Since I last wrote we have been back in time to Pompeii. I’m
not exactly sure what to say about it. I found it hard to believe that it’s
about 2000 years old. I had a little bit of fun coming up with conspiracy
theories – after all it’s a great money spinner for Italian tourism. The level
of detail preserved by rock and dug up forever later very carefully, is
actually very interesting. I guess I was more excited about the ‘mechanics’ of
the operation than the history laid bare. I would have liked to see the
archaeologists in action. I would have liked to see the buildings being built
in the first place… And also when they were buried, albeit sad. I also enjoyed
thinking about the Romans being the first to pave roads. Especially when so many
of their highways are potholes at the moment. Great civilisations come and go!
The next day we drove up and over the hill we were staying
on and came upon the Amalfi coast. Myra and I had both lowered our
expectations, thinking it probably wouldn’t be as good as it’s hyped… We were
impressed. The sheer cliffs, with sheer buildings. Roads passing through the
rock, people’s houses perched over the top of hooting cars and buses. I honed a
few skills simultaneously; driving, spatial awareness, wife-soothing,
driver-abusing, pedestrian dodging… Never say a man can’t multi-task… Along the
way there were some corners that had pictures and names of people. Not sure if
they were people who had come to grief there, or whether they were famous
racers and the corners were just named after them. Still a sobering thought,
imagining a car catapulting over the rock walls and finishing up
who-knows-where.
Stopped at a cave which surprisingly had parking space
available, and caught a lift down through the rock to sea level. There we
hopped into a little square bathtub with 5 others and were rowed around a cave
by a singing, but totally bored Italian. The attraction of this particular cave
is that the sea water comes through a subterannean tunnel which the sunlight
also comes through. The result is brilliant emeraldine water that glows. If
you’re still into conspiracy theories you would say that there is a blue light
just out of view… Anya was happy to jump in and check it out for us, but we
managed to hold on to her just.
We travelled on to Amalfi itself and parked the car deep in
the rock. There aren’t many options left for the Amalfites, so I’m guessing
they’re going to get good at tunnelling. Checked out the local market set on a
wall jutting out into the sea. Myra got excited about apples again. She’s a
good Tassie girl. After that we decided enough was enough and we jumped into
the water. The Amalfi beaches are gravelly, but the water was beautiful, and it
made us all very happy.
Driving on we had lunch in Minori, which was much more like
us. Still the Amalfi coast, still steep and crazy, but only a handful of
tourists. Myra got a bit of a shock when her pasta came out piled high with
shellfish. “What do I do with this!?!?” She figured it out, ate it, and enjoyed
it. This is what travelling is about. Explored the alleyways about Minori, but
kept running into copious amounts of stairs which we weren’t up to with our
full bellies.
Final Amalfi stop was a little town called Erchie that we
almost passed by without noticing. Probably if it hadn’t had such a cool name
we would have kept on, but we took the narrower road down the hill, ignored the
parking ticket machine because it didn’t work in English, and walked down to
the beach. I wondered fleetingly if it was a gay beach because there were
mostly men lounging about, but then I remembered that the women were home doing
the laundry and getting some pasta ready for later… A beautiful setting for a
beach, good fun swimming and lounging with Anya, and another crazy lady who
couldn’t get enough of our fair-haired daughter.
You may think we should have done enough swimming by now,
but we decided that our next place should be on the beach. We picked Metaponto
out on google maps, checked out a few of the local images and thought “she’ll
do”. The drive there was quite a long one, on some of Italy’s better freeways.
A lot of tunnels and bridges, which I still find fascinating. Stopped along the
way at a place called Craco. We picked it out of a coffee table book that
someone gave me. Something along the lines of 1000 ultimate places to visit and
Craco was in the ghost town category. Amazing, picturesque place.
They started to leave the town in the 1960’s, and only fully
evacuated in 1980. The oldest buildings are well preserved and date back at
least to the 1200s, but the town had been there since a few years BC. The
reason for evacuation was landslides and an earthquake to polish it off. The
oldest parts are built on rock, but when they ran out of that they started
building around it on the clay. 2 different sorts of clay that don’t mix, to be
precise… With the added weight and complications from water building up in the
wrong places things started to go downhill. Literally. There were numerous attempts to save the town
with retaining walls and masses of concrete, but mistakes were made and it was
quite simply impracticle. The town lost quite a few houses, a few bridges and a
sports field from a place where you couldn’t believe now that there was ever
land there. There was also a braying donkey.
In Metaponto we had our usual struggle finding the
accommodation but then got down onto the beach and did some more sculpturing
with the sand. Anya is so happy being able to run around, as long as the waves
don’t catch her as they come up the beach. Unfortunately this town is also
pretty much a ghost town as tourist season is over. Every apartment block is
shuttered up, the camps look derelict, and food is hard to come by. We are
enjoying the beach, but will be happy to move on to somewhere more gezellig
tomorrow.
We found lunch in Bernaldo today though and it was great! I
needed a pizza which we managed to find at a very swanky place. We were dining
with the drivers of a troupe of Lambourghini SUVs. I counted 12 of them parked
all in a row along the street. They must have somehow reserved parking… None of
them had a messy toddler with them, which explains why I’m not driving a Lambo
I think. Topped off our delicious pizzas with some genuine Gelati and the day
was made!
Realising that the awful flight home is fast approaching,
wishing we could fit more in, experience more, taste more and swim more, but it
will also be nice to relax in Turners Beach and see you all.
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