journals by Ric Carter (from 3/27) & Maureen O'Connell (from 3/30)
BEING: Handwritten accounts, pen or pencil on paper, of a journey touching at Forestville, San Francisco, Milan, Naples, Minori & back. Note how early naiveté evolves into fuller comprehension. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the authors.
ADVISORY: Song lyrics may express rude ideas in rude language. If such displeases you, don't click on the song links below.
NOTES: This page is too long and will be broken down into more manageable units when entry and annotation are completed. Links to relevant sites are embedded in the text. Your feedback is welcome.
Tues 27 March 2001 (S. Giovanni D.), Farewell Forestville
LEAVING HOME: On the bus, cattle down the freeway towards SFO>SFO and an over-the-pole flight. A warm morning, wispy clouds over the bumpy velvet hills and hazy suburbs. The usual beggars at the offramps and intersections. Sonoma County is so familiar after a couple decades. Pierced people, plain people, painful people, paralyzed people. All the mechanisms of civilization are available for our use, except clarity.
Bus stop. Fliers loading. Women cabbies talking, hugging, peering, laughing. Those onboard are forested with pages, stories of fantasy and/or reality and/or instruction — words to help us perceive, believe, deceive, retrieve — then we occasionally glance out the windows to see the structures, landscapes, motorized motion, and more words pasted on surfaces. We've turned the landscape into a wordscape; the world, a page upon which we write the text of our humanity.
Next stop, the north side of Rohnert Park. All the commercial architecture here is Mediterranean-styled, with red-tile roofs, beige or rusty stucco, arches and arbors and shaded walkways, colorful awnings. Slightly crasser buildings are blocky, layered, 70's-modern or worse, big and little boxes showing excessive metal and glass and haste. Then beyond: hillsides whose orchards were uprooted, replaced with endless vineyards.
Across the Petaluma River, where ancient (for California) structures & devices line the west bank, and an encampment of tents and tarps nestles under the roadway. An informal village of non-taxpayers floats nearby in abandoned boats, roosts in old chicken condos, shifts their tentage from tree to culvert, or so I've read. No such accretions cluster around the vast corporate / professional / commercial / residential preserves a few miles further on, in wealthy Marin County.
Now across & along a few inlets, bays, fjords lined with water-lovers, water-livers, exclusive docks, houseboat villages, all below the fabulous villas crawling up the pricey hillsides. Now over the Golden Gate, one tug churning out into the mist, a few wakes washing against Alcatraz Island, and The City receiving us.
SAN FRANCISCO: At the toll plaza, the stick-figure on one warning sign sports a hula hoop. Most pedestrians here aren't so equipped.
Transiting San Francisco induces more sensations and memories than can or should be documented here, as usual. Memes collide.
Southward becomes hazier, more concretized, less Italianate, a tendril of Angelopolis reaching ever on. Earlier, Mount Tamalapais hung over us like Vesuvius might; here, the East Bay hills and Mount Diablo are cloaked behind the moist miasma. And SFO looms monstrously. Happy Noon, good buddies!
THE PLANE: The plane. Yes, well, the plane.
Sitting directly over the wing in a 767 there's little to see and much to hear, mostly deafening (the engines are just below us here). The food is good, companionship is amenable, the space is cramped except for those who commandeer entire rows as their beds. I think I never wish to fly again.
This is the longest single flight I've ever taken. I remember going non-stop from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, from McGuire AFB (New Jersey) to Germany and back, San Francisco to Honolulu and back; the other longer hauls all stopped at a hub somewhere. At least this is a little quieter and smoother than that ferry ride across the Bay of Fundy.
And this is my only European trip other than a jaunt to (West) Germany in a military transport jet in 1975, whereupon I rolled across that landscape in tracked vehicles and jeeps for a month, a rather different form of tour, eh?
Songs:
BEAM ME TO ITALY
ANYTHING FOR YOUR LOVE
Wed 28 March 2001 (S. Sisto Papa), flying.
This isn't really an over-the-pole flight, but we're clipping lakes Tahoe and Superior and projected to cross Hudson Bay and the south edge of Greenland. Sunset fades from rosy to cyanotic on the quilted cotton-thatch cloud layer below. Elevation: 10100 metres (which I compute as being 33330 feet, but I could be wrong).
Full night. A light on the wing tip, a few stars above, clear skies all around. Below on the northern prairies, a scattering of lights, regularly-spaced light clusters (county seats?), the occasional smear of a larger city. Lutheran lights with a few Catholic candles or Baptist bonfires or Wiccan witchglows. Any glow will do. Anything to hold off the void, drive away the wolves and Wendigo and whatever else looms in the night.
Oops! We missed Lake Superior, we're over Huron now and we'll go feet-wet off Labrador, skirting Greenland by quite a bit. Bother. He haven't gone nearly north enough. It's stone black below, we aren't over the grid anymore, no lights but those we cary with us. We're still lit on the interior a bit, though...
YOU ARE HERE: This flight occupies a number of measurable dimensions, those of "x,y,z" space and "t" time, and "n" noise and "p" pain and "f" fatigue, and dimensions of taste and desiccation and distraction and fear, of light and dark, of proximity and irritation and amusement. Few of these dimensions have collapsed upon themselves.
The grid reappeared sparsely for awhile, ordered strings of bulbs lined at their own angles, then vanished again. We're alone in the sky, except for molecules, radiation, hopes, and tachyons.
Early morning over the North Atlantic. Midnite in my brain, my gut, without a real dinner. Bright puffy clouds stretching out below forever. Nightworms crawling in my ears, in my eyes. Other jumbo jets close enough to see. I hope they're not paralyzed too.
Now it's 7 AM in Milan but we're not there yet. No land seen yet. Far below, waves. Far above, the rest of the universe.
An hour later, an hour out of Milan, all below is cloudscape.
(utter exhaustion)
Nothing to see of Milan — rain, fog.
Thur 29 March 2001 (S. Secondo M.), aground in Minori.
Still utter exhaustion, but no longer desperation. Yesterday on the shuttle from Milan, some fragments of Italy's backbone were seen during our brief lucid moments. Then we flew among intricate clouds past looming Vesuvio (ve-SUE-vyo) into bright, warm Naples airport in the city's eastern suburbs. Everywhere blocks of apartments mix with farms, roadways, large and small industry, many of these buildings of imaginative design (to our gringo eyes) but worn. Livestock graze the autoroute margins and drainage channels, shops and homes and warehouses and greenhouses are jammed into every cranny. Most unpaved land is cultivated. No parks, forests, unused acres are visible.
Our van drove down the autostrada along the west-south base of Vesuvio, past Ercolana and Pompei (we'll tour their excavations later) to Angri, then over the Monti Lattari ('milk mountains', for the white limestone cliffs) to Maiori and Minori on the Amalfi Coast. This narrow twisting hairpin route climbs through a continuous realm of residences, businesses, farms. Village life is contiguous across the geography — every square meter is exploited. Chestnut rods support lemon-tree branches laden with softball-sized (and larger) fruit, a thatch is woven above the trees to protect from the elements and retain heat in these often-chilled hills. Streams cascade down chains of impoundments. Pedestrians and hurtling traffic of all sizes coexist heedlessly.
MINORI: This morning we took the guided walking tour of a fragment of Minori (we missed last night's orientation talks — too wasted) and located a few essential vendors and places to congregate. These tour groups infuse ready cash into each shop we grace with a stop. The locals don't seem too annoyed by the gaggle of elderly schoolkids clustering around our matron, impeding traffic, peering curiously at the ancient compressed lifesystem.
At the 'downtown' intersection waiting for the bus to Ravello we see our first Italian traffic jam, caused by nothing discernible. Much shouting and gesticulation, a bureaucratic-looking cop overseeing the fun - he finally blows his whistle and traffic continues crawlingly.
(drizzlies this A.M. — yow)
RAVELLO: This afternoon we do the tour of Ravello, a fabulous hill town, or at least the villas and 5-star hotels are fabulous. It's wonderful how infusions of foreign cash can improve the ambiance of a scenic site on an otherwise impoverished coast. (The major attractions in this ultra-resort are mainly products of wealthy enthusiasts over the last century or so, either restorations or fabrications.) Both the touched-up and newish villas & churches & cathedrals are quite beautiful, with intricate mosaics, and frescoes both extant and overpainted, and I guess all those whitewashed patches just mean that religious architecture may be regularly redec
The up-and-down walled alleys are quite picturesque. From vantages atop the cliffs, in gardens or roadways or in glimpses between buildings, the vistas along the coast are indeed splendid. Hemispheres of sky, of sea, of land rising from the latter to the former with buildings inserted wherever possible on any viable ledge, and crops terraced into anything but the sheerest rocky cliffs.
The road from the edge of Amalfi's suburb Atrani into craggy Ravello, past unglamorous Scala (so named because until recently that town could only be reached by 'scaling' flights of steps on the walkway along the Dragon River, or so we were told) seems even more serpentine and constricted and deep-cut than most. It's a marvel of audacious engineering, a terror to Anglo-American eyes, gnawed into place to accommodate tourists for the last 1.5 centuries. Blame this all on Wagner, who wrote part of PARSIFAL here, and on other Northern and Western expatriates who've hailed the beauty in terms no brochure-writer could match.
Ha, the reason for that earlier road jam: traffic uphill from Minori was being held up because SIX tour busses in a row were looping down the wasp-wasted coabusesd. buses and large lorries occupy much of the breadth of these impossibly narrow ribbons of asphalt, often walled in deep cuts of coastal stone or snaking between buildings optimistically set on the margins of the world.
BUSES: The giant buses are mostly German, their drivers Italian, their passengers Anglo-American and Teutonic and Gallic and Norse and Slavic, their opposing traffic inconsequential. Don't argue with a bus. Just slide past it when it slows down.
On somewhat-straight pitches the roadway is two narrow lanes, pinching down to just one (which wouldn't make a good sidewalk in California) as a blind turn approaches. These bends are provided with convex mirrors perched atop convenient structures. The buses blurt out their two-tone horn toots that echo musically up the hills and ravines, singing the hymn of motorized travel, sometimes sounding as duets when two such are near. Cars and buses, trucks large and small and mopeds, pedestrian and savvy dogs, all squeeze past one another with scant but usually ample clearance. Barely.
The older crowd in this tour bus was thrilled by the close encounters and taut squeeze-bys on the Ravello road, acting as though they were teenagers on an adventure ride in a huge theme park, squealing at the sweeping turns and near-collisions, laughing as mopeds and microcars zipped between head-butting goliaths, applauding the driver for his virtuosity and negotiating seemingly-impossible obstacles. Some even left tips. Good thing.
Minori, Italia 03-30-01
Ah, siesta time — quiet time and Ric gone to find the trails out of town and into the hills. Walked to Maiori this morning in the overcast; the rain caught up to us at the Friday Market but there were enough canopies under which to shelter. The market was a lot of fun. The produce is mostly like home, the trucks are very different and Italian is spoken everywhere. I think we were the only non-Italians there. The market filled the winding street from the sea to the Duomo. We were amazed at the values beyond a favorable exchange rate in cured meats, cheese, and textiles [such] as tablecloths and napkins. Bought a set for Sharon's birthday.
Had lunch at a very tasty place — outside with a view of the promenade and sea, w/ Amalfi in the distance. The Pizza Del Skipper had fresh pomodoro sauce, wood-baked thin crust with mussels and clams marinated in herbs and olive oil. Bella. The tomatoes, called pomodoro, are sweet and meaty -- very good.
Our hotel is comfortable. The only drawback being food that is prepared for the English travelers who predominate here. So, we fill up on muesli, Parma ham, croissant and cheese at breakfast.
Yesterday lunch was 2 sandwiches on fresh crunchy rolls of salty dry provalone and coppa for $5 us both. Take-out from the local market.
The journey here was excruciatingly long and uncomfortable despite a plane only half full. Ric was 27 hours without sleep the first day; I had a couple of cat naps.
Surprised at the maintenance of the towns — not as neat, as well kept, as travel brochures present. Still very picturesque.
People are friendly — usually. We greet "Townies" or not as they indicate desire to do so.
Yesterday afternoon we took the Saga tour to Ravello, which is just up the hill from Minori — along a hairpin, cliff-hugging narrow road. Houses hang on the hillsides and into the river canyon of the "Dragon". Along the river are paved walkways for house and orchard access.
