Advertisement
Published: November 6th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Sunday in Positano was a rotten day!!
When we went to bed last night it was starting to get very windy and the forecast was for rain. So for the first time since arriving here we closed the doors to our bedroom onto the patio.
At 2.30am we were woken up by the start of an extremely violent storm. Lightning lit up the sky like daylight and the thunder was incredible and it just kept on going. It ‘bucketed down’ (threw that one in there for the Pearces in Watkins Glen) until about 9am with the electric storm continuing unabated all that time. Also the seas were huge and even from our patio we could see Positano getting pounded by the seas. We have never experienced anything quite as intense as far as electrical storms go.
So, needless to say we were not in any hurry to get out of bed this morning as we had planned to walk into Praiana.
After a late breakfast, which was eaten inside a the table for the first time instead of on the patio, the weather seemed to ease up a little and patches of blue sky appeared. We could still hear thunder rumbling
away in the far distance but decided about 11am to hit the road. After all it hadn’t rained for about 2 hours!!!
We headed towards Praiana, a town about 4 kms away from where we are staying and it was very humid BUT fine. And YES, you’ve guessed it, back came the electrical storm and we were about 2kms from Praiana when thunder and lightning started up again right over us and down it came!!!in torrents. We had our jackets and one small umbrella purchased somewhere in the last few weeks, Berlin I think, but nothing did much good. We sheltered under a tree every now and then from the worst of it and just as we got going again it would start up even worse. We finally reached the outskirts of Praiana and sheltered in the porch of a house, on the roadside, with an elderly couple for about 15 minutes while the worst of it came down and then continued on in light rain.
The most annoying thing about all this is that we actually missed Praiana, we think, as we seemed to be out in the ‘countryside’ again suddenly. What shops and restaurants/bars we did pass were
all firmly closed and we asked a local if there was anywhere to buy lunch and we were told NO, everything including the local supermarket was closed. They just don’t like wet weather here and I’m sure they all thought we were mad walking in it anyway. We are still not too sure where the main part of Praiana town actually is!!
Decision time!! We really needed some bread and something to have for dinner tonight. We have a little spaghetti left to cook but nothing to put with it so we decided to walk back to Positano. By this time the weather had mostly cleared and apart from having soaking wet shoes and socks we were in reasonable shape, the jackets and brolly had done a pretty good job!!considering everything.
We turned around and started on the 8kms back to Positano and the sun came out and it got very humid – not sure which was worse, the rain or the humidity when you are trying to walk distances. Our worst fear was that we would get into Positano, eventually, and find it all closed up as well.
HOWEVER, everything turned out just OK. Some of the shops in
Positano were open and at least the ‘convenience store’ was and that was the main thing. We were able to restock the pantry before heading down to the beach front restaurants and having a 2.30pm leisurely lunch. There was supposed to be, according to the timetable, a bus going back our way at 4.15pm so we were aiming for that.
We had lunch while we watched the huge seas pounding the front of Positano. I’ll include a photo to try to show how spectacular it was. The seas were not coming into the restaurants but were over half way up the beach, as compared to the other day when we were there when things were very orderly and summery.
Joy spent some time taking photos of the sea using some of the new settings she was shown by the photographer in Venice and we then wandered back up through Positano to the bus stop, purchasing some yummy looking ‘cakes’, on the way, for dessert with our home made spaghetti dinner tonight.
So that was today in Positano. Another experience on our journey that was new and very different. Even as I write this at 5.45pm it is still stormy out
there somewhere. We can hear thunder in the distance and see the occasional bolt of lightning in the sky.
Hopefully it will be fine tomorrow as we are travelling to Paestum with our trusty Giovanni. We told him we would go wet or fine and he just laughed at us as though we were crazy. I think they are all scared they might melt in the rain around here.
Ciao for now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.246s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.058s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb