Look but don’t buy

The Amalfi Coast is better to look at in passing than to stop in if you don’t want to bust your budget.

The coast road undulates round stunning mountains that plunge into a restless sea, with fishing settlements of all sizes nesting in lush green valleys. But there’s a high price tag attached these days, even if you’re just sitting down to a coffee. 

 We get severely stung at a hilltop snack bar, which is little more than a shack run by a seemingly friendly and hospitable family. Our own fault for ignoring the warning signs but annoying and expensive all the same. Takes the shine off the view a bit. 

 Having said that I wouldn’t have missed it. And we very much enjoy taking a very competitively priced, if basic, beach cabin for three days just outside Salerno from where you can see the Amalfi coast.  

 You can also bathe in the same fabulous sea. When we arrive in the dark, threatening to swim nevertheless as it’s so hot, the campsite owner cautions us to take care as the seas, ‘she is angry tonight.’ 
 He’s right, so we only venture in up to our knees, but you can feel the pull of the waves even so. Next day we swim in the crashing rollers and get tumbled on the sand and pebbles for our pains. 

   

The end but not the end

So, our European road trip came to an end three weeks early because of a family matter. But I’m going to complete this blog with a few more posts about highlights in the last couple of weeks so that we have a more or less complete record to look back on. This means any posts from now on will be backdated. Thanks for following us. We’ve had a wonderful time.

Sting in the tale

 Ooh err, I just saw a creature I simultaneously did and did not want to see.I did want to see it because I’m fascinated by any animal, especially one I’ve not seen in the wild before. But I didn’t because it’s small, fast, skittish and venomous. 

 I’d left a cloth hanging over an exterior marble surface and when I picked it up this morning, there was a scorpion running towards me! Not a big black slow one either, but a fast, flat, small brown variety with, according to everything I’ve read, an extremely nasty sting. I shout to Rob to come and take a picture of it. Then it leaps off the wall and disappears. 

 It has occurred to me previously that we might see scorpions, especially where it’s really hot. But now we are in cool autumnal Tuscany. I expect it was just trying to keep warm.

There are also hummingbird moths on the rosemary bushes. These are always a pleasure as they look so much like tiny hummingbirds flitting from flower to flower. These particular ones have the added interest of stripey tails. 

 PS Campsite owners just been by and assures us this type of scorpion sting is no worse than a mosquito bite. He could have been just saying it but from the way he laughed, I don’t think so. 

 

Still standing

It’s the brickwork that impresses me most. How come our side wall at home needs repointing when the mortar in the Roman walls at Pompeii is still in pristine condition 2000 years on?

 Having been buried in 25 ft of volcanic ash for most of the intervening years is going to have helped, but still.

Once in Naples, Pompeii seems unavoidable, so here we are and here it is, in all its Greco-Roman glory. 

Shops with sliding frontages, houses, brothels and self service soup kitchens all still standing across a 66 acre site, with much much more apparently still buried and awaiting excavation. 

 Despite it being such a well known site, it’s nevertheless staggering to see in reality. With only a wee bit of imagination you can envisage what a stunning town it must have been before disaster struck courtesy of an explosive Vesuvius.

The huge central rectangular Forum, which acted as a meeting place, market and democratic decision-making area, was once bounded by double decker marble columns, only some of which are still there. It must have been glorious. It still has the stone stops in place to stop carts driving in.

There was running water, efficient drainage, pavements, roads and the aforementioned pedestrian-only areas. There still are ‘beware of the dog’ signs, marble topped canteen counters, wall paintings and stone knobs indicating areas where you could once have purchased sexual favours. 

   
In a couple of places there are vibrantly coloured wall frescos still to be seen and there’s a lovely marble portico carved all over with animals and flowers.

Again, in our short visit, we can only have seen a fraction of what’s there, although I think our (essential) guide Salavatore did a fine job of shepherding us round the highlights.   

   

Naples the beautiful: bring it on

‘This can’t be it can it?’ I wonder anxiously as we drive down a barely navigable back street in central Naples in search of our pre-booked B&B.  

  We’ve read so many bad ‘reviews’ of Naples on Tripadvisor and its ilk, and have decided to come anyway, that I am nervous about our upcoming experience in this city of 5 million plus people.

But it was it, and there was no need for nerves (which just goes to show you should no more believe what you read on the internet than in the newspapers).

The unpromising looking metal and frosted glass front entrance of our B&B, 44 Soriano, is smack up against the old black paving slabs of the alley. But it opens out into an intriguing if slightly dark courtyard from which you can look up the centre of five floors of this 17th century converted palace.

Inside the metal doors are ancient wooden ones 10 ft high, 6ft wide and a good 6 inches thick. They are kept open and not in general use.

An antiquated caged lift into which you have to feed 10 cents before it will move takes you up to a huge apartment stretching across the rooves of two adjacent buildings and down into number 46.

It’s full of collections put together by the current manager Gabriel’s grandfather, to whom the apartments belong and who used to live there.  Old cameras, bottles, books, miniatures, fans, you name it. (It later transpires that Naples is home to an array of miniature model shops, mostly designed to build detailed and locally slanted nativity scenes).

