April 21st-22nd – Amalfi Coast/Sorrento/Bari

We had read that the Amalfi Coast had one of Italy’s most wild and rugged landscapes so we decided to go for a drive and take a look. We drove through the rough streets of Pompeii before taking the motorway south to Salerno and turning off to the coast. The Italians definitely drive to a different set of rules to other people, similar to the Chinese in that if there is a gap, they will fill it. They also have a loose interpretation of certain road rules; red lights are not compulsory, the centreline (where it exists) is a guide only as are the lane markers and indicators were avoided as they seemed to like to keep their options open. No one seems to get too aggressive, they just seemed impatient. But I think it’s no coincidence that almost all Italian cars have at least one scrape on either a fender, a bumper or a door, and some are more than scrapes. But when in Rome, as they say, do as the Romans do - so I didn’t leave gaps, and if I could fit through a space I just went and it seemed to work out ok - without any scrapes. The Amalfi Coast road was more of the same, with buses thrown in - and rain! The road itself was ok but it was narrow and windy with cars parked wherever they could, and stopping to take photos was not always possible. They even had wardens stopping traffic at times to prevent buses meeting each other on the narrower sections or sharp bends. It was definitely a rugged coastline with many hotels and houses built right on the cliff face with carparks on their rooves at road level. There were a lot of orange, lemon, olive and almond trees being grown on the steepest of hills, obviously built up over the years. Apparently the international jet-set used to visit here in the 50s and 60s aboard their yachts which gave it it’s glamorous reputation. The views would have been spectacular had the sun been shining but the light rain put a dampener on them, instead we had views of a rugged, stormy coastline which had it’s beauty but not much glamour. We could still see the sheer cliffs plunging vertically into the blue sea but I don’t think they will look anywhere near as impressive on the photos. From the busy towns of Amalfi and Positano to the deep gorges and little fishing villages dotted in between, everything looked like it had been there for a long time. Anyway, we survived the drive without incident and arrived on the northern side at Serrento at around 3 o’clock, and the rain had stopped. We had a nice campsite with a good shop and a view across the gulf to Naples. They had a good selection of wine in the shop as well and we found our best buy in Italy so far - a 2 litre bottle of red for €4.70 that was not bad at all.
The next morning turned out fine again and we were off to the other side of the country to catch a ferry at Bari, but before we left we had to buy a couple more bottles of red. We hadn’t been able to book the ferry online so we were hoping there would be no problems getting on when we got there. The drive along the northern coast from Sorrento was nice in the sunshine but there is one thing about the area that needs mentioning. If we stopped to look at the view, even in the most picturesque locations, it didn’t pay to look down - as there was always rubbish. Not just litter but dumped rubbish, and it was all around the region, probably left over from the long rubbish workers strike which ended last year, but hopefully the cleanup will reach out to the Amalfi Coast as it really spoils the whole image. Strike or no strike I see no need to spoil a beautiful area like that. Unfortunately we made a couple of errors finding the autostrada and found ourselves on the rough streets of Pompeii again before eventually finding the fast road west. The non-stop trip across the country was pretty uneventful but at least it wasn’t raining. The only noticeable thing was the changing land use; from lots of plastic ‘glasshouses’ and potatoes to farmland and cereal crops back to miles and miles of olive trees in the Puglia region for which it’s famous. When we got to Bari we had to wait until 7pm until the ticket office opened but there was no problem getting tickets for the 10pm sailing to Dubrovnik - lucky, as the next sailing wasn’t until 3 days later. Safely aboard the boat we had dinner before it left the dock and were tucked up in our bunks not long after. Next morning Croatia (or Hrvatska in their language)

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