Stranded on the Amalfi Coast

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From Bari to Bologna
10th June to 6th July

Stranded on the Amalfi Coast

Well stranded may be a bit overzealous, but we were definitely stuck longer than planned. The windy mountain roads and long downhill stints over the last month or so took their toll on the brakes meaning all four pads needed replacing. Not an easy task when on the tip of the outcrop of land that the Amalfi Coast sits on. So if the Mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then the mechanic must go to the campervan. He looked more like a farmer who’d spent his life chewing on unlit cigar stubs and drinking red wine, and his car looked like he’d drank red wine before getting in it but to be fair he managed to source the right parts and come and fit them to send us on our way a few days later. There are definitely worse places to be stranded so whilst it cost a ‘few’ more Euros than anticipated, it wasn’t the most upsetting of times.

We are currently on our last day in Italy. Just about to leave Bologna to head up into the Alps to get a taste of the fresh alpine air and slog our way up a few mountains and hopefully back down them.

Going back to the 10th June, I can’t actually put into print what I thought of Italy in the first week or so. It’s a country I’ve always wanted to visit but never got around to in the past. When I arrived in Bari on the Friday fresh off the ferry, the drive to my overnight stop was a bit of an eye opener. About 60 kms along the coast south of Bari, and it all just appeared to be horrible. Endless rundown industrial buildings and houses dotted the roadside and further afield. It wouldn’t be the last time we had that view, but it was far from the first view I wanted to see. We ended up at our destination though, Alerobello, a little village famed for its style of buildings, named Trulli. The round houses with their conical roofs can be found all around this area, known as the Apulia region, but Alerobello is the town where they are found more than anywhere. Traditionally they are the dwellings of the poor farmers, but I imagine they are worth a pretty packet now and many are turned into gift shops, holiday rentals and even hotels.

This area of Italy did not have too many places on the list of must see spots, but Matera was certainly one place I wanted to visit. A whole town built into the mountain. The cave dwellings all had nicely built frontages, no doubt added many years after the cave was originally made into a home. Originally inhabited by monks, the farmers followed soon after, and the compact nature of these ‘houses’ is incredible. Supposedly 20,000 people lived in these caves, which is hard to comprehend when you see them. Most amazingly is that they were still inhabited in the 1950’s. I’m sure larger ones do exist but it’s the biggest cave dwelling town I’ve ever seen.

Matera was a 40 or so kilometres inland and the closest campsite was on the coast. So we set the sat nav and set off, only to end up in the middle of a town, in the middle of a fiesta of some, sort stuck down a tiny road with a bridge too low to pass ahead. ‘Oh my goodness’ was my first thought or something along those lines in any case! Amazingly the Italian horn honking didn’t really appear and I contemplated the manoeuvring I needed to do to just escape this town and head for another campsite. Not so, thought an old Italian lady who jumped on board and began directing me through the streets, avoiding all the roadblocks and into the campsite. It took about 10 minutes in all, 10 minutes of non-stop Italian chatter. The words I contributed were yes and thank you, but she didn’t seem off put by that! The stalls at the fiesta held the biggest load of junk I’ve ever seen. Not surprisingly the only thing I purchased that night was beer...

We spent another day on the ‘instep’ of the Italian boot. Nothing impressed about this area at all. It was like Skegness but worse. A lot worse. There should be warnings on the roads into this area to avoid at all possible cost.

I was hoping the drive across to the western coast would cause things to improve but that wasn’t really the case. The ancient Greek temples at Paestum were an incredible sight. But the lack of effort put into the presentation and upkeep of the whole site was very disappointing. They could have made so much more of what is a massive ancient town. Whether it really is a lack of effort or just a lack of funds I don’t know, but it’s a shame. If anything quite like that was found in the UK it would have been so different.

So a week after landing in Italy, we finally hit a place we were pleased to see, the Amalfi Coast. Whenever looking into a holiday to Italy, it was the Amalfi that always drew my attention. The stunning rugged coastline and beautiful beaches just looked fantastic. Driving to the site was a bit of a nightmare, narrow roads are not good for big campervans, and not good for big campervans to pass big busses, but we coped ok. The excellent view from the campsite was a great end to the journey though. The bay of Cantone is quite lovely, and with the beautiful blue seas it is a great spot for the sun worshippers who want something different to the Costa del Sol. We stayed at the most western point of the Amalfi coast and the best option was a boat trip along the coast. Of the five days we were in situ, I chose the day with the worst weather as to be expected. After a beautiful start to the day the afternoon got a bit cloudy and the seas a bit choppy. It didn’t really take much away from the beautiful views of the coast though. Amalfi town was small and cute. Now completely devoted to the tourist trade, it’s hard to imagine its roots as a sleepy fishing village.

A quick trip to Sorrento one night was interesting. This is the tourist capital of this area, surprisingly large, very very touristy, but done quite elegantly. It’s nothing like other typical Mediterranean tourist destinations. They is a hint of the old world charm that would once have been evident here, but it’s hidden behind the many bars, restaurants and shops selling every lemoncello product you could imagine.

Next stop was Pompeii. We found a really nice little campsite within 100m of the entrance to the village of Pompeii itself. Pompeii was quite impressive. A city buried for nearly 2,000 years, and here they really have made it into something worth seeing. The colesseum must have been amazing in its day, as must the amphitheatre. Some of the larger houses must have been quite stunning to, the remains of wall paintings and floor mosaics show the decoration of some of the buildings. The hordes of tourists do get in the way at times, but you can manage to avoid them most of the time. It’s a place where you need to buy a guidebook though as there is literally no information about the place as you wander round which is a bit annoying. Obviously with visiting Pompeii it would be wrong not to visit it’s nemesis. Vesuvius makes an excellent backdrop in many of the photos of Pompeii and as I’d never been up a dormant volcano before I thought it might be a good trip. The best bit was the 4 wheel drive bus you have to get which was better than most rollercoasters. The volcano itself had the tiniest puff of fumes coming from a small vent in the crater. Nothing I could even capture on camera. One fact I found quite impressive was that the mountain was once 3,000 or so metres high, and the explosion that destroyed Pompeii also destroyed the mountain and left it a paltry 1,400 or so metres high. Now that would be worth seeing on video footage.

