OTRSS/Adventure/Amalfi/Reports1

MINORI

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A VISIT TO MINORI: Hang onto the narrow bed, dreaming, until the wristwatch alarm pings. Crawl out from under wadded covers, open the opaque inner drapes and the translucent balcony doors, stare out at the pool and sky and towers and hills to determine the state of the weather and estimate the day's prospects. Note the cats, the condensation, the housekeeper on the roof opposite.

Close those doors, visit the toilette, turn on the TV to channel 11 for the naked women and channel 5 for the all-Italia weather forecast, then back to channel 11. At 7 a.m. switch to channel 16 for the BBC headlines or 14 for CNN, while tying bootlaces and tucking in shirt. Shut the door firmly after securing all keys.

GOING PUBLIC: Stumble downstairs two floors, check the daily announcement board across from the elevator, call "Bon Giorno!" to staff and guests, and pace into the thinly-covered dining patio. Move down the food line: a bowlful of muesli drowned in fruit cocktail and yogurt and milk, a plateful of thin ham and puffy eggs and fried potatoes or polenta or whatever, glasses of citrus juice, and plonk down at the nearest open table. Desperately the appearance of Roberto (or more likely Mauritzio) and coffee. Suck it all up, and more coffee, and more. Yum.

Suitably nourished, there's time to check the maps and guidebooks to plot the day's moves; then back upstairs to dress for the occasion. Camcorder and wallet on belt, daypack with necessities if it's a dry day, GoreTex trenchcoat with maps in pockets if rain is likely.

GOING OUT: Downstairs again, leave the roomkey at the front desk, then hit the street. More foot-traffic than wheeled goes by; the same mini-Alsatian always stands at the end of the building to make his canine observations of the flow on the road. Maybe we turn right at the corner to walk past grocers and dry-goods shops and tailor / cleaner and ceramics shop to reach the main bus-stop, or maybe we continue down the main street (that used to be a river) past pizzeria and banks and bakeries and farmacia and shoe shop to head towards the Duomo, the esplanade, the Mediterranean.

Across from a 20-foot-high crucifixion shrine in a building's wall a short block from the coast road, a pathway rightward leads past provenders to a small plaza facing the sea, with bars and tabacchis and souvenirs galore, and a side passage to the ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE grocery where we'll buy supplies late in the afternoon, after siesta time.

But now we dodge the barking dog and the smoking guys and the motor scooters, and we cross the Via Roma and look at the pier sticking out into the Mare Tirreno from Minori's short beach. The pine-and-palm-shaded beachwalk is already occupied by strollers: by couples, mothers pushing prams, groups of guys, groups of gals, old folks together or apart — mostly dressed in black but with occasional blue jeans or jogging suit.

MUCH TO EXPLORE: From here we could go anywhere, and we usually do. But at both ends of the beach the canyon walls rise sharply, cliffs topped with trees on the east side, stacked buildings and more trees on the west; and the sky always seems too narrow from here. Only the sea seems to go on forever.

Maybe we walk east, past the Municipio (town hall) and Duomo (basilica) and AGIP (gas station) on the left, the millennium-old stone lion-fountain and newer soccer pitch on the right, up the gentle grade of the corniche towards Maiori beneath those sheer cliffs. A millstone garden, a little Madonna shrine in the rocks with fresh candle and flowers, waves crashing below us, and we're around the corner and gone.

Or maybe we walk west, past the tiny town carpark, the big grottoed Madonna shrine with blue lights around her head and an eagle and anchors at her feet, the walkway above wavestruck rocks to a few dampened houses. We pass the furnishing shops and sailor's society office, the herbarium / perfumery and the Ristorante Arsenale, then we brush the construction-zone orange tape and climb these steep stairs under the usual overhangs. Rise past home doors and yard doors. Skirt the entrance to a tiny ancient church, San Giovanni a Mare, recognizable by the flowers strewn before it and the small round stone window above the door. Climb a sharp twisting rise onto the westbound corniche, at its narrowest here between hanging cliffs and encroaching apartments. Around that corner to the right where buses sing and play their passing games, or up more stairways to the town cemetery, and Torello, and Ravello, and again we're gone.