Ravello was beautiful, high on the hill. Saw the Villa [Rufolo] and Basilica. After the tour Ric & I used our spare time to explore and discovered at the top of the stairs along a cliff the church of San Francesco. Beautiful mosaic stone work in the altars and walls [of the Basilica]. There is bright painted pottery everywhere along the piazza and nearby alleys. Bought nothing though. Waiting for Vietri sul Mare where it is made, later in the visit.
A word about Napoli. At the airport we cleared immigration, met our Saga rep & follower her to the van for the ride to Minori. Parking is a rather small lot which quickly changes to a narrow street between 60's style apartment buildings. Not tidy at all but peeling paint, laundry, and old notices stuck to the walls.
Taking the motor-way, a good freeway, we say very many such 60's apartment buildings, some with plenty of space between given to agriculture. Fences and greenhouses & sheds built of motley assortment of material. No HOME DEPOT here. All along the way, Mt. Vesuvius in the background. We saw it on the landing approach, flew along its western side. A broad plain flows outward studded w/ apartment buildings.
We left the motorway at Angri and snaked our way through villages & over the mountains. All streets are very narrow — buildings in shades of neutrals, stucco and concrete. Apartments mixed w/ small houses & homes surrounded by orchards or garden plots.
Up the road higher into Montii Lattari fewer bldgs and more lemon orchards. Orchards very slant & covered w/ black netting give the far view a rather dismal outlook.
Amazingly small cars and lorries and very large tour buses manage these roads by the honking and impromptu traffic direction by the drivers. On the way back down from Ravello in the bus there was a rather large traffic squeeze. Through every passage w/ only inches between vehicles or pulled over far right on the cliff edge, our mostly English companions laughed as if it were an amusement ride — and it was, because of them.
Strolled Minori after dinner tonight along passage ways paved in bits of dark stone with wave patterns in white stone. Lights from old style lanterns bolted to the walls. Felt like a walk back several centuries until we saw locals in modern dress on an intercom at a doorway.
Could see into the shops at night. Interiors nicely arranged and very modern. Couldn't tell in the day and rather daunted by the exteriors. We're not in California, Toto.
Ric walked to Ravello this afternoon while I rested. He returned w/ great stories of the adventure. The seminar at Hotel said tonight that there are 1300 steps from Minori to Ravello.
We had clam & mussel pizza in Maiori for lunch. Delicious, and at a seaside cafe?
Fri 30 March 2001 (S. Amadeo), footsore in Minori.
WALKING: This morning we inquired on the safety of walking the coast road (corniche) to Maiori (stay on the outer edge for visibility — and they don't want to hit you, it's bad for their insurance) and we learnt of an off-highway path over the hills. We decided on walking the corniche, which was just as well, as the over-the-hills route would have left us exposed to the storm that blew in directly.
The corniche east of Minori is briefly lined with green, flowery patches and arrayed with millstones, emblematic of the village's past. They claim that pasta was invented here. Cliffs drop straight down from the road to wave-crashed sea rocks. The road and inner embankment are reinforced by the 10-metre-high stone arches characteristic of the Costiera Amalfitana (Amalfi coast).
The point separating Minori from Maiori is surmounted by a recent (120-year-old) romantic 'castle' undergoing long-term and/or intermittent restoration efforts. Maybe. The road sweeping down past the breakwater and towards the longish beach esplanade of Maiori passes a 70-metre arched cave, now a car- and boat-park, guarded by two large lonely off-white dogs who gaze at us sadly as we pass.
Many dogs on this coast just sit along some roadside or other, watching the world go by.
MAIORI: Maiori is mostly a new town, rebuild after being swept away by mudslides in 1954. Upper reaches are older-to-ancient, unregenerated, accessible only afoot.
Today (Friday) is market day here; a street-party flea-market fills a couple blocks downtown and continues up a cliff-climbing road around a school, up almost to the great Duomo (basilica). Vendors of toys, geegaws, clothes, shoes, see shoppers scuttling past and through their covered stalls in the now-sometimes-heavy rain. The peddlers of produce, nuts, spices, meat, cheese, do a brisk trade — and at prices a fraction of those of static overhead-ridden shopkeepers, that's no wonder. The fancy Italian foods so expensive in California are incredibly cheap here. Pass the prosciuto and peppers, eh?
The Duomo interior is part-restored (overpainted), part-original (glorious), and its museum of sacred art is closed today. Much of what we want to see is closed when we get there. Come back soon. And again. And again. Maybe get lucky.
After excellent pizza and salad at a covered main-road-side table, we walk back to Minori, greeting those guardian doggies as we leave Maiori. We're getting the hang of walking the roads here. Show no fear. Ever.
WEATHER: Weather is unsettled here. Always carry raingear. Always.
Maureen goes back to the small excellent hotel to rest and write. I decide to scout out the path uphill to Ravello. At a shop there yesterday we thought we saw a trail guide we'd wanted — SUNFLOWER LANDSCAPES, SORRENTO AND THE AMALFI COAST, by Julian Tippett — which we'd ordered online some weeks ahead of time but was never delivered — but we weren't sure if it was the right one. We got back to the hotel, checked our notes, and yup, that's it. Well, we have to get it somewhere, and Ravello is a good place to start.
PATHS: The climb was brutally steep but straightforward, a quarter-mile-high staircase past homes, farms, churches galore, villages, stupendous views, dogs curious-to-furious, cats wary-to-starey, and the VERY occasional other human being. I conversed with a few other strollers, drank a lot of water, attained Ravello on aching legs, learnt much.
These paths are everywhere. The Amalfi hills are webbed with stairways. Until the advent of motorcars, this path net hauled all the traffic of this ancient commercial realm nestled on sheer crags. Wide low steps of rock and concrete supported draft animals and their loads. Many of the walkways contain manhole covers — a sewer / stormdrain is just below. Street lights follow the public trails through groves and fields. Freshwater lines with frequent taps line the routes. The paths pass through entryways to chapels, homes, shops. The guide book claims this network is unique in the world, and is hardly used any more, save by ever increasing gangs of tourists.
DOWNHILL: The return walk to Minori, via a slightly different and better informed route, was a bit easier than the climb, although not greatly speedier. Narrow and abrupt paved and cobbled walkways run between and tunnel under walls and buildings here in Minori and the other old coast and hill towns. The hill paths are just a continuation of these. Civilization, settlement are continuous across the terrain. Country, town, city seem to differ only in their density, only in the height and extent of cultivation and residence.
Sat 31 March (S. Beniamina), on to Naples.
NAPOLI: The National Archaeological Museum is world-class but noisy and inconstant. Its contents (those that aren't out for restoration or loan) are transfixing, especially the Pompeii mosaics and other artifacts. I have looked upon the face of Alexander. I have fondled Venus' nice butt. I have proposed to the tour guide, and been rejected. I'll never sing again.
Downtown Naples is vibrant and not nearly as frightening as has been described. Away from the crackerjack cheapshit apartment blocks in the suburbs, the city feel a lot like San Francisco, twisted a bit. Definitely worth further exploration.
The tour bus stopped on a hillcrest for a touristic photo opportunity, the urban splendor layed out before our eager lenses. Also eager was the old paisan' in the nice sweater who insisted that I needed a quality watch. I indicated my preference for digital stuff, not Xolex knock-offs. Somewhere along the line we embraced, each indicating a desire to throw the other over the wall, to plummit down upon the city below. Always excitement and romance in Napoli, eh? That's amore...
MINORI: What was that mystery meal the hotel served for dinner?
Sat 03-31-01
Went to Napoli today. The guide book warnings of pickpockets and crime seem to have been exaggerated. All seemed perfectly normal and safe at the Archaeological Museum and then at Piazza Plebiscito. The city we saw was not tidy except in the upscale areas. The buildings could have been any old European city where balconies are the norm.
It was Sat. shopping at the fine shops, everyone at the museum. We walked through Galleria Umberto, it was buzzing w/ Italians.
We may return on our own to look around. The trip took all day but except for a couple of drive-by viewings and one bus-out for a cliff-top look at Vesuvio we were only 2 1/2 hours on the streets. Not nearly enough. Saw Spaccanapoli from the bus. Funky, but not a ghetto.
[The Museum:] Mosaics, silver chalices, cameos, glass from Pompeii, exquisite! Also Roman & Greek statues, absolutely awesome.
Great fun at dinner w/ table mates Anne & Frank from Norfolk. Very independent and irreverent like us although about 10-15 yrs senior.
Don't ever take lunch with the group on a day tour. They go to crowded, noisy, poor-value tourist places! $22 for both of us, one glass red wine, thin crust tomato & cheese spots pizza, & deep fried rice, fish & zucchini. Blah!
At a newsstand in the shop district near Piazza Plebiscito we saw in Italian, the headline that Milosevic had been arrested! Bravo! I said "glad they got the bum". A man in a very nice suit next to me said something in Italian to the effect that sentiment is the same in Italy. Small world, isn't it?
Sunday [April 1]
Excursion to Pompeii today. Thrilled by the size and beauty of the location. Buildings w/ frescoes and mosaics restored give a glimpse of the city's great beauty.
An older man, Italian school teacher with class in tow, remarked that our
group of Brits English and Americans was a strange combination. Not
so, remarked an elderly English lady next to me. She said that without
American help and loans after the II WW that [they] would have starved.
"Times were very bad then."
How interesting to hear the revolutionary point of view from an educated Italian and the end-of-WWII view from our English companion.
This traveling really opens my mind to history and points of view.
Group lunch was good today. A tourist place but tables for four with plenty of room between. Good food too, and less noise when the musicians and singers were not upon us.
Got some excellent books about Pompeii & Herculaneum. One has foils with artist completions to overlay photos of the ruins.
Vendors all over the gates into the city. Pushing for sales of mostly junk. We bought one book.
Went to cameo shop where we got a 60 sec explanation of how it's done, then herded into sales room. I was not tempted. Mom game me one that was Lulu's and much more artistic than what we saw. Prices were high, $100 American for a small ring. No deals here. & no great art either. Oh well, there will be other goodies to take home.
Looking forward to a day without a tour tomorrow.
Dining w/ Frank & Anne, again a joy. I love his sense of humor and way of story telling. Trained dog found him his keys — Rottweillor in obedience class, paws on shoulder and full face slurp. Ha.
Sun 1 April (V Quares), not fooled again
Nobody put a fish in my pocket, which a guidebook sez is a tradition. Maybe they don't do that to tourists here.
POMPEII: Today, Pompeii (Scavi Pompei, say the road signs). Spectacular. Glorious. Huge. Images are required tell the story. [ POMPEII PHOTOS: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 -- from PlanetWare ]
But those images won't tell the story of the throngs of multinational tourists and floods of schoolkids surging within the old town walls, nor of the equal swarms of vendors just outside these walls. Juices and foods, yes, and many excellent illustrated guidebooks in many languages, and vast piles of tacky bric-a-brac: 2D and 3D renderings of ancient and newish erotic imagery (THE PRICKS OF POMPEII, multisexual statues with nice butts, etc); and lava-rock figurines of humans and animals and structures, spray-painted black with speckly gold outlines, like hard-edged Velvet Elvis art; and tonnes of cheap cameos, coral strands, chines bead necklaces ala Pompeii; and plaster recreations of ancient faces, real and mythic; and various makes / models / sizes of CAVE CANEM (Beware Of The Dog) tiles and ashtrays and trivets. And more and more. And the vendors are insistent and multilingual, persistent and omnipresent. But why isn't anyone selling hashish here? Or maybe they are.
MINORI: Back in Minori, I try an experiment. I've noticed that the townspeople almost never appear in public without wearing a jacket or overcoat, so I pull on a black pullover windbreaker and join the strollers in the evening promenade. It seems to work — I notice a sharp drop in the stares and eye-avoidance that marks their response to the tourist / outsider. A few folk nodded to me as though I were just another countryman (albeit maybe a tall damn northerner) out taking the air and maintaining the traditions.
Allesandra, the pert tour guide who spurned me so cruelly two days ago, noted my resemblance to a Northern Italian who is on television regularly, talking about - what? meteorology, or geography, or horticulture, or something like that, I forget. Maybe some locals mistake me for this sub-celebrity, slumming in their burg. Or maybe not.
