I promise I’ll catch up, but for now…

We left Naples by car, having rented one from Maggiore, an Italian rental-car company with an office conveniently at the Naples Garibaldi train station.  Thank God for GPS, which got us out of the city on the Feast Day of San Gennaro.  Already our Piazza was swarming with cababinieri, one of whom took pity on me when my phone wouldn’t work to call a cab, and who called them with his own cell phone.

The A3 autostrada is the main route south, before you take a right onto the Amalfi Coast, and it was a pleasant surprise.  Well-maintained, with frequent pull-in areas for emergencies, it felt safe and fast.  We sped off onto the exit for Amalfi, and came to a quick halt, because apparently the rest of the world was heading there, too.

When we actually got onto the road, it wasn’t bad at all.  The coast is stunning;  sheer cliffs falling right into blue sea, postcard-like villages hugging the hills above the water, and always the ever-changing perspective as you round narrow turns.

Luckily, almost everyone is taking their time, except the many motorcycles, but I learned to keep an eye out for them, and just keep driving predictably, so that they could weave past me safely.

  

I was a little confused by the fact that the sea was on my left (didn’t I want to head east???), but Tom was navigating, so I pushed the thought aside.  We were hoping to stop for lunch in Amalfi, but it was so jammed with tourists, that we just drove through.  A few miles further, Tom came to the conclusion that we were headed the wrong way (how did that happen?), and I found a place to reverse, and turned back.

This time when we got to Amalfi, I wanted to stop.  My opportunities to see anything had to coincide with the twists in the road, and it was frustrating not to be able to stop and gawk, so we found a place to park and went into a nice restaurant down on the water.  Unfortunately, when we came out, we discovered that our nice, convenient parking stop was in a no-parking zone.  The owner of the pay-parking across the street had called the police in a huff, then lied (in Italian, figuring I wouldn’t understand) to another unfortunate couple that Tom had cursed at him, refused to move, and made a rude hand gesture.  There had, in fact, been no interaction between us at all.

Watch where you park.

Eventually someone showed up to let us ransom our car, for 140 euro, and we headed in the correct direction.

  At least lunch was good!

I got back onto the autostrada, and drove south into more and more mountainous terrain.  The engineers building the road had opted to build tunnel after tunnel, keeping the road nice and straight, and it was a little like diving into hobbit-holes, as you drove into round openings in grassy hills, one after the other.

We had made a hotel reservation in the small town of Maiera’, a hill town near the sea in the province of Cosenza, Calabria, and were trying to get there before dark.  As we came further south, the hills of Naples gave way to serious mountains, reminding me of the Rockies in their harsh outlines, though not nearly as high.  The valleys and ravines between mountains are dramatic, and bridges link one mountain to the next, so that you look down at precipices as you pass.   The road became twisty, mist was coming up between the hills, and it was getting darker.  To our right lay a darkening sea.

GPS on my phone was useless, T-Mobile’s promise of data having evaporated somehow, so we were relying on Tom’s dedicated GPS.  By the time we got to the final turnoff, it was full dark.  The road was very, very twisty,  climbing sharply, and since it was dark, my headlights only illuminated a few meters of road at a time.  We seemed to climb for a long time, then found ourselves in a tiny village, following the sign for the Hotel Palazzo Bruni, which sounded a bit Buckingham Palace-like.

In the town there was a small parking lot with 5 or 6 cars already filling it, then an open gate that led beyond into the narrow heart of a very ancient village.  “Go on”, urged Tom. “I don’t think I’m supposed to drive there,” I said.  “Go on a little, at least,” said Tom, who wanted to lug suitcases as little as possible, and I did.  In my defense, I was tired.  I got about 40 feet down the “street” (which was paved with flagstones – another clue), and realized that I was all but stuck and would have to reverse back, uphill and around a curve.  Tom suggested we leave the car for the moment, find the hotel, and ask them what to do.

At this point, a bare-chested villager appeared, waved to me, and told me in fast Italian that I couldn’t park there.  I stumbled around in Italian, told him I was stuck, nervous about backing up, and didn’t know what to do.  At this moment, a woman appeared carrying a bag of shopping, and protested loudly that I couldn’t park there.  The man explained the problem, and she suddenly laughed, waved and disappeared.  Two old people popped out at the side of the street, and watched my confusion silently.  Suddenly, a young man appeared from the street in front, said he was from the hotel, and if I was very, very careful, there was a small piazza ahead where I could turn around.  He directed me from in front, and with my side mirrors folded in, I crawled down the street, sometimes with as little as an inch or two on either side.

The village is literally cut into the rock, and in one area, rock jutted out into the street and was tricky to get around.  The Amalfi Coast drive was a piece of cake, I decided.  We’ve been shown to a surprisingly modern room with a small balcony, which I’m guessing will give us a fabulous view in the morning.  We’ll see.  No one here seems to speak a word of English, so it will be fun to see how useable my rudimentary Italian is.