HEADING INLAND: Or maybe we go past that orange tape, stomping away from the sea past a new neonized hotels up to the widening of the main bus stop. Down to the right beckons the town's big archeological site, the VILLA ROMANA, an extensive 1st-century luxury home (Minori was a resort long ago) with a small museum overlooking the baths and gardens, the arches and mosaics, all ringed on three sides by town buildings rising the usual 3-6 storeys.

Up to the left from the bus stop, the corniche hairpins and climbs its narrow twisting way to Ravello, Atrani, Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento. The road south from here, seaward, is another roofed stream; and north, inland, its course is paved and open to the sky, with lemon terraces rising on the sunset margin, the structures of town growing on the sunrise bank. A couple ducks inhabit the inhabit the streambed just where it goes sub-urban; and old guy laughs and throws bread to them as buses, cars, scooters, big and little lorries rumble and buzz and honk by.

If we walk a block towards sunrise from here, we're back around the corner from our hotel, with that traffic-watching dog eyeing the people, the mopeds, the sputtering soot-farting tricycle lorries loaded with lemons or wood or vegetables, the customers patronizing the candy-pastry-limoncello factory-shop-bar-cafe on that corner.

UP THE SLOT: Or maybe we'll take the narrow paved passage paralleling the stream northward, deep between old overhanging housing blocks. Some of the ground-floor entranceways are closed; some open to reveal small garages (grottoes for motorcycles and minicars) or workshops (ceramics and wood-workers, mechanics and sausage-makers). The pathway, Via Lucia, is bridged in places, houses on left and right connected by their own enclosed paths with rooms above.

Beyond, there's an opening on the left, an old church behind wrought-iron fencing, Santa Lucia holding pliers, Our Lady of the Handtools. Passages tunnel left, climb the valley walls westward, or tunnel to the right to other passages and roads in Minori, then eventually climb the hills to the north and east.

OUTSIDERS VS. INSIDERS: Walking the paths and streets and plazas of Minori and the old sectors of nearby towns, locals and outsiders are easily distinguishable. If they're tall, brightly or lightly dressed, informal, confused, grasping or studying maps and guidebooks, they're tourists. If these make eye contact, greetings may or may not be exchanged in English, German, French, Swedish.

If those encountered are shorter, darkly or weightily dressed, formal, determined, occupied with their parcel or cellphone, they're locals. Greeted appropriately, the younger may reply 'Ciao!' and speed off. Older folks may reply more formally or not at all, or may stop and chatter, possibly inquiring "English? Americano?" and when learning we're Californios they grin, impressed.

PROVISIONING: After a day of whatever wherever, we usually find ourselves at the ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE grocery, a cave buried down a short walk off a roadside plaza. With each U.S. dollar going for about 2000 lira, we're big spenders here. The proprietor greets us as we're choosing cookies (L1000-2500 per bag) from the display rack out front; the old couple in white aprons tending the narrow counter and deli case wave and smile at us as he switches on lights, leads us back past the breads and pastas and canned foods and detergents and items too dim to discern, back to the wine room.

We grab a couple bottles of Sammarco Bianco (L5000 for 750 ml or 1 litre or 1.5 litre or 2 litre jugs) from neighboring upscale Ravello, and maybe a different limoncello (L6000) tonight. The occasional sandwich or detergent or whatever may set us back another L5000.

While the cheerful older counter couple intently debate the value of our purchases, the old thinfaced proprietor asks about California, talks about everybody having their own religion (especially the priests), remembers the bad days after World War II and how Americans (and Fiorello LaGuardia especially) kept Italy from literally starving, and laughs about his visits to London. So organized, those English.

HEADING HOMEWARD: Then we maybe walk past the Duomo via various passages, around the Municipio and another limoncello factory and recycling bins under the arch of the bell-tower. Or we'll just go straight up the main drag, past townsfolk and dogs and shops and the public W.C., past posters pushing remedies for cellulite and boredom and bad government and atheism, back up to the hotel.

We'll wave at the SAGA people in the lobby, retrieve our key, head up the stairs to our room and the balcony and the sky and the wine and maybe some horrible music on the tiny tinny radio; then shower, and dinner, and chatter, exchanging ideas and idiocy with neighboring guests. And the cycle of time unwinds, the rhythm returns, another day gone.