Songs:
TOWERS
SOME HOT LOVE
Mon 2 April 2001 (S. Franc. do P.), en hotel.
AMALFI: Bus to Amalfi, stomp around for hours, have some "special fish" inflicted upon us (head & tail & scales & bones intact, price doubled) then walk over the hills to magickal Atrani and back. Espresso in a near-deserted square, a cat who wouldn't cooperate with his mistress to be photographed, a bewildering maze of walkways tunneling through cliff-hanging towns, stunning vistas and yet more churches scattered about everywhere, a grand cathedral we were ejected from summarily, that was the day.
And the night: after a disorganized dinner (funny how things fall apart when the wine steward takes a day off) we're subjected to an excruciating multilingual program on pasta making (the hotel's 'managing director' barking descriptions which our tourmaster Jenny tries humorously to translate whilst a fat old woman mechanically hand-fashions dough into traditional shapes), followed by some ravishing lemon chocolates made 100 metres from here (presented by the confectioner himself), topped with inescapable accordion music (which insistently forces its way through our closed balcony window after we've made our escape). The pain and pleasure principles intertwine.
Explanatory note: We're here on a package from Saga Tours, a UK outfit catering to post-50 Anglo-Americans out to see the world at reasonable rates. Airfare from San Francisco, three weeks in this very pleasant hotel with less-than-exciting breakfasts and dinners, occasional 'entertainments', all for US$100 per day. Excursions with local guides are optional and not terribly expensive, usually. Tons of free time and advice, grab your own lunch, buy your own wine, etc. A very good deal, but sometime disconcerting — this is our first such adventure.
Monday [April 2]
Day alone [together] in Amalfi & Atrani. SITA bus to Amalfi — shops — then Cathedral though rudely rushed out at noon. 12th cent. part w/ garden & Moorish arches & partially restored frescoes — beautiful.
Hiked to Atrani along the city sala's [passages]. Up lava steps & down, and up and around through tunnels with houses built over & doorways leading off. A real workout. Could have been used for a movie set in N. Africa, with the removal of the shrines to Madonna and saints which pop up here and there.
We saw two houses with bottles of water on the steps which are supposed to keep the cats from peeing there and also avert evil spirits and the evil eye.
Nice lunch, but expensive at a little bistro in a small piazza away from the Duomo. As others arrived and asked for sunny tables the wait guys just moved the potted cedar trees and carried the tables over diners' heads from shade to sun.
Refreshed ourselves with espresso in the main piazza in Atrani, then with gelato on our return to Amalfi. Excellent!
Cute cat in the Atrani square. Girl there told us it was her cat. She was trying to take his photo on the fountain but he was too busy playing to cooperate. They walked away, cat paws-up in her arms. Very sweet!
Streets in Atrani are up or down, sections, vaulted passages that fork in several directions. The names are written on the wall and would be useful if we had a map. At least the book that Ric hiked to Ravello for got us going at the right street and along the critical junctions.
Tuesday [April 3]
John Travolta drove us to Herculaneum today. Well, Aldo could have been his cousin, same profile. Very simpatico fellow — home in the cliff S. of Minori. Makes limoncello from his orchard for his family and friends. Also does auto repair in generate income for three sons and a wife.
We had 2 hrs. to see Herculaneum. Different from Pompeii — smaller & Samnite architecture. Too many high-voiced little children but otherwise interesting. Suburban baths were absolutely fabulous in scale, plan and decoration. The very best part.
Lunch in Herculaneum right outside the old city site. Nice deserted restaurant except for the 7 of us and 2 local men.
Also stopped at [Oplontis] on the way back to the coast. This, the very best for extent, content and decoration. The frescoes were brilliant in color, composition and execution. And only the 7 of us, well 6 of us, the cranky old 'lady' American stayed behind.
Over the 'Tramonti' road from Angri to Maiori. Yacked along the way with Also and Jean from S. west England about the differences between Italy, England and California in taxes, petrol costs, road & auto taxes, types of local commerce. Italian income tax for Aldo is 60%. Medical is included on a sliding scale according to income. As many "under the table" transactions as possible are done to avoid the tax. Roads are by fee too. From Minori to Milano costs 100,000 lira or $50 U.S. dollars.
Had a brandy in the square with Anne & Frank after dinner. They leave in the morning so will have new table mates tomorrow night. Anne & Frank love Tom Lehrer songs. Small world.
Tues 3 April 2001 (S. Ricardo), unguided
TOURING: More old stuff. Tour of Ercolano, Oplantis, the Vesuvio suburbs of Napoli. OK, OK the drive and driver (Aldo) were great, the ruins were stunning, the lunch was good, only one companion was intolerable, and the air was only slightly carcinogenic. But we had a good time. See the pictures. When they're available.
Some details: our original Herculanium trip fell through, so Jenny the SAGA representative organized alternative transport but no guide. A small minibus (with a driver sharing profiles with John Travolta) took off with a small crowd; we chatted our way up Maiori and Tramonti, across the top of the Montii Lattari again, down through Angri and Pompei, over to Ercolano and the digs.
ERCOLANO: Herculanium (Scavi Ercolano) is much smaller than Pompeii (Scavi Pompei) but better preserved and less hucksterized, although deeper into the Neapolitan conurbation. A two-hour runthru IS sufficient for surveying most of the glories, or would be if ravening mobs of screaming schoolkids weren't swarming about. The overall effect is wondrous, and the thermal baths under the city (Thermae Suburbanae) are especially awe-inspiring. Wish we could have stayed longer.
Aldo had directed that we lunch at the BAR DEGLI AMORINI across from the entrance to the digs, which is also the only guidebook-recommended local eatery, and it was as described: unassuming outside, spacious and gracious and pleasant inside. The food was good enough, the cold red wine was homemade and unfiltered and tasty, the bill was reasonable. I'm happy.
OPLONTIS: Aldo then took us to the Scavi Oplantis, an ancient ruin that may have been the country / seaside villa of Emperor Nero's second wife Poppea. This is a huge home (as befits an empress) with stupendous frescoes and gardens and intriguing architecture. Zowie.
Driving back over the hills, a good conversation with Aldo whilst soaking in all the smoggy sights; and a gelato on Minori's promenade ended a fine day's trip. But that nasty old New Orleans hag who suggested that Jake's motley muttly litter should have been destroyed, well, let's do the same for humans; and since most NOLAns are of mixed blood, she's first. Take THAT, you scag.
GALA FEED: Dinner: the weekly SAGA dinner to send off those whose vacations have expired. A little free wind, a little odd food, a lot of overly-loud live Italianate music (or a careful simulation thereof). Afterward, we stroll with sly Frank and taut Ann to sip brandy and gossip about families, out in the windblown night, and then we send them back to Britain. Or maybe that's tomorrow. Whatever.
Wed [April 4]
Very lazy & tired today. I slept or tried to while Ric hiked. Then on his return at 1 pm we went to a seaside cafe & had excellent wine, pizza & salad for $20 U.S. Spent the afternoon on the roof reading & napping in lounge chairs. Munched cookies from the bakery across from Hotel. Then at 5 changed and wandered around Minori poking into shops. Bought 'pomodoro' seeds for us & tenants.
Alone [together] at dinner tonight, nice break from chit-chat. Early to bed, early to rise, for best of breakfast, then whatever we choose.
I really needed this day of rest. Banged my head twice on Herculaneum stone doorways yesterday and on the bus backdoor top two days before. No concussion, but sore.
Wandered into a new piazza after lunch looking for a mosaic gallery and found school boys playing hide and seek while granny watched from the 2nd story window. Waves and smiles to and from all.
Later saw the boys cycling up the street, they said 'good morning', seems almost everyone here has a very little bit of English. We get along OK.
Wed 4 April 2001 (S. Isidoro), hillblown.
TOWARD SANTA NICOLA: A limited day. After a late, insubstantial breakfast, Maureen returned abed and I climbed random walkways and paths into the hills above this coast between Minori and Maiori, past the lemons and olives and willows up into a high pine tree zone, where I trudged upward as far as I could and then surrendered to gravity and fatigue.
I descended into Maiori past in-the-wall cactus gardens, past a skateboard far from any rollable surface, past stumbling ponies and peasants burning lemontree litter. The flatlands of Maiori held no excitement sufficient to counter my exhaustion, so I stumbled the coast road back to Minori and hotel.
MINORI: A great pizza lunch on Minori's shorefront (DO patronize the Altamerea), a snoop and snooze at the solarium atop our Hotel Villa Romana, a late afternoon exploration of more hillside walkways and back-alley shops, a tolerable dinner that welcomed the latest batch of SAGA newbies, etc.
Seen from that rooftop solarium: other roofs festooned with laundry; a sector of the sea; kittens in a poolside walkway, jousting; a nun bustling around children's toys in an empty school; black sensuous underwear hanging to dry from a window; debris fires burning on the hillsides; the ever-higher estates of Ravello. And all the rest.
Thursday 5 April
Positano today. Fab place spread out up the mountain and across a very large ravine. Took the bus: Minori to Amalfi, Amalfi to Positano. Got off at the Bar Internazionale at the top of town and walked down, peering in shops, over the roadside and all around, road snaking back upon itself till we reached the boutiques in the town proper. I expected Carmel-like stuff for sale but found mostly resort stuff and some 'slut ware' along with the art galleries of almost-good local works, limoncello shops & tourist junk.
We lunched on pizza at an Internet cafe, yummy stuff for $6 U.S. while watching the kids play video games. All four computers occupied though.
Went our way up American Lane, a pathway out of town to the next cove and beach, deserted and very peaceful. Photo of guys moving dirt from a garden down a pipe then baskets into a wheelbarrow and back down the path somewhere.
Beach in Positano obscured by tents, stage etc for International Cartoon whoop-dee-do.
Too early for bus back, so rode the InterPositano bus back to our debarkation point for espresso & sweets. Then caught the town bus again for a road trip. A group of high school kids got on in Positano for the ride back up. Very stylish in haircuts & clothes and very simpatico with each other and others on bus. Altogether a lovely experience, although we were crowded bod to bod.
Rained like crazy on the way back to Amalfi.
Got some good advise from Joan, John & Don about trip to Paestum — go on our own instead of Saga — and the loan of their book. Nice folks.
Before heading to Positano we stopped into the municipal bldg in Amalfi where we saw one of the earliest [copies of the] 'codes of Amalfi' book, and historic costumes, while workers in the hall sang Italian opera and painted floor trim.
Thur 5 April 2001 (S. Vincenzo F.), corniched.
POSITANO: Another damn day, another damn adventure. After last night's inconsequential dinner (appropriate for any American roadside chain restaurant) we retired early, rose early today and decided to view Positano. Catching the correct commercial SITA bus(ses) was only a minor challenge; the ride down (west) the corniche was thrilling; Positano ("the town that launched 10,000 postcards") is beautiful, if a bit widely distributed in the horizontal and vertical dimensions. We strolled the town's main street from top to bottom, stuck our noses into shops from reasonable to exorbitant, and in the end purchased only consumables. Somehow we refrained from buying an Italiano Furby, which might have been a useful language-learning tool — or maybe not.
After feasting on fabulous pizzas at an Internet cafe just above the Duomo plaza, we admired said Duomo (dome-fitted basilica) and the Bach toccata and fugue being practiced for a Holy Week concert. Splendid organ, splendid decorations in this tourist-rich-town cathedral. Nice bas-relief outside, too. And away from the main spiaggia (beach) and boat-launch crowds, there's a nice walk around a point and past a personal Norman tower to the uncommercialized Fornilla neighborhood, and a narrow cool quiet ravine. Ha.
THE TOWERS: The Amalfi coast was visited by various raiders over the centuries. After the Normans conquered the region (around CE 1000) and established a bright shining stable state in Sicily and Southern Italy, they built a series of towers along the coast to serve as sentinel posts, to warn of incoming hostiles (often Arabs). Hence they're known as Norman towers or Saracen towers or some such. Modern invaders would be announced by the scads of Italians clutching cellphones; we felt naked, being not so equipped.
So. Back into the consumer crush, but now we're into the siesta time (which along with dull black garb was introduced by the Spanish imperial conquerors who ruined Italy over the course of about CE 1500-1800) and most of the shops are closed; so we roll up the easier grade to the coast road, grab a local bus back to the Bar Internazionale for espresso and pastries, then ride that local around for another circuit of town with a crush of noisy fun schoolkids (many doing instant messaging on their cellphones). Back to Minori as the old corniche snakes along and a new storm sweeps in. Just in time.