The bedrooms are less fanciful but still individual and charming. Breakfast is taken on the roof. All is calm and relaxed. 

 It turns out that this courtyard and palace arrangement is very much par for the course in the central old part of Naples, which is full of such hidden beautiful buildings, not to mention much older ones. You might find yourself leaning on what turns out to be the 2,000 year old remains of a Greek pillar, eating supper under a brick and mortar Roman arch or bumping into a Donatello marble bas relief in a dusty looking church.

And, yes, there is a lot of graffiti in Naples, much of it of the scrawled type although interspersed with some genuine works of art. But to my mind it does little to detract from and often adds to the vibrant and lively atmosphere that’s present at any time of day and well into the night in the old area of Naples. 

 And, yes, there are a lot of people, some of them, as in any populous place, up to no good. But so many more can’t wait to share freely the bounty that is their lovely city, or just look out for you.

Like the caretaker at the school of fine arts who, seeing our interest, invited us in to inspect the works in progress in two sculpture studios. 

   
  Like the young man who, speaking no English, went to great pains to explain that in the place we had just parked we were liable to a hefty on the spot police fine if we stayed more than 10 minutes.

Like the distinguished looking señora who, seeing us struggle with a less than complete tourist city map, stopped to make sure we were on the right track.

Like the group of young lads on the Metro platform, who were intrigued to know where we came from then engaged us in excited chatter about football before being unceremoniously kicked out by the local transport police; I’m guessing they’d jumped the barrier.

At the posh seafront part, you can even go swimming as huge fast boats rush past, though you might want to take care not to swallow any of the water. 

   
And the pizzas… 

 Naples is vast, stretching right along the sparkling Bay of Naples to Vesuvius and Pompeii, so any two-day visit is going to be the merest snapshot. Which is great, because that gives us every excuse to go there again.

Can’t wait. 

 

 

A rag bag of riches

For natural beauty, the interior of Sicily trumps the coast in my view.

Green-grey hills merge into gold-grey mountains, often with impossible looking towns clinging to the top.

Roads zig-zag up and down, presenting a different perspective every 500m, or breathtaking viaducts take you across  deep valleys of olive terraces and sheep fields. Altogether lovely.

It is also where we find what we think is one of the nicest towns on the island, Piazza Armerina.

It’s not that it has more fabulous medieval buildings and cobbled roads than many other towns. After all it has Ostigia* and Siracusa to compete with, home of one of the island’s several Greek amphitheatres and a cave allegedly the shape of Dionysus’s ear, among other things. 

   
 It’s just that the people there are especially warm and friendly. 

They’ve got a particular gesture when they hope or think you might be enjoying your food — a dimply smile with one finger pointed to the dimple on the left. It works for me.

We buy replacement windscreen wipers from a roadside stall. They not only fit them for us but also give us a lesson in how to do it for ourselves for future reference.

Just outside the town is Villa Romana del Casale, the remains of a richly decorated and luxurious Roman Villa with more than 50 of its extraordinarily coloured and detailed floor mosaics all but intact. So many of them that you get to walk on them in some places.  

     
  After this it’s hard to imagine that any other site of antiquity could rival it but that’s to reckon without the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento. 

    
    
 Here you can be transported through time by the towering remains of a number of pillared Greek temples from as far back as 600 BC. I could vividly picture how awe inspiring it must have looked arriving by boat and looking up to the great city with its soaring sandstone walls and array of temples and statues (the latter not now mostly extant).

So we are sorry to leave Sicily, even though it means another ferry ride, which we enjoy. As we wait for our sailing we find a spot for a final island swim just outside Palermo. We are rewarded with excitingly heaving seas and clear water, the floor invisible because there are so many muscles and with shoals of colourful fish of all sizes. 

  
   Arivederci Sicily.

* It was in Ostigia that a local man whom Rob asked where was the nearest public convenience memorably gave directions to what sounded exactly like ‘il bagnio de poopilo.’

Nearly a grave error

Archeologists 2000 years hence, uncovering the remains of one of the huge and overflowing Italian cemeteries, would likely be driven to conclude a culture of ancestor worship. 

Certainly on Sicily, family is paramount. So it was alarming to hear a loud siren as we were investigating one such splendid example shortly before dusk and then to find that we were apparently locked in for the night. 

While casing the enclosing 12ft walls to see if we could climb out, we nervously anticipated the arrival of outraged Sicilian relatives, there to accuse us of disrespecting their forebearers. 

Not that we had disrespected anyone, but we had peeked into several of the grand mausoleums that were packed in like high-class chocolates in a box. And you never know how your behaviour might be interpreted in an unfamiliar culture. 

 No two mausoleums were the same but most of them could have passed for small churches if standing alone in a village. And churches with bells and whistles at that. 

 They house the remains of families, whose names are over the doors. Some have latterly been neglected but others are full of flowers, lanterns and other homage. 

Our worries ended when we caught up with the keeper of the cemetery in a far corner and he crossly showed us to an exit out the back. It was a great relief as we didn’t much fancy spending the night there, for all the grandeur of the setting. 