OTRSS: Home Amalfi: Reports: Back Next GO!

#1: Being a series of reports, observations, reflections, that supplement the journals kept on-the-spot during a 3-week sojourn on the Amalfi coast southeast of Naples, Italy.
MINORI A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A VISIT TO MINORI: Hang onto the narrow bed, dreaming, until the wristwatch alarm pings. Crawl out from under wadded covers, open the opaque inner drapes and the translucent balcony doors, stare out at the pool and sky and towers and hills to determine the state of the weather and estimate the day's prospects. Note the cats, the condensation, the housekeeper on the roof opposite. Close those doors, visit the toilette, turn on the TV to channel 11 for the naked women and channel 5 for the all-Italia weather forecast, then back to channel 11. At 7 a.m. switch to channel 16 for the BBC headlines or 14 for CNN, while tying bootlaces and tucking in shirt. Shut the door firmly after securing all keys. GOING PUBLIC: Stumble downstairs two floors, check the daily announcement board across from the elevator, call "Bon Giorno!" to staff and guests, and pace into the thinly-covered dining patio. Move down the food line: a bowlful of muesli drowned in fruit cocktail and yogurt and milk, a plateful of thin ham and puffy eggs and fried potatoes or polenta or whatever, glasses of citrus juice, and plonk down at the nearest open table. Desperately the appearance of Roberto (or more likely Mauritzio) and coffee. Suck it all up, and more coffee, and more. Yum. Suitably nourished, there's time to check the maps and guidebooks to plot the day's moves; then back upstairs to dress for the occasion. Camcorder and wallet on belt, daypack with necessities if it's a dry day, GoreTex trenchcoat with maps in pockets if rain is likely. GOING OUT: Downstairs again, leave the roomkey at the front desk, then hit the street. More foot-traffic than wheeled goes by; the same mini-Alsatian always stands at the end of the building to make his canine observations of the flow on the road. Maybe we turn right at the corner to walk past grocers and dry-goods shops and tailor / cleaner and ceramics shop to reach the main bus-stop, or maybe we continue down the main street (that used to be a river) past pizzeria and banks and bakeries and farmacia and shoe shop to head towards the Duomo, the esplanade, the Mediterranean. Across from a 20-foot-high crucifixion shrine in a building's wall a short block from the coast road, a pathway rightward leads past provenders to a small plaza facing the sea, with bars and tabacchis and souvenirs galore, and a side passage to the ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE grocery where we'll buy supplies late in the afternoon, after siesta time. But now we dodge the barking dog and the smoking guys and the motor scooters, and we cross the Via Roma and look at the pier sticking out into the Mare Tirreno from Minori's short beach. The pine-and-palm-shaded beachwalk is already occupied by strollers: by couples, mothers pushing prams, groups of guys, groups of gals, old folks together or apart — mostly dressed in black but with occasional blue jeans or jogging suit. MUCH TO EXPLORE: From here we could go anywhere, and we usually do. But at both ends of the beach the canyon walls rise sharply, cliffs topped with trees on the east side, stacked buildings and more trees on the west; and the sky always seems too narrow from here. Only the sea seems to go on forever. Maybe we walk east, past the Municipio (town hall) and Duomo (basilica) and AGIP (gas station) on the left, the millennium-old stone lion-fountain and newer soccer pitch on the right, up the gentle grade of the corniche towards Maiori beneath those sheer cliffs. A millstone garden, a little Madonna shrine in the rocks with fresh candle and flowers, waves crashing below us, and we're around the corner and gone. Or maybe we walk west, past the tiny town carpark, the big grottoed Madonna shrine with blue lights around her head and an eagle and anchors at her feet, the walkway above wavestruck rocks to a few dampened houses. We pass the furnishing shops and sailor's society office, the herbarium / perfumery and the Ristorante Arsenale, then we brush the construction-zone orange tape and climb these steep stairs under the usual overhangs. Rise past home doors and yard doors. Skirt the entrance to a tiny ancient church, San Giovanni a Mare, recognizable by the flowers strewn before it and the small round stone window above the door. Climb a sharp twisting rise onto the westbound corniche, at its narrowest here between hanging cliffs and encroaching