Song:
TORNADO BLUES
Fri 6 April 2001 (S. Gugliemo), roaded out.
RITORNO A SORRENTO: To Sorrento, the long way around via Vietri sul Mare and Pompeii, Alessandra telling more tall tales of the eastern Amalfi coast (a haunted villa that donations from the tour group could restore and rebuild as a luxury hotel, ya sure), then down through the urban jumble to Brit-loaded Sorrento itself. First, a fine if constrained and jumbled museum, the Museo Correale di Terranova; then, the lovely town, just as commercial as Napoli but much more orderly [carefully avoid mention of the wood-inlay factory tour]; then a drive over the hills of the Peninsola Sorrentina back to the Costiera Amalfitana: the vertical cliffs, the Syrene's Isles (previously owned by Rudolf Nuryev), Positano, Priano, Amalfi, etc.
Songs:
WANNA WANNA
LOVE SO MUCH (Heart-Licking)
SANTA ALLESANDRA
SURROUNDED BY SAINTS & MADONNAS
Friday [6 April]
This is our half way day. Damn.
Saga tour to Sorrento today. Down the Amalfi coast then another motorway toward Napoli, but turning toward Castellemmare then into Sorrento perched on a high tufa cliff. Most of the city on a gentle incline; some buildings in saddles between high hills.
A beauty of a city. View of Vesuvio across the bay and Capri in the distance.
Saw private Correalle Museum treasures of painting and marquetry. Visited a marquetry factory and bought a music box or me and one for Mom. Then to Piazza Tossa for 2.5 hrs free time. Shopped the old Greek street. Found a good street side restaurant outside the Hotel Tramonte for lunch. Then walked through its gardens to the belvedere for the grand view over the Bay of Naples.
I really like this city. It is bright, and clean and vibrant. Upscale restaurants, hotels and shops as well as the everyday. Much nicer than Napoli. Very few ads and billboards and no trash.
Sat 4/7
Vietri sul Mare today on the bus. Got off early to see the ceramic museum on the Amalfi Coast road. Didn't find it but had a great walk, stopping to photo the views and shrines. Started looking at local ceramics along the road — also had the best lemonade ever from a roadside stand where everything very cobbled together, quaint and two small dogs playing in the yard.
On into town we began the viewing of ceramics shops. Overall there is lots of tourist dreck but hidden at the crossroads and on further into town are some good ones [stuff]. Purchased a platter for handing in the kitchen and a jog for our limoncello that we bought in Sorrento yesterday.
Found the Duomo in a small dead-end piazza. Closed. Tile decorations everywhere along the streets.
Just as the church bell began to chime 11:30 it seemed that a flood of people with bundles came flowing back from the commercial center and down a street toward the sea. We followed and found shops selling fish, poultry, assundries, etc. and all with very decorative tiles of their business framing the doorways.
The people disappeared into their houses but we continued down all the way to the sea. A very cold wind and overcast and The Season just to start gave the place the feel of an abandoned resort in wait.
The walk back was a toughy. 15% grade on the volcanic cobbles. All the local women walking up in skirts revealed huge calf muscles.
Found our recommended restaurant LA LOCANDA after backtracking to purchase our pick of the town's wares. Fabulous lunch for 43k lira — aperitif, bread, toast w/ olive oil / tomatoes / season, fuscilli w/ lobster & vodka cream sauce, ravioli with tomato sauce / mussels / tuna, beer, then chocolate mousse and espresso. Our best meal in Italia.
After lunch took the other fork of the main drag, Umberto I, and stumbled upon the ceramic faced towers of the ceramics factory. Absolutely stunning. [Designed by Paolo Soleri.]
Then back to the main intersection to wait for the [SITA] bus. But, Saga bus returning from Napoli came first and picked us up.
Horrid dinner at the hotel tonight. Good we fed well at lunch.
Sat 7 April 2001 (S. Ermanno), plannus interruptus.
CERAMICSVILLE: First plan for today: bus to Scala, walk back down to Minori via Ravello and Torello. Glowering weather prompts postponement. Next plan: bus to Vietri sul Mare, shop and whatever. So we ride the SITA bus eastward, noting possible points of further exploration: some towers, the Oily Virgin Mary (Santa Maria de Olearia) monastery, Cetara the fish-town, etc. We hop off the bus at the first road to Raito looking for a ceramics museum (not to be found), then stroll the couple klicks into town, passing ceramics shops and traffic-watching dogs and shrines (squirty-titted Madonnas and stigmatic priests and more) and terrific vistas. We stopped at a roadside lemonade stand for liquid essence of lemons, were invited to lunch there (a micro-sheltered two-tiny-table clifftop terrace — we should return).
And then on into Vietri on a quest for the most perfect ceramic, the characteristic product of the place now and the last couple millennia. (Although I should note that the trade had died out in recent centuries, to be revived some 100+ years ago by German industrialists.)
Many tile/pot shops infest the town, mostly same-same tourist stuff, but some items are truly wondrous. We noted a fine platter at DAEDALUS < http://www.daedalus.it > but kept searching. Got a nice limoncello jug down the road. On into town — the walls are COVERED with fabulous tiles, each shop front enveloped by a graphic display of their wares and services, whole blocks festooned with narrative images. And graphic religious items: that miraculous stigmatic priest Padre Pio, an almost tarot-card-like Madonna, Madonnas holding loaves of bread filled with eyes, saints throwing themselves heavenward, Madonnas suckling or squirting or fondling or gesticulating. And one shop had little glazed figures: a female labeled AVE MARIA with a flip-up cunt, priests labeled PEACE AND GOOD with flip-up cocks. (Not to mention the statuary, postcards, calendars and books of erotic from Pompeii etc. that line the tourist traps of Southern Italy.) My Quaker / Methodist head spins...
DOWNTOWN: Past the Duomo (where more notable tiles abound) and down narrow passages past small plazas and busy people, down to a steep old street heading all the way down to the waterfront — which was nothing like what we expected. It's best to have no expectations, no preconceptions. Old blocks of apartments edged with Karaoke pizzeria clubs and tilemakers; a wide beachfront boulevard lined with summer resort infrastructure, purveyors of food and drink and music not yet open for the upcoming season; a spacious riverwalk that dead-ends with absolutely no access to the upper town; and every available surface strewn with small TV antennae and satellite dishes. And a cold wind blew our weary bodies apart...
The noontime grew wet and dank; we climbed the endless road back up to the heights, past ancient hotels and pre-fascist industrial architecture and hi-tech spiritual retreats. Two klicks up a 15% grade. Yow. We crawled back to Daedalus, bought the platter (touched-up and discounted), then followed the helpful shopgirl's map to Vietri's sole recommended cheap eatery, RISTORANTE LA LOCANDA, for some of the very best salad and seafood pasta we have EVER devoured, at an astonishingly low price. We'll return and work our way through their menu...
Quite sated, we strolled toward the end of Corso Umberto I past more great tiles and siesta-closed shops to its juncture with Via Roma. On the right: a square giving a view of the coast. On the left: a fountain, pedestrian underpass and tile factory worthy of Gaudi's Barcelona. Is this stuff possible?
FREE RIDE: We dragged ourselves back to the main intersection to await the homeward SITA bus (drool yet again at a vivid plate depicting a maritime god and goddess in a chariot rising from the waves, merely ONE MILLION LIRA or US$500) when along came our old SAGA bus returning from a Naples tour. St. Allesandra waved us aboard for a free ride back to Minori. Nice.
It would all have been a splendid day, had not the hotel's chef tried to pass off old shoe leather as saucy veal. Or server Roberto laughed when I pointed at my sandal sole; the maitre'd and manager apologized, but it's too late fore remedies. Let'em eat thongs.
The plan for tomorrow: Ravello, one way or another.
Songs:
I SAW ST. PETER
CERAMICS BLUES STOMP
THE WAYS YOU MAKE LOVE
CURRENTS OF BLOOD AND FIRE
Palm Sunday. [8 April]
After a day in the rain and hail tromping around Amalfi we tried to see the pre-Easter processional in medieval costumes in Ravello in the evening, but it was postponed until this Wednesday on account of rain. We had fun anyway. The ride up and down from Ravello to Minori was especially steep and narrow, so the slow going gave plenty of time to enjoy the evening lights and the comedy of the cars backing up to let the bus by and buzzing around the bus when they could.
In Ravello we found a very swank hotel and had Irish coffee while waiting for the bus to return. Over a terrace we could see lights all the way to Salerno and to beyond under a full moon & cloudy sky. The lights also clearly marked the stairways through the hills. Beautiful!
In the morning we got off the local bus at the Amalfi town hall on a whim and found locals gravitating to the square there, carrying olive branches and obviously waiting for some event. As we waited with them more townspeople arrived from the sea promenade and from the town, some now carrying woven bouquets & staffs of palm [leaves] and flowers. Also some, especially children, carried bouquets of candy-covered almonds that had been fashioned into flowers and peppered into small baskets.
Then people with blue folders assembled on the steps and finally the procession of altar boys in white, tall silver crosses, and the Bishop in red robe and hat, carrying his crozier, entered. The Bishop's hat was removed in ceremony by another red robed man and the Bishop made an invocation. The folder people were the choir and very good. Then a responsive was done between a priest and the crowd, and the processional went out of the square and paraded the marine road then into town and the Duomo.
I bought an almond bouquet for Aunt Ginnie at the pastry shop across from our hotel this evening.
Sun 8 April 2001 (La Palme), inhaling.
SMOKE & AIR: Sun 8 April 2001 (La Palme), inhaling.
I haven't yet mentioned the smells. Italians smoke. Anywhere. Maybe only 10% of them, but everywhere. They (and other Euros and Gringos and all the other tobacco junkies) can't help being atmospheric pigs, they're raised this way. But Italians also aren't to vigorous about enforcing emission controls (if any) on motor vehicles. Traffic stinks. The haze enveloping Napoli is noxious. Sea breezes and the occasional storm (like today's) MAY clear up matter for awhile, but I haven't witnessed such cleansing and so can't attest to it.
But on the coast, on the paths, in the hills, among the trees, the scents are sweet and fresh. Agriculture here is mostly vegetable, not animal; the only industrial pollution I've noticed on the Amalfi Coast comes from tourist buses and those ubiquitous motor-scooter tricycle pickup lorries. It's usually possible to breathe deeply without regret. Outdoors, anyway.
Then there are the scents of the walkway in towns and villages. I'll describe those later.
AMALFI: It's another rainy day, so we've once again postponed / shitcanned the Scala-Ravello-Minori walk, in favor of another bus jaunt to Amalfi, with raincoats. The quest, so far unfulfilled, was for shoes. Along the way we were caught up in a Palm Sunday procession by the town hall behind the cathedral, complete with bishop (or cardinal, someone in a red hat) and chorus and lotsa folks waving plaited leaves. It looked like a Pueblo Indian corn festival.
Then we stomped around town, through ancient walkways, and stopped for lunch at an elegant trattoria unfortunately filled with smoke (which prompted the preceding paragraphs). Fine food, bad air, a hasty exit and walk to the waterfront and sea wall. We were beset by HAIL before we attained the returning bus. Hail, Mary!
RAVELLO: Later: we'd so looked forward to an excursion to Ravello to see a pre-Easter celebration in medieval costumes, VIA CRUCIS, widely postered in the area. The coach was rented; 35 SAGA stalwarts scurried aboard; we navigated the serpentine road in the impending dark, with the usual appreciative thrill-ride cries and laughs from the passengers. Arriving in Ravello, we all stumped uphill to the kickoff point for this procession — only to find that the event was postponed due to bad weather. Darn. Some Irish coffee, a gloomy ride back, and maybe it'll happen Wednesday. And maybe I'll spew flames.
Monday [9 April]
It's a monsoon outside at 3 pm. Good thing we hiked the mountain trail from Minori to Maiori this morning. It was mostly sunny then and hot at times. Went up the lava steps from our town through the houses on the east of town, then the trail hit a more rural area with mostly lemon groves which turned to very steep terrain in pines, broom, capers, wildflowers and some olive trees. Path skirted uphill the first canyon of Maiori then a flat pace, then finally descending via more lava steps to the piazza of the Duomo. Missed the shoe shop that Rose recommended but bought 2 pair beautiful Italian shoes at a smaller shop at the edge of town. Ric waited over espresso next door.
