lightweight receiving unit and earpiece.  Even as we were spread out and with ambient sound, the Vox Box allowed us to clearly follow the information which our guides shared with us.]  

 

The main attraction was climbing the many steps of the Duomo Sant'Andrea (St. Andrew, the fisherman disciple who was the brother of St. Peter), built in 987 AD with major renovations in the 13th and 19th Centuries. (I told you these places in Italy are old!) The size and beauty of the Duomo are astonishing. 

After our tour we had a little time to brave the rain to graze and shop, and Susan and I did both.  

Tiramisu, anyone?

From Amalfi we boarded vans and drove about 20 minutes to the smaller town of Ravello. The rain remained our companion, which was a shame because we found Ravello to be one of our favorite places that we visited -- smaller, so less crowded and a more leisurely pace, but still quite beautiful.  Our group spilled out of our vans, climbed stairs, and entered the "business district" of the town.  We wound down the narrow streets to the Cumpa' Cosimo, an old family-owned trattoria, for a delicious lunch. The food came in waves of pasta and fresh vegetables -- 3 or 4 courses, I think -- and was accompanied by generous quantities of wine. The nonna (grandmother) attentively oversaw the entire operation with care and efficiency. After lunch Susan and I braved the rain, wandered around the gardens of Villa Rufolo, and were glad we did. The buildings are ancient, dating back to the 13th Century, the gardens gorgeous, and the view of the sea spectacular. 

Around midafternoon we loaded up, hopped in the vans, and headed back to Positano.  After changing into some dry clothes I decided as part of my self-improvement plan to work on my acrophobia.  Le Agave has a beach and a restaurant, both of which I thought at first would require a parachute to reach. 

Down to Le Agave's beach

However, I learned that the hotel has a funicolare, which is a small cable car similar to the Incline Railroad on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.  I bravely boarded it alone and rode it to the bottom and back up again ... with my eyes open! It even made the rain stop! That night Susan and I celebrated my conquest by taking the shuttle into town and having dinner at a prototypical little Positano restaurant called Mediterraneo where I had made reservations online before we left home. It turned out to have been a delightful choice.  The food was tasty and reasonably priced, and the atmosphere was lighthearted. It was a good ending to a long day.

Positano at night

Tonight we packed up because after 3 nights we'll leave Le Agave in the morning, and our bags will be picked up and sent ahead to our hotel in Capri. Poof! ... like magic!