A visit to Naples was next up. The home of Pizza. The home of rubbish. The streets are like your local tip, except the rubbish is not split up into type! Piles of rubbish ten feet high line the streets. Supposedly the outskirts are even worse. It’s unreal. It’s got to be seen to be believed, and no matter how many piles you see, the next one still amazes you. Supposedly they only have one landfill site and one incinerator for the whole of the city, but no matter the excuse, how can a so called developed country let anything like that occur? Trying to focus on the good points, the old town was quite pleasant, the narrow streets where the inner city folks lived were quaint, even though they didn’t seem to have seen paint in a few generations, apart from that graffitied onto the wall. There were a few ‘sights’ such as the three city centre castles and the lovely church of San Francesco di Paola which reminded me more of an old roman temple. Forgetting the rubbish, which is very hard, it’s a good place to visit. Lots going on, plenty of cars and scooters in streets which they hardly seem to fit down, and certainly a place where you could never get bored in.

From Naples we thought a visit to wine country would be nice, so Frascati was the closest place I’d heard of and with the sun playing its part, driving past the vineyards was a picturesque as you’d imagine. Unlike many of the wine areas I’ve visited before, a lot of the wineries have shops in the town and so you are encouraged to visit here rather than the vineyards themselves, which takes away from the experience a lot. Especially when they are all closed from 2:00pm until 4:30pm. So visiting the town was a complete waste of time. The chap at tourist information advised us that they could do guided tours of vineyards but we could not go ourselves, so we left a little disheartened.

Another day, another positive attitude and we set off to Montepulciano. It was a couple of hours from Frascati, but the closer we got the better the scenery got which was as we expected as Montepulciano is in Tuscany. We found a winery open, so a small wine tasting of a very average wine, from a grumpy Italian lady was not what I expected. And despite the beautiful rolling hills, they were very few vineyards advertising tastings, so we had to admire the scenery which was not the hardest thing in the world to do. Tuscany really is beautiful, I can see why so many people rave about it. I was surprised at the huge amounts of bikers meandering around the country roads, almost all stopping to take photos of one landscape or another.

We timed a day trip to Sienna surprisingly well, as there was the annual horse race called the Palio di Siena that day. Whilst I didn’t see the race, the build-up was fairly bonkers, as horses are drawn to represent the local city wards, each draw causing a massive cheer by whomever is chosen. There was a good fight break out at one point between 50 or so of the locals. What they were fighting over who knows, but there is a fierce rivalry going back something like the 17th Century. The Piazza that the race takes place it is both massive and very grand, surrounded by Gothic Palaces. It’s supposedly one of the most beautiful in the whole if Italy, and I’ve definitely not seen any to rival it.

The following few days consisted of a slow drive to Pisa through countryside past famous villages and towns such as Massa Marratima, Monticiano, Volterra, and San Gimignano. It’s a bit camper van unfriendly around here with camper vans being banished to car parks a good few kilometres away making them difficult to visit. The skyline of San Gimignano is quite odd with bizarre towers sticking up all over the village. Leftovers from history where the locals used to build towers to show how rich they were, the taller the tower, the richer the owner was the idea, a bit of keeping up with the Jones’. There were once 72 towers which is hard to believe in a village of this size, there are now 15 standing, but as they date back to the 14th century I suppose they’ve done well to have that many left!

Before visiting Pisa itself we took a visit slightly north to Cinque Terre. An area named after five ‘legendary’ coastal villages along the Riviera di Levante. We took the train in between the villages but supposedly the walk is more spectacular and one of Italy’s most beautiful, although on a roasting hot day I cannot believe it’s the most enjoyable way. The villages are fantastic, Monterosso was my personal favourite. We saw the Hairy Bikers in Vernazza, gorging on a tasty looking plate of Calamari, my focaccia definitely didn’t look anywhere near as nice.

I’d heard many things about Pisa, mainly that it’s only worth visiting for the tower, the rest of it’s a dump, but I thought it was a pleasant little town, with the highlight being the tower of course, and the surrounding buildings coming a distant second. The tower was actually more impressive than I thought it would be, it really does need to be seen to be believed. It’s in a lovely area known as the ‘Field of Miracles’ where most of the buildings are built from the same white marble. If your visiting Cinque Terre, then Pisa is definitely worth an hour or two of your time.

And then onto our last stop in Italy, Bologna. The famous porticoes or covered walkways are fantastic, keeping the sun and rain off and providing a place for hoboes and beggars to sit and congregate. To be fair here was only a handful of them, but they probably get hauled away each morning by the Italian Policia. The main Piazza Maggiore was surrounded by 3 palaces and has a beautiful fountain, the Fontanna del Nettuno. Somehow I managed to miss the iconic Two Towers, but if I didn’t know they even existed until after who can blame me?

So from here it’s off to the Alps. Starting in Austria and aiming to head west to Switzerland. Let’s hope for a bit of sunshine as the views will look so much better if it appears!

Arrivederci!

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Photos

Matera
Cave dwellings

Paestum
Tempio di Nettuno c. 480bc

Sienna
Piazza del Campo

Matera
Caves with some frontings

Pompeii - bodies
More likely plastercasts...