Lunch ordinary & smoky at LA BOTTE in Minori. Resting Now.
Mon 9 April 2001 (S. Maria C.), ruminating.
-
Random thoughts:
- We should get that Italian Furby we saw in Positano, to facilitate learning the language.
- Most Italians we've met who learn we're Americans seem not displeasedwithus.
- Wisteria is blooming everywhere; other blossoms threaten.
- Granite di Limone is just tart lemon slush — needs brandy.
- We need clothes detergent — shampoo and handsoap just don't suffice for cleaning our travelwear.
- Properties for sale are priced quite reasonably near the Amalfi coast and rather-to-quite cheap a bit further inland, at least from aCaliforniaperspective.
- (Human) Nature Happens.
- Even though we have TV in our hotel room, with BBC and CNN and Deutche Welle news available, we don't watch, and I feel no distress at my disconnection from world events.
I haven't yet discussed the scents of the old covered walkways in the towns. Centuries old, some maybe a millennium or more, walls and steps suffused with herbs, sweat, cooking, clay, burros, incense, lemons, smoke — neither entirely pleasant not unpleasant, just a definite presence. Odors of death and mostly life.
Today we go over the hills from Minori via Torre to Maiori, the tourist trail along the edge of Tramonti, above a 'castle' and harbor, through the inevitable lemon orchards, past barking dogs and sleeping cats and a blessed duck. Then Maureen buys shoes. Then we walk along the coast road back. Again.
(Draft text for postcards:)
Hiya! What, we have to leave Italy in 9 days? Bother. It's great here. Naples is mad, Pompeii & other ruins are awesome, the coast & hills & villages are beautiful, we might have to move here part-time. Food is fresh & cheap, air is clean (except Naples), everyone has a cellphone. But the drivers — well, we can tell we're not in California anymore. Luckily there's a vast web of paved walkways over the hills between town & village, and we haven't crashed into any burros yet. It's Holy Week — the Palm Sunday procession is like a Zuni Indian corn festival. Shrines are everywhere — maybe they're necessary for driving? More later. Love, R&M http://www.sonic.net/~ric/arts/escher.htm
History lessons:
Out west a ways off the coast from Positano are three rocks (but you can only see two) called La Galli (previously owned by Rodolf Nuryev) which may be the petrified remains of the Syrenes thwarted by Ulysses / Odysseus — or maybe not, they may be somewhere else along the Tyrennian coast.
In Amalfi stands a statue of Flavio Gioia, who invented the magnetic compass — or maybe not, or he may have just put the traditional twelve-point directional rose around a Chinese compass — or it may have been someone else.
The folks in Positano don't like the folks in the neighboring burg of Praiano because after the Saracens invaded and devastated the coast they populated the latter village with Arabs — or maybe not, maybe that's the reason the people of Amalfi don't like those of Atrani, or maybe it never happened and it's just an excuse.
Be careful just which history you take seriously around here.
Also be careful of ordering foods consisting of leggy bugs in pasta. Yow.
End of lessons. For now. But check out them Syrenes, eh?
MORE INPUT: Valuable information from Jahn and Martine: take a SAGA tour to Greece, to Hotel Mare Nostrum, in Vavrona (Vravrona?) 50 km east of Athens — excellent food, free wine, good transport t/from the new airport and Athens. And beware of Athens cabbies. ALSO: rent cars anywhere in the E.U. from KEMWELL — contact travel agencies for details. ALSO: the best Indian petroglyphs in North America are near Ridgecrest CA at Little Petroglyph Canyon on the China Lake NAS — contact an archaeological society to arrange with the military for visiting the glyphs.
Tuesday [10 April]
Forget Salerno if you can; only the Basilica was worth our time and we were evicted for Mass and the crypt was closed for repairs. The books warned us that Italian attractions are often closed for repairs. Of interest in the older area was remodeling of a square and the excavation of a street, reason unknown. They [construction crews] all seem to be a couple of guys with a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow! Guess it keeps folks employed.
Paestum saved a painful day for me. I hated the noise, trash, graffiti and the general city atmosphere of Salerno, Only the marine promenade was pretty. A wide swath of lawn, trees and benches. Had a guide in Paestum — pretty good with stuff omitted from our guidebooks. Temples build on 7 layers of stone slabs with sand between the found underground and the 3 above.
Saw the excellent museum in 20 mins. free at the end. Just enough time to see the diver fresco, the Greek dancers carved in relief, the honey jars of bronze and many cases of gorgeous Greek pots and artifacts.
The land down there is flat and agricultural, but back from that plain are great mtns. with villages hanging on them. Very inviting.
Our last group day trip. Yahoo!
Tue 10 April 2001 (S. Terenzio), Shrove Tuesday? (nope, wrong month)
CONSPIRACIES AND THE PARANORMAL: Hunter Thompson wrote that in Las Vegas, psychedelics are redundant. Similarly here in Neapolitan Campagnia, surrounded by images of priests with stigmata and haloes, of saints with burning eyes and hearts, of squirty-titted (sorry, I like that phrase) nymphs and madonnas, of sea-gods and tree-gods, and volcanic deities and fiery demons, and queens of corn and light, HERE are UFOs and ETs superfluous.
Conspiracy is another matter. Conspiracy abounds. Political groups, church factions, commercial cliques, outlaw bands, farm alliances, all conspire against each other and everyone else. The success of any such conspiracy is of course problematic. But the Church always wins, eventually. Or so it seems.
Ha, but spirits, spirits are everywhere. Some folks hereabouts leave water bottles on their front steps in order to frighten off evil spirits. Herbs and flowers and times and drawings are arranged to attract good spirits, repel the bad guys. Some fields and houses are haunted by unquiet ghosts. Witches work their will and sometimes make a liqueur, sold all over the country. Old magic soaks into every wall and walkway.
TOURING: Today we toured Salerno and Paestum via the SAGA bus. Salerno — nothing to write home about, especially not for the modern sectors, although its Duomo is most impressive and its old shopping street (Via Merchanta) is quaint, with a couple nice points. But at the site of the 1943 Allied troop landing is now a large concrete dome, the UFO BAR!! First the Anglo-Americans land, then the ETs land — what IS it about this place?!?!? And just east of there was a Christian Carnival — numerous carny rides next to numerous JESUS IS THE ANSWER caravans & trailers. Strange spirits indeed abound here...
Paestum — the ancient Graeco-Roman city was devastated not by volcanic ash nor earthquakes nor storms, nor by conspiracies by humans nor by gods, but by malaria and a road bypass (the Appian Way went elsewhere). Fine site, huge temples, superb art, prodigious souvenirs. Paestum, the area around the Cilento peninsula beyond the mountains opposite, all call for further exploration. Hell, EVERYTHING here does.
THE TRUTH ABOUT LEMONS: A question arose about the dangers of harvesting lemons from the groves perched on the near-vertical cliff faces of the Amalfi coast. Wouldn't a human lemon-plucker fall to certain death? The answer of course is that special small dogs are used, toothless old 'leapers' who are tossed into the trees with a rope tied to a hind leg, there to snatch the fruit in their sturdy gums and be hauled back in before they can plummet to destruction. The fruit is undamaged by such treatment; and the oral enzymes help soften the skin, which is used only to produce the renowned local LIMONCELLO liqueur. Many small gimpy toothless dogs may be seen stumbling around these coastal villages.
CLARIFICATION: Please note that in an earlier entry where I referred to (Italian) smokers as "atmospheric pigs", I didn't intend to malign Italians, merely to denigrate any culture that encourages fuming tobacco addiction. It ain't just Italians, it's ANY social structure that allows itself to be permeated with such stenches, such casual indifference to the effects upon the self and others, such... sleaziness. "Do you mind if I smoke?" "No, do you mind if I fart?"
04-11-01 Wed
Hiked to Pogérola from Amalfi after lunch today. The rain poured down with thunder & lightning 'bout halfway up. We went on to the top. Very good trail w/ stone cut steps and flat areas mostly paved, up along a canyon mountainside, past views into Amalfi & across the chasm. Even a spike of limestone like pics of China, and also caves across the valley w/ stalagtites in them and across the face of the cliff above & around the openings. Hillside in wild trees, brush & flowers.
Went for the adventure and espresso at the top. When we got to the bar, the power was out so had cognac instead while chatting with Helen and Trön from Norway on holiday from their N. Italian sabbatical, and the owner Natále. N said "people can't help the religion they are born into." He was born into this town. Helen said Norway has "state religion" — Ric says it's Lutheran. Helen also told us that another young woman (35-40) had come here to write 6 mos. out of each year for a while and rents a house in this town for $200 U.S. /mo.
I love the dogs here. They have an insouciance bar none. Very interesting active and jaunty. Met a little beauty on the trail today — a 35 lb or so German Shepherd mix teen, just a bundle of joy to walk with anyone. Greeted us by smiling and jumping onto me, and then racing around. What a delight.
At the [street] market this morning in Amalfi we saw a scooter with an older man & woman and their small dog who rode on the floor. Also saw a big dog transported like this across from the Bar Internazionale in Positano.
Fun Birthday — 54th.
Saw 2nd & 3rd waterfall today. The river runs into Amalfi over a waterfall & down a creek that is then diverted under the main street. Some seems to be routed through the paper factory then over a small fall in a garden of Padre Pio and into the main channel Tasted excellent creme limoncello at the market in a little shop. Nice folks there.
Padre Pio had stigmata and manifested himself at a distance from Puglia to the Vatican, 1887-1968.
Wed 11 April 2001 (S. Stanisloo), Ash Wednesday.
Yesterday was sunny. Today it rains. What'll we do now? We learn something of the logistics of boats to Capri, of fast buses to Naples, but nothing yet about car/moped rentals (except to try Avis in Salerno). We learn that the best local event today is the street market in Amalfi, so we're off.
AMALFI: Inadequate socks and superb limoncello are purchased. Upper Amalfi is explored very slightly — much more to see here, stuff that isn't apparent from the tourist routes. Now the rain has slacked off. We venture into a highly recommended pizzeria for lunch — and are once again overcharged for food in Amalfi. That's two for three. We'll try once more, but if we again feel ripped-off here, we'll patronize nothing more complicated than PIZZA EXPRESS or similar takeout joints.
After the too-expensive lunch with wine and odd liqueurs (why make a sweet bay laurel infusion?) and as the sky seems drier, we head up the usual type of pathways to Pogérola, a hamlet high above here. The trek isn't past the usual lemon groves, but along steep hillsides bordering wild country. Green brush, colorful wildflowers, Amalfi slowly sinking below us, and the clouds gradually thickening again.
MONSOON: The rains come. And lightning and thunder. And winds and torrential onslaughts. Two ascending English girls in shorts and raincoats have been adopted by a bright energetic local dog, sort of a bushy mini-Alsatian, who gleefully shakes his small but thick hairload of water against their bare legs repeatedly. Somewhere below the top of the climb they surrender and return below ("We don't want to get any wetter!" "Too late!"), accompanied by the same pooch (who thus turns out NOT to be a shill for a bar in the next village).
The climb isn't painful, but the windy wetness becomes bothersome. Zillions of stone steps, bearing us some 300+ metres skyward, with no cover but laurel and olive trees. Yow. But somehow we gain Pogérola.
POGÉROLA: Our guidebook sez the COCKTAIL BAR on the main square serves excellent cappuccino and extra-bitter chocolate. And it probably does when there's power for the espresso machine. But during our ascent, the lights went out here, and down in Amalfi, and Minori, and elsewhere on the coast as we later learn. But nothing hot is available now.
Natále the proprietor hung up our coats, showed us the loo, brought us cognacs and barnuts, and told us why he's a nonbelieving Catholic. He was mostly translated by Helen (and a bit by Trön), Norwegian academics on sabbatical in Ferrara who're slumming on this coast for a few days, before spring break brings swarms of Italian schoolkids hither. Another Norwegian there said she's renting a house in Pogérola for L400k (US$200) per month. Wow. Some fine chatting, some more cognacs, some fine views from the belvedere, a gaggle of Dutch walkers invading the bar, and we chicken out and grab the next bus down the mountain. Yes, we'll be back, but on a sunnier day, and hopefully we won't have to go all the way back to Minori for hot coffee then, as we must today.
