April 26th: First night in Amalfi

The first part of this year’s vacation will be a week of hiking on the Amalfi coast, organized by On Foot Holidays. The people who run the company are amazingly friendly and helpful, and scarily well organized. If Napolean had had logistical support like this, modern Russians would all be speaking French. For the next week, their Italian associates will be schlepping our baggage for us from hotel to hotel (and one agriturismo), while we spend the day carrying nothing but a daypack, picnic lunch (where there are no villages along our itinerary), plus their maps plus GPS itineraries. We’ll be strolling through mountainous seashore countryside, along routes both medieval and modern, following their suggestions but deviating from the trail as the urge takes us. After this week, we’ll finish off in Firenze (Florence), operating on our own recognizance. More on that in a week.

Air France flew us efficiently enough to Napoli (Naples) overnight, via Paris. I can’t really imagine spending an extra $2000 per person to fly first class, but after 6 hours in economy class, mostly unable to sleep, with my knees pressed hard against the seat before me, it’s awfully tempting.

Rather than trying to muster enough brain power to get to Amalfi on our own after 14 hours of travel, including a night with minimal sleep, we hired a cab through On Foot to take us to our first hotel. Our driver was Luciano, a pleasant fellow who played old “Italian” standards (Volare, Amore) on the radio for the next hour and a half while telling us about the countryside we were passing through. My Italian is really coming along; I can get the idea across for most of what I want to say, though I still need practice parsing someone else’s speech, my vocabulary isn’t always up to the task, and my Italian verbs remain a valiant but doomed effort. But it’s fun and satisfying to try.

We had a lovely if somewhat surreal drive from Napoli, past Vesuvius -- a sinister figure looming in the background of our adventure, like a plot device in the first act of a Chekhov-influenced play, threatening to be used in the following act. (Let’s hope our playwright ignored Chekhov’s advice.) The first stage of the drive crossed part of the spine of Italy, the Apennines. This particular stretch is the Monti Lattari, named after their important role in regional milk (Lattari is from latte = milk) and cheese production. and descended an unending series of steep switchbacks to the coast of Salerno. We stopped only long enough to gaze down on Napoli spread around the feet of Vesuvius despite rapidly dwindling stores of mental energy. As they say here in Italy, <i>siamo molto stancho</i>.

Here’s Vesuvius from the roadside:

Vesuvius from Monti Lattari

We’re staying at the Hotel Residence, on the strada that runs along the Amalfi shore. Our third-floor window looks out northwest towards the Amalfi cathedral. It’s a fairly Spartan room (mostly white walls with no paintings), but scrupulously clean and cheery, comfortable, and in one of those old buildings that seems to have grown semi-randomly rather than being planned by an actual architect. The elevator is manufactured by Schindler, and Shoshanna was too tired to hit me for suggesting that we were participating in Schindler’s lift. The steeple of the Amalfi cathedral is visible from our window, but here’s what it looks like from the front:

After dumping our bags, we wandered around town for about 3 hours, starting with the main tourist strip and then fleeing the tourists and exploring the back alleys. We’ve found that the best way to get over jetlag is to get out into the sun (or overcast, this time) to get your biological clock ticking on the local schedule. Amalfi is not as well preserved as some of the Sicilian towns where we stayed a couple years ago, but still pleasantly eclectic (old mingled with new) and eminently strollable. Surrounded by imposing cliffs on all sides. I like cliffs. Lots. Here’s why:

Amalfi cliffs

Also, here’s what the seashore looks like:

Amalfi seashore
Home for a shower, and unlike in past existential struggles with incomprehensible foreign plumbing (we each have our burdens to bear), I managed to get this one working. It was easy enough once I realized that the labels on the rotating device that nominally directs water among four different sets of nozzles -- overhead rainfall showerhead, overhead “narrow beam” showerhead, handheld showerhead, and wall-mounted horizontal nozzles -- bore no relationship whatsoever to the actual water allocation. Trial and error soon revealed how things work. Score another victory for empirical science (i.e., trying all possible positions until one eventually worked) over dumbass engineering. Of course, this victory made me overconfident, and blinking through the steam without my glasses, I saw a small string leading upwards to what appeared to be an auxilliary vent fan. So I pulled the string, nudging aside the showerhead just enoug to reveal the large, prominently labeled “ALARM” sign beside the string. The front desk called up immediately, Shoshanna reassured them, and I proceeded with my day, suitably humbled.

Dinner was at Pizzeria da Meme, which had been recommended by our guidebooks. It’s up a back alley, off the main strip and up a couple flights of stairs where you’d never find it without local guides or a good guidebook. When we arrived, the family’s nonno (grandpa), a tiny but exceedingly dignified elderly gentleman in a suit, took Shoshanna’s hand and led her into the resto and to our table. Like most of the Italian restaurants we’ve eaten in, it’s a family affair, and tiny. Only about six tables indoors and four outside. As Shoshanna noted, it’s a wonder such places survive, but it seems almost like they consider running a restaurant more of a mission than a primarily economic endeavor. We both had pizza from a wood-fired oven, and it was delish: mine had potatoes and sweet corn, plus scrumptious mozzarella, whereas Shoshanna’s had strong salami and artichoke. Of course we shared! Not gourmet food, but simple and hearty and really well prepared.

Staggered home, hopefully to a good night’s sleep and with barely enough energy to start this blog. Tomorrow will be one of the hardest of our hikes, only about 5 hours but a 360-m initial climb, most of it on steep flights of stairs rather than as a gradual rise. My knees are warning they will not be happy with me by the end of the day.

Now preparing to fall asleep to the sound of the church bell chiming just down the salita (alleyway) behind the hotel. More tomorrow night.

April 27: Ravello and Valle dei Mulines