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Published: November 7th 2011
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Our last day at Positano (and on the Amalfi Coast) was another memorable one.
Our driver, Giovanni, picked us up at 9am in the Mercedes Benz car and we headed right along the Amalfi Coast Road, through all the towns like Praiana and Amalfi and others that are all built into the side of the cliffs, just like Positano. The road didn’t get any better – very narrow and set into the cliff face. Everything is very old of course and there are many 10th and 11th Century ‘watch towers’ all along the coast that go back to the ‘Empire’ days. It was a fascinating drive that was all headed towards our visit to Paestum where there are some of the finest Greek ruins are to be seen (Yes Greek – more history later).
The Coast Road eventually petered out at Salerno, a very large port city with a population over 2 million. This was the first real flat land, apart from around Naples, that we had seen for days and was very different from the coastal towns. Back to large multi-storey apartment buildings everywhere with washing hanging off the balconies. We drove right along the Salerno waterfront and continued on
to Paestum. This involved driving along a very long stretch of road running parallel to a lot of beaches but was strange in one regard – all along this rather deserted stretch of road were prostitutes standing on the roadside plying their trade. It was all rather strange as it wasn’t anywhere near a town or city. Bit hard to figure out but they do things differently in Italy!!!
The area around Sorrento and Paestum is a huge market gardening area with many vegetables still growing in the paddocks especially broccoli and artichokes – thousands of hectares of them. The other very notable farming practice is the running of buffalo where they make the buffalo mozzarella cheese from their milk. It apparently only happens around this area and one other between Naples and Rome.
We arrived at Paestum around 1115am, quite a drive, although it was only about 80kms from where we are staying at Positano. The Greek ruins date back to the 6th century BC when the Greeks ruled this part of Italy. Much of the ancient city is Greek in origin but changes to Roman as it was enlarged one the Greeks were sent packing. We reckon the
ruins here are at least equal, if not better then, the Acropolis etc. in Athens. Three of the very large temples are a lot more intact than any we have seen before and are incredibly impressive to see. Also the whole city is surrounded by a massive stone block wall and most of it, including the guard towers are still intact today. The other thing about this set of ruins is that you can climb all over them, with the exception of the 3 temples, and really get up close to look at the pillars etc. It is an amazing place to visit and one that doesn’t appear all that well known. I know it is the ‘off season’ but were part of a huge crowd of no more than 10 people visiting the site today, as opposed to every other set of ruins we have visited both last trip and this one where you were jostling with many thousands of people to see things. Bought a few small souvenirs before meeting up again with Giovanni after wandering around Paestum for just over 2 hours. Thankfully the weather was perfect, if not a little hot.
We asked Giovanni if we
could stop somewhere for lunch he took us to a restaurant at one of the buffalo farms nearby. While we took photos of the buffalo he ordered lunch and we sat down to a lovely meal of meats, cold salad and about 8 different cheeses all made from the buffalo milk. Balls of mozzarella, of course, and we can’t remember the names of the others but, on the whole, they were very delicious.
We drove back to Salerno and then got onto the ‘autostrada’ and whizzed along at 130km/h almost into Naples where we turned off and headed back over the Amalfi Coast hills and into a town called Ravello. This town is set up in the hills and is well known for its gardens and the annual chamber music festival that runs from April to October every year. I saw the programme for this years festival pinned up in the town square and it was certainly a magnificent feast of music by all of the composers. We wandered around the town centre for a short time before descending to the coast down another tortuous winding narrow road to the town of Amalfi where Giovanni stopped and gave us about
30 minutes to wander around. Unfortunately the magnificent church in the town square was closed to the public (closed at 3.15pm and it was now 4.15pm) but the outside was amazing to look at.
We then headed back along the coast road to our apartment and arrived just on dark.
Once thing that had really stood out along this coast is the way they have made use of the precariously steep land by terracing it. Every bit is used build houses, grow veges and fruit trees (we even saw bananas growing), run chooks etc. etc. There are literally millions of tonnes of rock used in walls everywhere you go. They’re certainly an amazing feat of engineering and construction. The other thing that has stood out is that they seem very laid back in these small towns, a lot of standing around talking and not much else it seems.
It has been a really great place to be for the last 5 days. We have managed to do and see a lot more than we originally anticipated once we found that the buses were not running and while it has cost us a lot to use our driver, Giovanni, it has been worth every ‘penny’. Giovanni has just been fantastic to us and has shown us things we would never have seen by ourselves. He said goodbye to us tonight as he has one of his drivers picking us up in the morning to take us to ‘Napoli Centrale’ railway station to catch our 1128am train to Rome and an overnight there before flying to Cairo at 6am on Wednesday morning.
That’s us from Positano and the Amalfi Coast. FANTASTIC time here and thoroughly recommend it as a destination to anyone heading over this way. (Would also recommend Giovanni as a great driver to show you around!!! )
May post our last blog from Italy tomorrow evening from Rome, will have to wait and see what happens there.
Ciao for now!
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Deirdre Malcolm
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Hope you haven\'t been caught up in any of teh political turmoil. Old Belesconi seems to have cooked his own goose now!.HAd our final assembly yesterday with fareewells to Jan and Dawid. Applications closed for his job yesterday. A number of womenhave come thru\' which is interesting. Think they short tlisty them this weekend and interview next. Susanna applied for her old job back at Dannevirke and missed out on it. Cannot afford to drop $15,000 I think i heard just to be an ordinary teacher!!! Seniors are on exam leave now with the 1st exams tomorrow.The network upgrade seesm to be going well. Classes are being moved to accomodate the workmen. Weather is slowly warming up, but in saying that temps are down to 15 tomorrow. Am walking in the MEGA Mitre 10 walk this weekend starting at Awatoto adn walking round to the Napier store. - 17 km. Though 28 k from Hastings to Napier just a tad too far. You are really having a fabulous trip. Enjoy the last 3 weeks and I look forward to seeing all the photos and hearing all the stories on your return. Happy travels. Deirdre