PADRE PIO: I haven't much mentioned Padre Pio yet. Padre Pio is everywhere here, on posters, tiles, statuary, bronze plates, stencils, windows, walls, vehicles. The balding bearded mystic stares at you from every corner. The image count pecking-order around here is:
- Virgin Mary, or Madonna and Child
- Padre Pio ——>
- coastal pictures
- Jesus
- squirty-titted ("world-nourishing") or bread-with-eyeball-holding Madonna
(error: That's Santa Lucia with eyeballs on a plate, not Santa Maria) - Michael Jackson
Padre Pio had stigmata, did distant manifestations and some miracles I don't know about, and otherwise... ??? I need to research his miracles and sanctification a bit. Or whatever.
The sky clears, calms, quiets. The sky fills again. Thunder resumes. Goodnight.
Thursday [12 April]
Just back from watching penitents processional parade from the marina up the road and into the Basilica. All are men dressed in robes & hoods, like KKK, but meaning that all men are equal in the eyes of God and all aspire to meeting him a death pure & cleansed of sin. They sang a song, a call & response in very low tones, and the call was very similar [in] tone & phrasing [to] the Moslem call to worship. One carried a cross, several 4 small boys carried red brocade pillows on which were a crown of thorns, a ceremonial stole, a small ladder and ?? The processional started at the basilica then went up the street in front of our Hotel where the singing was done because the head of the "brotherhood" owns the hotel, then it went to all the churches in the town, some up the stone paths & into the hills, then ended at the start. We didn't stay for the service at the end.
An English woman who married locally 20 years ago gave a talk after dinner tonight about the Pasqua events here in Minori which are the same as in Ravello and Maiori.
There will be another penitents processional very early in the morning and again after dark tomorrow night, when the only lights will be special 'luminaries'. No electric lights tomorrow night.
This town was a go-between during the Amalfi Republic, receiving raw materials, porting them to Ravello, where textiles were made from them, then porting them back down and sending them off for trade.
When this gig ended folks in Minori built their own mills and tried textiles but failed. Then they tried taking wheat & barley from the Paestum area, milling it and making it into Pasta. This was a success and went along fine until the king realized that his favorite food was in jeopardy from pirates, and moved the industry over the mountains away from the sea, where it could be protected by Naples. Pasta was an aristocratic dish then.
Hard times hit then and the "brotherhood" was started to help the town survive — 1575 is the earliest recorded meeting of same.
Now tourism keeps the town going, mostly in the summer.
The "brotherhood" organizes the Pasqua events with no participation / interference by the town priests, had have every year since 1575.
Our day out was to Maiori, shoe shopping — then on the Vietri sul Mare to see shat we missed last time. Ceramic factory a bust — full of junk — but saw the park, view of the sea, as [we] walked a few streets taking photos. Lunch again at LA LOCANDA. Great! Back home before the afternoon rains.
Many of Minori's buildings were constructed for the manufacture of pasta, but are now homes.
Thur 12 April 2001 (Giovedi Santa), Maundy Thursday.
Another semi-threatening day, weatherwise — the local / national TV forecast shows rain over much of Italy, thunderstorm's (like last night's boomers and hailers) over the south and Sicily. What to do? Grab raincoats, walk to Maiori to buy more shoes, then bus to Vietri sul Mare for more browsing, strolling, snapshooting, another good cheap lunch at LA LOCANDA, then bus back to Minori whilst the sky drips and drools. And what to do tomorrow if it's the same? Time here is running out, less than a week left, and so much more yet to see and do. We hope.
-
More random observations:
- In the US, the honking of auto horns is usually an expletive: "Get out of my way, fuckhead!"; here in Italy it's much more complex, a discourse: a two-tone warning from buses, blips from smaller vehicles saying "here I am" or "I will pass" or "I have passed", and only the occasional cursing blare at an inept clueless sod.
- The ancient coastal warning towers serve quite well as waypoints marking regular distances.
- The coast abounds with local packaged goods that are only available where they're produced.
- There are now fruit vendors at every widening of the corniche.
- A wide range of Pasqua (Easter) candies and breads and floral decorations are being sold and carried about, and their composition and complexion changes daily.
- One early-morning TV station features an infomercial of naked women with a phone number and web address.
- Minori's town chorus of cats in heat this Holy Week is deafening.
MAUNDY THURSDAY: After dinner tonight, a surprise: a lay holy society, the Brotherhood of something-or-other (of whom our hotelier / "managing director" is a grand poobah or something) stops in front of the hotel to sing Gregorian chants, as these men and boys in white robes and hoods (ala KKK but preceding the Klan by some centuries) make their way in a procession amongst all the many churches in town. Then Sna. Sandra gives an animated and informative talk on the strange and wondrous history of Minor, once nearly the "Silicon Valley" of the Renaissance (an incredibly rich high-tech sector of the Amalfi Republic: paper-making and carpets and lemons reached Europe through Minori, and pasta was invented here) and how a later economic crash led to the development of this Brotherhood and its rituals.
Then Sandra hikes us down to the Basilica so we can see the fabulous layout inside (that's a huge COLORED SAWDUST crucifixion painting on the floor there, surrounded by growing greens and corn/floral displays provided by the same families generation after generation) and to see and hear the Brotherhood finishing tonight's musical cross-bearing march here.
Many townsfolk are gathered here, talking and laughing or just moving silently; many others are pointedly absent, attending to other matters elsewhere. The Brotherhood will stage two more processions tomorrow (Good Friday), one early, one late, with different chants, different vocal ranges for each. All the streetlights will be turned off tomorrow night, replaced by red candles. Will we have to walk down from Ravello in the dark?
Technology intrudes: locals videotape the proceedings, one robed and hooded member holds a cassette recorder over the singers, another keeps a cellphone under his hoot. Official priests supposedly don't direct the happenings in these lay activities. Orders are just cellphoned amongst the elders as needed. Ancient modernism.
TIPS FOR TRAVELERS: Pollen and dust and tobacco smoke abound here, and ephedrine / sudafed requires a prescription, so bring plenty of decongestants. Avoid smelly cheese and other foods than can cause drizzlyshits. Cobblestone walkways require spring-soled footwear. Carefully note and track the prices of foods you've ordered in eateries. You can never have enough maps or underwear. If you do laundry nightly in a sink, you'll find that shampoo and handsoap will NOT adequately clean your travel clothes — buy some Woolite or other soap for 'delicate' fabrics. And see my TIPS ON TRAVEL CLOTHES.
Fri 13 April 2001 (Venerdi Santo), Good Friday (so-called).
Sna. Sandra assured us last night that the choruses of horny cats here relate to springtime, not to Easter per se. But tonight I hear more of them.
SCALA-RAVELLO: Anyway, we bussed up to Scala today for our Ravello stroll, weather be damned. Icy winds whipped through Scala (yet we missed the large bouncing hail that beset Capri yesterday) and I tore a hole in my nice GoreTex coat on a nail in a detour tunnel — crews in Scala are rebuilding the place. A fascinating ancient crypt in the massive Scala Duomo, too much of the town too uphill to explore in this sub-Arctic gale, so we tramped over to Ravello.
Doing Ravello crypts: The first church crypt (S. Maria a Gradillo) houses an antique sale (nice stuff); its small nave upstairs is being redone, now mostly whitewashed but with clear flooring to display the ancient rock paving. We walk over to Duomo Plaza, buy needed maps, then revisit the exquisite cathedral without being beset by crowds and tour guides, and descend into its austere crypt to see the fine museum of Ravello's religious architectural / decorative artifacts. We trek to a few belvederes on weary feet, then return to the plaza for pizza and calzone and beer and sweets and cappuccino (in that order).
The English girls I documented on an earlier page came by whilst we finished our caffeine, told us how they remanded that enthusiastic dog to police custody to save it from traffic. We wave goodbye and head out for Villa Cimbrone, the Disneyland of the Amalfi Coast (actually more like Golden Gate Park with gothic towers and fewer people) that at least has a splendid view from its bust-beset belvedere. Pictures are snapped.
TORELLO-MINORI: We then stroll on painful feet down magickal walkways from Cimbrone, below Villa Rufolo and Ravello, through Torello to Minori. Cats are everywhere; a Husky dog peers down from an overhead aperture in a building our pathway tunnels through, barks once, then his mistresses' face appears and laughs loudly, calling down to us; yippers and nippers bark from rooftops and behind fences; various folks met on the trail return our BONA SERAs and some inquire about out route. We peer into old churches traversed by our track, lay back to stretch our legs and relieve our feet in at least one church plaza, take suckle from several pathside water taps, pass under numerous lemon and olive orchards, and at last arrive at the Minori cemetery. Now-familiar names are there, and grieving faces. We finally return to our hotel for painkillers. We heard the singing processional pass by this morning, and another is scheduled for later tonight — will we have the strength to witness it?
Friday [13 April]
My feet hurt! Bussed to Scala this a.m. then walked from one end to the other of Ravello, including Villa Cimbrone, then down to Minori via the old foot paths. My feet hurt when I woke up today and they really hurt now — even after a bottle of wine, 5 ibuprofen & 3 acetaminophen. Agonized! But the walk was excruciatingly (pun intended) beautiful. Past homes, lemon orchards, olive orchards, vegetable gardens, villas hanging to the cliffs over the sea, past village dogs & cats, past spirit bottles, through centuries-old churches, past inquisitive locals, under a terrace with a watchful husky dog and its laughing mistress.
While dining al fresco in the Basilica Piazza in Ravello [we] chatted with the two English girls we met on the hike to Pogérola two days ago.
Saw a young boy ride a mule w/ aluminum panniers up one section of steps then come down later w/ a load of stones which he unloaded in a heap at the side of the street. Also at the end coming into the cemetery at Minori saw very strong men carry basket loads of lemons down the steps on their heads. Then as we arrived in Minori, saw those baskets in a 3-wheel pickup backing into the produce receiving area of a local merchant.
Visited the cemetery but felt out of place as people remembering their loved ones at Easter week. Left after very brief look about.
Friday [later]
Hot day! Bussed to Scala in the am, saw church & crypt. Very old paintings & 12th cent. funeral carvings in noble 2-story light. Walked a bit of town in bitter cold wind, then over to Ravello to see the museum in the Basilica crypt. Pieces of older pulpits and decorations. Spent some time [upstairs] too viewing & photoing the mosaic pulpit w/ lion supports. Fantastic!
Had lunch streetside on the Ravello Piazza. Then walked to Villa Cimbrone, not much but gardens & belvedere open to day trippers. Great view from belvedere.
Then back on walk, inter city stepped path, choose a new way out & down which brought us through tiny towns all the way down the mtn. to Minori.
Saw in Ravello a boy and a mule going up then coming back down after loading the aluminum panniers with rock stones, which he unloaded into the street. Then almost at the Minori Cemetery was passed on the last steps by a man carrying a large load of lemons in a chestnut basket on his head. It must have been very heavy as he staggered while off-loading it onto the street. Huge muscles in his calves. Saw a 3-wheel truck heading back there as we closed in on town, and another full loaded on at the produce center as we hit main street. My feet hurt this am; now they are excruciating even after pain pills and a whole bottle of wine.
After dinner tonight we walked to the Basilica round about via the bus stop to see the red candles in readiness for the [pre-]Pasqua's 3rd procession. The lights are everywhere in windows, on balconies, on the path walls going out of town. At several points along the way are wall sconces or free-standing oil torches. Most of the electric lights are out. Small children in warm clothes and angel wings are headed for the Basilica. We see some in white robes assembling near the clock tower. Ric is too sleepy to wait, but I curl into a lobby couch.
Then we hear "they are coming"! Now all the electric lights are out and rounding the bend come first the little angels w/ priests, followed by the with robes but now hoods are up and the grouping has changed to a long empty rectangle open at the end and filled w/ taller children at the beginning. Then comes the choir singing gregorian followed by priests in red robes and others in white satin robes. Then comes the bier carried [by] 4 men to a side w/ 2 outriders to a side w/ poles for load relief at pauses. The bier is topped with an ornate gold platform on which is the statue of Gesu on a white lace fringed cloth and watched by an angel statue at each corner (small spots from each illuminate Gesu). The next bier carries the statue of Mary dressed in black with a silver pierced heart on her chest. Then finally come a great mob of citizens singing. Oops I missed the band, which came between the penitents and choir, playing horns & drums.
