Sempre Amalfi!

I thought I'd continue with my Amalfi Coast posting.

The beach at Atrani, looking towards the road

As beautiful as I thought the coast was, I've got to say that the beaches aren't a patch on Sydney beaches. But the way the towns were all nestled in their own little nooks and crannies, with the cliffs rising above them - well, that was just spectacular!

The piazza in Atrani

These couple of posts have been a bit rambly, and for that I should, perhaps, apologise. But to be honest, it's probably a good indication of what my time on the Amalfi Coast was like. It's a hotspot for Italian tourists, which means you have to pay for everything - and it's not exactly cheap. So I did a lot of wandering around. One place I wandered was from Atrani up to Ravello, which perches on the top of the cliffs. I got to Scala - a bit over halfway there - and it was suddenly less-than-obvious which way I needed to go. So I asked for directions from an old man who was sitting at a bus stop. He spoke English about as well as I speak Italian, but I seem to remember we had quite a decent conversation. It went something like this (I'm paraphrasing, of course. There were fewer words - half of which weren't in English - and more hand signals in the verbatim conversation).

"Do I go down these steps to get to Ravello?"
"Why would you walk to Ravello? This is a bus stop!"
"I know. But I want to walk there. Do I take these steps?"
"But there's a bus! A bus!" [Actually, this part of the conversation was, verbatim: "Autobus. AU-TO-BUS!" with appropriate hand-waving]
"I've just walked from Atrani, I may as well walk the rest of the way. Do I take these steps?"
"You're crazy! Why not just take the bus?"

Actually, I think we might have gone around that loop a couple more times, but you get the idea. I decided to trust my instinct and take the steps. I got to Ravello.

You might be wondering if my experience on the way to Atrani had perhaps put me off taking the bus, but that wasn't actually the case. In the first place, that original bus trip had been more spectacular than anything, and the buses that run between the towns are smaller than usual, and as a result, far less exciting. But they're about as frequent as buses in Canberra, and even less punctual. Anyway, I had nothing better to do.

This is a good time to tell you about the three types of road in the region. There's the one I described yesterday that runs along the coast. There's another type that runs between the towns, and is quite similar to the coastal road, but a bit narrower, often without the low stone wall on one side, and with more hairpin turns. But it's quite wide enough, it seems, for normal cars and small buses. Then there are the tiny roads - one lane wide and unsealed, and again with those hairpin turns - that require vehicles like these, assuming you don't want to rely on shanks' pony:



As I was relying on shanks' pony, I got to experience the fourth type of path - lots of steep, steep steps. By the time I got to Ravello, I was very happy to stop at one of the gelato shops.

After two nights in Atrani, I was quite happy to head back to the great metropolis of Naples. This time I caught the ferry. It wasn't as exciting as the bus, despite the storm that rolled in when we were about halfway around. But it did give me a chance to get a look at Positano and Sorrento, and it's worth posting a picture of Positano here, as it had quite a different look from the other Amalfi Coast towns.