 

Etna and thunderstorms

The idea of Sicily used to conjure for me sunshine, blue seas and cute cobbled fishing villages. That was before we went there.

I was correct on the sea and sunshine. But while Sicily is many things in different places — including ancient, modern, rundown, derelict, crowded, messy, beautiful, picturesque and dramatic — there’s nothing cute about it, unless you count baby lizards.  

Our first day, in Messina, was fiercely hot and we mistakenly embarked on a 5-mile walk to no good end. We also made the classic tourist error of taking a taxi without agreeing a price first. (It has to be said that many Sicilians are nothing if not commercially aware, among many other traits.)

Our first night we were chewed to bits in our city camp by invisible mosquitoes.

Our second night we woke to a spectacular long, wild, wet and noisey lightning storm. 

Then came Mt Etna.   

  At three thousand-plus meters tall it dominates the scene for miles around, with its sulphurously steaming craters weaving cloud banners around its peak.

We approach it via a town called Linguaglossa, where we learn that you can buy guided tours to the top, but not today; too windy (might we get blown into the crater, we wonder).

So we drive as far as the road goes, through an increasingly extraordinary landscape. Naked burnt umber, blasted white and rust roasted rock surrounds us, looking like a great mud slide, though it was once hot destructive larva and is now as sharp as needles. 

 We hike up a little way but it’s hard going, quite cold, we’ve got the wrong shoes on and the light is starting to fade. We resolve to return for a professionally hosted climb the next day. 

 This involves a half hour drive up through the barren larval landscape in a huge 4wd bus. Then a tough hour long  climb up the last 300m to the main crater; tough as it’s very steep indeed, and Rob and I both feel light headed and nauseous with the altitude. 

 It’s worth it though. I never thought to stand by an active volcanoe crater and it is awe inspiring. Much of the air is thrillingly poisonous and the ground crunches and shifts under our feet like burnt ginger nuts.        

  
Last time Etna exploded was in 2002.  The mangled remains of what was then the visitor centre can still be seen protruding through the larva. We’ll have a whole new perspective on it if it happens again anytime soon.

Grape response

Lithe lizards and, less often, fat brown geckos become more common the further south we go. 

   
This makes up for the relative lack of visible sea life in the Mediterranean Sea compared to the Adriatic. 

I don’t understand, though, why the lizards aren’t more interested in eating the ubiquitous fat ants. I watch one lizard sitting among a throng of them, one even climbing on its back.

Then I spot another lizard running off with a wedge of green grape left over from our lunch. Now that makes sense. I’d eat grapes in preference to ants any day.

Staying cool

It’s 8am as our ferry is guided into Bari by a pilot, accompanied by a fat tug. Already  it’s a lot hotter on deck than it is indoors, setting the scene for the Italian leg (tee hee) of our journey.  

 We set off down main roads, ultimately making for Sicily. But we quickly tire of the hot and fairly dull motorway in temperatures nearing 40 degrees.  

  We decide to cut across country on small roads from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean coast.

On the map it looks simple and the roads pass through a national park – Parc Nazionale Dell Silla. What we haven’t counted on is the size of the mountains and the way the roads go up and over them rather than round or through.

We soon find ourselves driving almost vertically steep and crazily narrow winding roads, with the temperature gauge of the car rising alarmingly towards the red.  

 But there’s literally no turning back (because there’s nowhere to turn round) so we keep going, mostly up and up but thankfully with enough down to give the poor van time to cool off before the next climb. We feel quite stressed. This really wouldn’t be the place for a breakdown.

The countryside is a patchwork of olive and citrus grove terraces criss-crossed with dry stone walls and dotted with stone and terra cotta buildings in various states of repair. 

Then suddenly, just when we think there can only be us and the birds up here, we emerge not into a village but a substantial sized town. This is a big surprise and I’m still puzzled as to what has led to such settlements (there are many in the Calabrian mountains) in very inaccessible places.

Many of the roads even  in the towns are so narrow that you feel as though you are driving in people’s front gardens. 

 Indeed in one village, after winding upwards for about 5km, we come to what looks like a dead end. 

Asking for advice, we are assured confidently that an unlikely looking alley is the way forward, though an older woman whose knees we nearly graze as we pass her doorstep seat tries to wave us back. Scarily, it narrows to the point that we have to fold the mirrors in to get between two houses with literally an inch to spare each side. Gingerly we finally emerge on to a wider road to the world beyond. Our progress here, as elsewhere, owes much to Rob’s expert driving skills.

One of the wonderful things about our first Calabrian mountain experience is that it gets cooler the higher we climb. So by the time we find our camping spot in mushroom filled pine forest by an unspoilt lake about 1600m up, the temperature is delicious.  

 Sadly I’m under the weather so fail to take advantage of a fantastic crop of fat boletos mushrooms (aka porcini, aka penny buns). 

We are befriended by the camp owner’s lovely dog, who stays with us for almost the entirety of our visit though he won’t come into the water when we go for a swim.

And his company may be the reason why, after an initial sighting by Rob sans dog, we see nothing more of the family of black squirrels that initially danced through the trees.