We heard them return from our beds, but don't know the route that was taken. Don't know either if the morning's processional took the form of the first, just that the singing was in higher tones.
In Torello on our way down the mtn., a husky dog peered curiously at us from the lookout over the street that runs under the building. His mistress peeped over too, laughing and saying "Attenti, Attenti". What a funny vision a breath over our heads. The town feels like it's an outpost of the world and not much has changed since before Christ.
Met several locals on our way down — all asking where we were coming from and giving good wishes for a good journey. Drank fresh water from fountains along the way. Yeah.
Sat [14 April]
No easter stuff today. It all happens tomorrow with the resurrection.
Did nothing today but rest, out to Altamarea for lunch, rest some more, dinner at the hotel then up to our room. Was very cold today and raining. Had our 'tramonti' experience, the cold north wind that runs from the mtns. over the coast. It blew in a very cold and wet cell while we were at lunch outside. Could see our own breath. Feet and legs beginning to recover from yesterday's descent from Ravello. Running out of pain pills. Our days here are running out. Some hope we get some better weather and sun before we have to leave.
Sat 14 April 2001 (Sabado Santa), Holy Saturday.
PROCESSIONAL: Last night was a blur of painkillers and wine. We ate something or other, staggered out to the streets. Streetlights and most store and building lights were turned off, flaming torches and red candles were everywhere, and the streets were filled with expectant throngs. At least I suppose they were expectant. Anyway, crowds gathered at the basilica plaza, the robed hoodless processionaries started assembling, but I was dead on my feet. We returned to the dimly-lit hotel through fiery streets. I crashed, distantly hearing the cat chorus.
Some time later through open balcony doors I heard singing, then instrumental music and percussion. I through on some rags and schmatzas, ran downstairs and pushed out into a swirl of singers, brass band, drums, torch-bearers, bier-bearers carrying a Jesus-figure atop a coffin, robed hoodless processionaries, townsfolk in plainclothes, glowing crosses, all flowing up this narrow steep-walled street.
(A note on the main street of Minori: In all these coastal towns, what are now the main drags only became so very recently. All traffic was formerly afoot, traveling walkways both level and staired; and a river ran through the center of each canyon-straddling village. With the advent of motorcars, wider passage was needed. The rivers were roofed over, the roofing was paved, and VOILA! High Street!)
Now it's Saturday morning. No processions or ceremonies are scheduled for today, and no masses as far as I know. The weather forecast is for rain of course, with SNOW at higher elevations. Italian spring break starts today, heavy traffic is expect on the highways (although the weather may cause a few changes of plans, eh?) We're too tired to walk, too scared to drive, too cold to swim, too heavy to soar. Maybe a nice boat ride to Positano later, if the sea isn't choppy and there's no hail. Or maybe not.
Songs:
ALL ON A GOOD FRIDAY
EASTER COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR
HOLY FLYING SAUCERS, BATMAN!
SLEEPING, BREATHING
Sun [15 April]
A fabulous day. After trying to get a rental car on a bank holiday, ha, we headed out walking the coast road to Amalfi. Gorgeous — the mountains are covered with snow, Tramonti & all the way down Cilento coast past Paestum. We peered over the edge of the road to see the homes & gardens. It was sunny but very cold in a biting wind. Very little traffic in the a.m., only a few local pedestrians who got rides from cars going by. Almost no buses. As we approached Atrani, activity was picking up. Police on foot controlling parking along the road, and a few cars parked for the restaurant there. Ric went into the town to see the church but it was crowded to overflowing with old folks in black bunched on the steps. He peered in the window and was greeted by a smiling waving child. I waited on the road for him — legs and feet too sore to do the stairs. When we reached Amalfi, it was almost crowded along the marina. Lots of locals out for Mass and a few older kids in backpacks in town for spring break.
Ric found a side way into the Amalfi Basilica by following locals. Not too many steps took us inside on the right aisle. The choir & organ were doing some elegant music and the acoustics were superb. [The center was packed with worshippers.] All along both sides people were visiting, wandering around, talking one on one with a priest. Such a contrast to the protestant services that Ric and I were raised in. There you were quiet and respectful throughout the service. The Catholic way, at least along the Costiera Amalfitana is a fluid community event, with folks coming and going, and moving about and visiting at will.
We listened until the preaching started, then returned to the marina to get our tickets for the boat to Positano. Had take-out pizza as we waited. The boat ride was great for the big view of the coast. Could see the steep canyons [dropping] into the sea and the road seeming to hang from the cliffs.
Positano was jammed. We snooped around just a bit, Ric off to take pics of the church, me waiting on aching feet. Had a gelato, then back on the boat for Amalfi. The sea flowing by brought my Dad to my heart. He would have loved this. I miss him.
Took a bus back to Minori and the Easter dinner of lamb at the hotel.
Easter Sunday 15 April 2001 (Pascua), BUENA PASCUA!
So Saturday we're tired, I stomp around to the churches of Minori (they're mostly closed and I can't find one); we sit outside lunching on pizza and grilled swordfish during a thunderous downpour and cold snap; but otherwise we lay about and rest. Saturday evening during and after dinner the hotel lights keep snapping off. Yow.
I dimly recall something that may have happened in the last few days, a marketing proposal to rent a box at Beyreuth Bavaria for a Wagner festival, probably a Ring Cycle. This happened over a fancy lunch, When we arrived at the elegant eatery, a bear and swan were seated at our table. The bear (smallish) was led away and the swan (larger) flounced off on its own. Roger and Avril were to share the festival box with us. I don't recall what was served for lunch. Was I dreaming?
BUENA PASCUA: Now it's Easter morning. The day looks less ominous, though the air is brisk. We run (well, stumble really) up to the rooftop solarium, gaze upon the calm sunny splendor of the sea, then turn around... and see snow in the hills just above town.
Hoping for the best, we hobble up (westward) the corniche road for Amalfi. (Maureen was nearly lamed by our Good Friday stroll, but she can slowly walk the road, avoiding stairways.) The walk is quite glorious, if chilly. Many details of terrain, villas, craftwork, are only to been seen from afoot. Driving by just doesn't cut it. Gardens, old churches, cascades, ever-snowier views of the local and further mountains, all unfold for us, The Easter morning traffic is light, but this can't last, eh?
TO ATRANI: We squeeze through the narrow passages west of Minori. We peer up at Gore Vidal's huge white 'villa' snugged under the belvedere at Cimbrone. We pass Castiglione, the junction to Scala and Ravello. A room over the road is for rent. We swoon. Discreet and nearly-hidden 4- and 5-star hotels fall beneath our feet, rise overhead, lurk behind foliage.
Aldo drives up in his minibus, stops, asks if we'd like a ride; but no, we're doing fine. We traverse Atrani by upper and lower paths, and as we reach the tunnel to Amalfi the traffic on the corniche starts to snarl. Early mass is over, outsiders are arriving, cops are waving arms and blowing whistles, other strollers are out, the last day before The Season is in full swing. It's midday, the sun is bright, the air is warm and clear, only mountains on the horizon are snowy.
IN AMALFI: From the Municipal Plaza we sneak into a side entrance of the Amalfi cathedral via a maze of tiny tunnels — and suddenly there we are at the heart of the celebratory mass, choir swirling, organ stomping, lights flashing off burnished surfaces, the place is packed, the joint is jumping!
In the center nave, thousands of worshippers are standing immobile or swaying with the overpowering music. In the side aisles, people are moving, talking, confessing, staring / twitching / strolling about, chatting with priests / family / lovers / conspirators, all in motion, all just life as usual while music and worship churn overhead.
The music stops, the preaching starts, we head out, back down the dim side entranceway. An old lady with dark glasses and cane falls at the foot of the steps; I pick her up, we put her hands on the cane and railing, and make sure she's ascending steadily. These secret passages can be as treacherous as a bishop's heart.
We clamber through a further maze to a space just under the high Duomo entrance, then retrace back to the promenade, the waterfront, and eventually we find the boat to Positano. Tickets in hand, we head to the Duomo Plaza's best cheap pizzeria for provisions, then back to quayside for a devouring session. Much of the pizzas' thick crust is eventually tossed to waterside pigeons who are themselves tormented by a macho little dog.
Hey, most of the town dogs here are little macho attitude hounds, usually quiet but often clearly embarked upon specific missions. Not like the country dogs, who seem shyer.
GOING AFLOAT: Now we're on the boat. That same dog, a slightly scaled-up Chihuahua-like beast, is chasing straggling passengers aboard, jumping and barking at their heels. We launch, stare at the high dissected coastal mountains as they flow by, and see all those little villages tat were previously just names on maps and us schedules. They're all real, all there, all inevitable. Wotta trip.
Since this is Pasqua, Easter Sunday, the bus schedules are all a-snarl. So our time in Positano is very constrained, just an hour for some passage-shopping and gelato and lounging. The joint is jammed, the beach is crowded (but no topless women are visible), The Season is imminent. We boat and bus back through increasing crowds, and collapse.
MINORI: We revive briefly. I resume searching for the last of Minori's churches, and I FIND it! It's above and behind a small underground general store we've frequented, accessible through an old entryway that may once have been the antechamber of yet another church. There's a single-bell campanile, and an incessant electronic bird chirper, and iron bars before an open electric-candle-lit shrine in memorium for children and mammas of local families. Very personal. A resident tells us about the chapel as we're leaving; she's sorry it's closed so we can't go in. A very personal shrine, like many minuscule holy spaces squirreled-in amongst these human warrens.
MORE HISTORICAL NOTES:In the glory days of the Republica Amalfitana, the first rise in Italian maritime adventurism since the fall of Rome, Minori was a commercial and military power to rival Amalfi itself. The Republic's warships were built in Amalfi but the commercial fleet was build and based in Minori. The local merchants had their second homes in Constantinople, next to the Byzantine Emperor's digs.
Arab technologies and products were funneled via Minori to the rest of Europe: papermaking, citrus, carpets. more. When other Italians learnt papermaking, Minorians milled grains — and instead of just baking or boiling the dough, they dried it, thus inventing pasta and made the world's finest for some time. When a Neapolitan king moved the pasta technology over the hill to a locale less susceptible to invasion / disruption, Minori's economy collapsed.
BROTHERHOOD: And that's when the Brotherhood, those fellows in white hoods and robes, organized as a benevolent society to assist the impoverished, and orphans and widows (and especially the widows?). Anyway, these guys used to be penitentes, flagellants, scourging themselves to prove their devotion to Jesus. The robe'n'hood thang is a serious toning-down of how it was in the old days. They still wear ropes wrapped around their robes in certain suggestive ways. But in a death-oriented religion that practices ritual cannibalism (communion), nothing is surprising.
GOING COASTAL: None of the original Amalifitan communities were along the shoreline. All the older villages were up in the hills, far from any possible maritime marauders. Smart move — it's pretty hard to attack UP these slopes.
Then a coffin washed up on the beach, of a girl who'd been beheaded at the behest of her father because she refused to marry the mate he'd chosen for her and apparently wanted to give herself to Jesus. Her corpse was being shipped somewhere for internment when ZOOM! shipwreck and ZAP! washup and ZOW! discovery, by a priest from one of the up-canyon hamlets. And that priest read and interpreted the carvings on the coffin and decided that:
- she was a saint, and
- her name was Trofimena,and
- the village should move down to the beach because GOD wants it and Santa Trofimena will protect everyone there.
So that's how Minori started. And the priest may have gotten #3 right, because Minori has never been invaded since that time.
PS: Nobody has ever found any source for the name Trofimena, and if you know anyone of that name, they or their family originated in Minori.
LEMONS: Anyway, among the stuff transshipped from Arab sources via Minori, lemons are prominent. They grow very distinct lemons here, an ancient strain, ancestors of lemons raised in the rest of the western world. Suck'em up, eh?