apartments. Around that corner to the right where buses sing and play their passing games, or up more stairways to the town cemetery, and Torello, and Ravello, and again we're gone. HEADING INLAND: Or maybe we go past that orange tape, stomping away from the sea past a new neonized hotels up to the widening of the main bus stop. Down to the right beckons the town's big archeological site, the VILLA ROMANA, an extensive 1st-century luxury home (Minori was a resort long ago) with a small museum overlooking the baths and gardens, the arches and mosaics, all ringed on three sides by town buildings rising the usual 3-6 storeys. Up to the left from the bus stop, the corniche hairpins and climbs its narrow twisting way to Ravello, Atrani, Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento. The road south from here, seaward, is another roofed stream; and north, inland, its course is paved and open to the sky, with lemon terraces rising on the sunset margin, the structures of town growing on the sunrise bank. A couple ducks inhabit the inhabit the streambed just where it goes sub-urban; and old guy laughs and throws bread to them as buses, cars, scooters, big and little lorries rumble and buzz and honk by. If we walk a block towards sunrise from here, we're back around the corner from our hotel, with that traffic-watching dog eyeing the people, the mopeds, the sputtering soot-farting tricycle lorries loaded with lemons or wood or vegetables, the customers patronizing the candy-pastry-limoncello factory-shop-bar-cafe on that corner. UP THE SLOT: Or maybe we'll take the narrow paved passage paralleling the stream northward, deep between old overhanging housing blocks. Some of the ground-floor entranceways are closed; some open to reveal small garages (grottoes for motorcycles and minicars) or workshops (ceramics and wood-workers, mechanics and sausage-makers). The pathway, Via Lucia, is bridged in places, houses on left and right connected by their own enclosed paths with rooms above. Beyond, there's an opening on the left, an old church behind wrought-iron fencing, Santa Lucia holding pliers, Our Lady of the Handtools. Passages tunnel left, climb the valley walls westward, or tunnel to the right to other passages and roads in Minori, then eventually climb the hills to the north and east. OUTSIDERS VS. INSIDERS: Walking the paths and streets and plazas of Minori and the old sectors of nearby towns, locals and outsiders are easily distinguishable. If they're tall, brightly or lightly dressed, informal, confused, grasping or studying maps and guidebooks, they're tourists. If these make eye contact, greetings may or may not be exchanged in English, German, French, Swedish. If those encountered are shorter, darkly or weightily dressed, formal, determined, occupied with their parcel or cellphone, they're locals. Greeted appropriately, the younger may reply 'Ciao!' and speed off. Older folks may reply more formally or not at all, or may stop and chatter, possibly inquiring "English? Americano?" and when learning we're Californios they grin, impressed. PROVISIONING: After a day of whatever wherever, we usually find ourselves at the ENGLISH SPOKEN HERE grocery, a cave buried down a short walk off a roadside plaza. With each U.S. dollar going for about 2000 lira, we're big spenders here. The proprietor greets us as we're choosing cookies (L1000-2500 per bag) from the display rack out front; the old couple in white aprons tending the narrow counter and deli case wave and smile at us as he switches on lights, leads us back past the breads and pastas and canned foods and detergents and items too dim to discern, back to the wine room. We grab a couple bottles of Sammarco Bianco (L5000 for 750 ml or 1 litre or 1.5 litre or 2 litre jugs) from neighboring upscale Ravello, and maybe a different limoncello (L6000) tonight. The occasional sandwich or detergent or whatever may set us back another L5000. While the cheerful older counter couple intently debate the value of our purchases, the old thinfaced proprietor asks about California, talks about everybody having their own religion (especially the priests), remembers the bad days after World War II and how Americans (and Fiorello LaGuardia especially) kept Italy from literally starving, and laughs about his visits to London. So organized, those English. HEADING HOMEWARD: Then we maybe walk past the Duomo via various passages, around the Municipio and another limoncello factory and recycling bins under the arch of the bell-tower. Or we'll just go straight up the main drag, past townsfolk and dogs and shops and the public W.C., past posters pushing remedies for cellulite and boredom and bad government and atheism, back up to the hotel. We'll wave at the SAGA people in the lobby, retrieve our key, head up the stairs to our room and the balcony and the sky and the wine and maybe some horrible music on the tiny tinny radio; then shower, and dinner, and chatter, exchanging ideas and idiocy with neighboring guests. And the cycle of time unwinds, the rhythm returns, another day gone.