There are many other relevant historical tidbits which be found in the general guidebooks so I won't deal much with such here. The town has been wiped out by plagues and floods and the occasional earthquake. There are ancient features here, including the rich 1st century Roman villa and the 11th century fountain lions, and the inevitable old churches. Like many coastal towns here, the current "main street" is of fairly recent construction — the river that ran through the heart of town was roofed and paved over, and channelized a bit to direct some of the flow along the town/valley edge. Building show traces of the frameworks that used to connect everything, frames from which first paper was dried, and later pasta, and probably animal hides. This place used to stink.
Monday [16 April]
Old dell'Angelo is the holiday today, the last of the Buona Pasqua's, though we don't know of or see anything going on. More people about in Minori this a.m. Ric took me to the hidden church for mothers & children, through a long vaulted access to some houses. There as a dolly of madonna & child, another rock mosaic altar. The altar and the kneeling choir were covered in gorgeous hand-made lace. The young woman from whom I bought socks with the help of a dictionary and Ric and another town customer, explained in Italian that it was closed but we could look anyway. When we came back out another lady inquired if the door was closed and seemed pleased when we told her that only the gate was closed and I thought the chapel was beautiful.
We did take-away pizza from a small shot and had it with wine from our grocery and pastries from across the street, [out on our] balcony. Yummy and only $13.00.
Bought a tray of small assorted cream puffs and rhum babas from the local bakery and also some of their handmade candies, lemons, strawberry, hazelnut and dark chocolate. Hope they open tomorrow for a purchase to take home.
Our grocers were flattered that we wanted to take their photo. We'll miss them.
After dinner tonight we went to Santa Lucia church, a.k.a. Our Lady Of The Pliers, to hear choir practice but no one there. Then on to the Basilica to photo the colored sawdust painting surrounded by tubs of grass. Arrived just as a service was ending. The priests, one white and one black, carried a huge cookie confection topped with a white sugar lamb in the center and around the rim of the wheel, other bright colored sugar objects. The cookie was iced in a pink-white confetti, this they set on a table just outside the main door and everyone had a taste. There were other people holding smaller versions of the treat to the first. No idea of the significance.
The crypt of Santa Trofimena was open tonight. It was exquisite. A marble relief box of her remains overseen by a beautiful marble statue of her with a bull on each side at her feet. The steps and walls leading into the crypt are of fine marble as is the mosaic floor. There is also an exquisite chandelier. This was truly a rich town during the Repbulica Amalfitana. Although the caretakers were closing up the place one turned on the lights in the crypt so that Ric could film it. We greeted the black priest on our way out, and he [wished] us Buono Sera.
Then our probably last night Passegiata along the Tyrrenian Sea and through the lower town. More folks out tonight than in our other nights. Weather warmer too! Hope our last day is good enough for getting around.
Mon 16 April 2001 (dell'Angelo), confined.
HOLIDAY: Bank Holiday today, bus and business schedules promise to be disrupted again. Sky is cloudy, rainy. What to do?
We're caught in lockstep, carried along through the cogworks of vast mechanisms, carried through the gears of the weather machine, the Italy machine, the church machine, the SAGA machine, the dining-room machine, etc. Schedules within schedules, all meshing to keep us in certain places, keep us from straying from our appointed hours and locales.
Escape is possible, merely expensive. We could call for a helicopter to whisk us away to some of the many sights we'd wanted to see. Or even just search exhaustively for a car rental (difficult / impossible on this national holiday) or take a boat to somewhere (same problem) or walk up into the mountains or under the sea. Or lie back and drink the rain.
There's a nice mix of strictness and chaos here, both serving to constrain our activities. So much yet to see and do, so little time for it, and so much formalism and froth blocking the windows of opportunity. What to do, what to do? Maybe Jenny can scare up a car rental for our last couple days. And maybe monkeys will fly outa my butt.
Eventually the early gloom of this Bank Holiday lightens, the angels stop pissing on us, and we stomp Minori's streets again, snapping some images of locales we'll not see again until/if we ever return. And we note a certain change of season, now that Easter is over. Some shops and studios that were previously shuttered are now opening. Lighter brighter clothes are worn by townsfolk, less gabardine, more bluejeans. Is it resurrection time?
Well, it's time to start stocking up for the return journey. Some wine and limoncello and cookies, some candies to sample for gifts, something for Mom. Tomorrow at the last moment, some bread and apples for the flight. And we still need cat tiles.
Some take-out pizza, some cash'n'carry wine, a few pastries, and it's a fine lunch we're having on our balcony, watching the pool and cats and clouds. Then I'm off for a tramp over to Maiori one last time, in rain at first but later sunned-upon. The two-level municipal garden has filled with water, the river road is nearly depopulated but the beachfront is hopping with holidaytrippers. I clamber up old stairways on the east side of town, find many old shrines and chapels and the old Jewish quarter. An old woman wants to talk about her neighborhood. Passageways even steeper and narrower and higher than Minori's loom here; around a bend, and the coast and newer apartments and even the old Duomo disappear, and the hills of Tramonti dominate the view. Back on the coast road the holiday traffic is in full swell, drivers asking me for directions, buses taking my signals, pandemonium developing, yet more happy chaos. We'll escape just in time, eh?
ANOTHER HISTORY NOTE: These isolated hill and valley villages were/are quite insulated and ingrown. The same given names and surnames appear in records and on burial slabs dating back a millennium. The families interbreed. A Minorian once needed Papal dispensation to marry a Maiorian (the towns are 2 miles apart). In such a static world, about the only way to widen the gene pool is by invasion, conquest. Without invading troops (and lonely sailors) raping / pillaging / whoring and/or moving in to set up their own domestic establishments, there would NEVER be any new blood. And since St. Trofimena has protected Minori from invasion for all these centuries, well, you can draw your own conclusions.
Songs:
T.L.P.
CONSTRUCTION
I SAT AND DRANK SOME WINE
JUST A PARTY ANIMAL
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
DONCHA WORRY 'BOUT ME
PACKAGED EXPERIENCE
BLUE, RED, BLACK
IS YOU OR?
Tues 17 April 2001 (S. Aniceto), fading.
Ha, our last day on the coast - what to do? Morning starts with thunderstorms and heavy rain. Again. So much for walking the hills. But after breakfast and a rest, the sky looks better. We hop the SITA bus for Vietri sul Mare to buy the last few ceramic gifts and bus back to Amalfi for yet another overpriced lunch and some great stompabouts in enchanting old passageways. Then back to Minori (all our bus tickets are now gone) for the last few supplies. Now it's time to pack and prepare for departure — and the sun has finally emerged. Darn.
HOW TO (FISCALLY) SURVIVE DINING IN AMALFI / POSITANI / CAPRI: Avoid from all ristorantes, pizzerias, trattorias, tavernas etc, especially those with 'specials' and those whose waiters (male only) kiss their fingertips when describing an item. Instead, patronize snack bars and especially pizza carryouts. Buy your own fruit and bottles of cheap wine and water at local markets. Sit with your provisions in a scenic or sheltered location and devour. PS: "Special fish" means you'll spend six times the cost of a decent bottle of local wine for a plate of scaly greasy fishy protein complete with head and tail, whose beady eyes will stare at you as you spit out its bones. IF YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DINE INDOORS: Note any cover / service charges. Note / track what you've ordered. Ignore the waiter's suggestions. At the first sight of 'specials' or fingertip-kissing, run away.
Songs:
UFO Boat, UFO Bar
TWO ENGLISH GIRLS
WHENEVER SHE SMILES
Tuesday [17 April]
Our last day here and more rain so we'll travel locally, pick up a couple of last minute gifts and explore a few more passageways. Bussed to Vietri sul Mare and revisited the pottery shops for a gift for Ric's mom and the Cave Canem tiles for family & friends. The on the bus again, off to Amalfi for lunch and a final exploration. Tried a book-recommended restaurant, Il Duca [La Taverna del Duca], and got ripped off again on a special of half a fish & pasta for way too many lira. Never, never order the special. It never satisfies — no matter how well touted or high priced.
After lunch we looked for one of the two churches in town that we had not seen. Started off in a too far north largo [Largo Spirito Santo], a small piazza bordered by a road. Found the right one[s Santa Maria delle Grazie & Santa Maria Addolorato, back to back] by the phone sign on the map. Very amazing back streets for pedestrians only between houses and through small piazzas. Church closed, but garden through gate lovely and across the street a house w/ beautiful art tiles in the walls.
We also stumbled upon the street of the Jews clearly signed on the passage wall, and with a very old style lion carved from marble set into the wall just below the sign. What few Jews were ever here left centuries ago.
As the time for the bus to Minori neared, Ric decided he wanted to find the church that belonged to a tile dome that we could see from the marine gate. My knees couldn't take any more steps so I offered to wait in the Duomo Piazza while he made the quest. I got a gelato and found a canopy for refuge from the rain and settled in for some people watching. Well, about half an hour later and still waiting, I figured he had found a beauty or was still trying to find it in the passageways and alcoves of the town. Just then out of breath up he popped coming toward me. Tried till out of breath, but didn't find it. Something to do next time we are here.
At the gala end of week dinner at the hotel we won a lovely lemon plate from the Minori potter for having our critique chosen from the lot. Then said goodbyes to those whose company we enjoyed and upstairs to pack. Good thing we brought expanding suitcases. We needed every inch.
Wed 18 April 2001 (S. Apollonio), airborne.
Last night's "gala dinner" sendoff party (a weekly SAGA ritual) was memorable, with one fellow hop-step dancing to a tarantella, and we even won the grand prize in a drawing, a nice bit of crockery that matches our other ceramic acquisitions. But then we had to retire, and pack, and try to sleep, and awaken much too early, and finish packing, and drag our sorry butts downstairs, and ride Aldo's minibus down the coast and up the autostrada in the dark, and hop onto the Naples-Milan and Milan-SanFrancisco planes without breakfast, and devour some rolls and apples and booze for sustenance. And now we're headed for Greenland and California in economy-class agony, and the day will never end.
Songs:
FAR BEHIND
LEFT ON A JET PLANE
I JUST WANNA BE ABDUCTED
BITE ME (Again)
A LONG FLIGHT
Wed 4 am [18 April]
Up in a daze. Waiting in lobby for driver, and having tea and cake. Aldo is driving, and out via Salerno. He says Tramonti is too dangerous in the dark. The motorway to Naples is almost deserted and we make good time. I watch out the window a scene that was so strange 3 weeks ago, but is now quite familiar. The shadows of apartment buildings surrounded by orchards and garden plots. The twinkle of lights along the bay. Imagining the outlines of Capri & Ischia.
Then, one final treat as we fly away — a clear daylight view of Capri [Ischia]. We see it is the remnant of several calderas with buildings and roads, and even a community on a grid of roads dead center in one caldera.
We heard from several guides that Vesuvio is expected to have a major eruption within 10 years. I hope a better evacuation plan is prepared soon, if possible. So few roads and so many people. This culture of the family may have great sorrow some day — or none if they all go together. I hope it is all still for a long time to come.
Thurs 19 April 2001 (S. Espedito), Forestville.
Back at last, nourished and refreshed, i.e. not exactly clean. The flight was over endless bright cloudcover with hardly a trace of land to be seen, the endless sun beating hot against our window, another ride atop wings and engines. This flight was full, no free seats to lounge across, no dorm-feel after a couple hours. The only respite from chair-confinement was to stroll the narrow aisles, tush-tucking and twisting to avoid other strollers and crew and food carts. There's more legroom in the toilets than in the seating. And after meals, piles of munchies and jugs of juice and splits of wine were freely available in the service bays. Alitalia meals are decent, but they're still airline food...
TIPS ON SURVIVING LONG FLIGHTS (OUTSIDE FIRST CLASS):
- Wear comfortable clothes, preferably convertible black synthetics (see my TIPS ON TRAVEL CLOTHES); and be prepared for too-cool and too-warm cabin environments (not to mention your destinations).
- Haul just ONE carry-on bag containing: whatever you CANNOT live without; delicate / valuable items; a complete spare change of clothes (in case your other luggage is lost); and suitable reading / writing stuff.
- Also carry a BAG OF FOOD!! Take bread rolls, fruit (apples, pineapples, whatever), water, wine, etc. — you never know when they'll get around to feeding you, especially if your plane's grounded for some hours whilst technicians / administrators diddlyfuck around.
- DRINK LOTS OF FLUIDS!! Airplane cabins are intensely dehydrating, and staying hydrated also promotes the next item:
- STAND UP AND WALK AROUND WHENEVER POSSIBLE!