Letter on the Neapolitan/Amalfitan experience ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilary A. Thomas" > Welcome Back! How was Mt. Vesuvius? Dull. Hardly eruptive at all. But I'm working on it. If we can just plant a small nuke under the lava plug, we'll have it back in action in no time. Meanwhile, the Amalfi coast was great, and we got away just in time (spring break has just started, the minuscule roads are swarming). I'm typing up my journal now and should have a fat report ready this weekend. Meanwhile, some pix: http://www.sonic.net/~ric/arts/escher.htm The "UFO BOAT" cruises the waters from Salerno to Sorrento to Naples. In Salerno, just above the site of the Allied landings in 1943, sits a large white globular building, the "UFO BAR." First the Anglo-Americans landed, then the ETs — what IS it about Salerno? Many motor scooters in the region bear ET faces. More on this in the report... unless they stop me... A word of warning: avoid ALL sit-down eateries in Amalfitan resort towns, or at least be very wary. If the word 'special' appears on a menu, or the waiter (males only) kisses his fingertips while describing an offering, get up and run out,especially if the item in question is a "special fish" — a term meaning that one will spend six (6) times the cost of a decent bottle of local wine for a hot greasy entity retaining head & tail & scales, with beady eyes that will stare at you as you spit out its bones. Keeping in mind that one US dollar converts to about 2000 lira, here's how to have a good meal in a coast resort: go to a grocery or bar for bottle(s) of wine, L5000-8000 (for some wines, that price is constant for bottles of 750 ml or 1 or 1.5 or 2 liters); maybe see a greengrocer for fresh fruit at L1500-2500 per kilogram; at a takeout pizza stand, get one pizza per person at L4000-7000 per 14-inch pizza (depending on the loads of seafood, cheese, mushrooms, sauces etc, all perfectly fresh); sit dockside or in a sheltered stairway; share the goodies amongst y'all. Screw the extra charges!
FLYING ALITALIA Ah, the Italy trip, or at least the flights — the memories. Going over: The first exhilaration of stealing a couple splits of wine from the abandoned food cart. The luxury of stretching legs a passengers sprawled around the half-empty cabin. The video screens showing our location and course; ROADRUNNER+COYOTE cartoons; a stupid Quebecois CANDID CAMERA clone; a gory inappropriate animal-eats-animal show during mealtime; some innocuous recent Hollywood cinema; anything to fill the empty hours. And coming back: Dumber cartoons, the same dumb TV and cinema, all shining down on a fully-packed cabin. More stolen wine, more 'tween-meal munchies, better food overall (nice thin salmon in dinner's antipasto), but no free space at all. The 50-ish blond gringo staring / nodding over the ROLLING STONE John Fahey obituary for over an hour before he finally tore it out and stuffed it in his pocket. The Indian man I might have head-whacked with my daypack whilst retrieving luggage from the overhead, who retaliated by whacking Maureen repeatedly with his violin case as we offboarded at SFO. The young-teen Italian sisters who held each other and cried through the flight. The ever-shifting line-ups awaiting the laboratories. The cabin crew who could lithely squirm past any passenger obstructing an aisle. The children running laughing down those same aisles. A haggard mother, now breast feeding her big infant, now walking the happy child around the cabin on a harness and leash, now sleeping fitfully. And very little violence, thankfully — only slight Air Rage. Constants in both directions: noise, fatigue, bodily aches, insatiable thirsts and hungers, disorientation. Going eastward: light-dark transitions come too quickly. Coming westward: there's no exterior darkening at all. EVOLUTION: So some quasi-humans actually THRIVE on a constant regimen of air travel, with constant dislocations of their time-space nexus, constant translations of their body-mind plexus? Will such entities be the next step in human evolution, the Type-A's who'll replace us as we replaced the Neandertals? When?

MINORI

Letter on the Neapolitan/Amalfitan experience

FLYING ALITALIA