Amalfi Coast

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My last blog entry was in 2015. Needless to say, it is not that I have not travelled over the last six years. Rather, much of life's business consumed the blank white space that is otherwise known as my writing platform. Yes my blog posts are always interspersed with nice photos of the places I've visited, but it is the writing that I come for. And go for. I will work my way backwards through a myriad of travel as I play catchup with my posts.



So. Italy. Not just Italy, the Amalfi Coast. Described as "an intriguing mix of sophistication and simplicity". Here there are super yachts, and chauffeur driven cars and five star hotels, set amidst the rural simplicity of precariously stacked villages, farmland, vineyards, cheese makers, churches and small fishing communities. "The link between these worlds is Strada Statale, the road of 1000 bends.. it hugs cliffs and deep gorges for 40kms, slicing through lemon groves and whitewashed villages, rising and dipping above the shimmering sea."

The Amalfi Coast was much quieter than I expected, both in decibels and in spirit. The disadvantage of modern travel (she says, having travelled the globe back without a cellphone, at a time when smart phones never existed and the internet was something to be paid for by the hour in an internet cafe at the end of the road) is that one has an abundance of expectations before arrival. We no longer simply arrive and breathe in a place for what it is. We compare it to the idea of what we had thought it would be. What I thought Amalfi would be is glamorous, and busy. It was neither.

I started the journey in Napoli (for the pizza, of course) wound my way via boat and car to Amalfi and chose, for the duration of my stay to settle in Positano.; home to just four thousand people and utterly beguiling. In Positano there are no sights to see, no splendid restaurants or beaches or bars. Just... a quiet sophistication. An opportunity to limit the distractions of human endeavours such that one might pause to drink in nature. Built vertically on a cliffside, Positano is an exercise in strong quads and sculpted glutes - and if you didn't have them before the trip, you'll return home with them. Morning swims were a strong steep climb up the cliff face and then down, and back up again. Lunchtimes and evenings were strolls and sipping my way through a bottle of montepulchiano as I savoured the extraordinary views. Aside from that, a day trip to the crowded and overly touristy island of Capri, and a hike along the 'Walk of the Gods' were the only excursions I did. I spent the final night in Amalfi, at a remote five star hotel set atop the cliffside with dramatic views of the sea; a former monastery. The architecture, whilst modernised, was beautifully in keeping with the austere and calming tone of the former place of worship. In fact, when I couldn't sleep, I traipsed barefoot on the cold stone floors through the hotel and found the chapel. Open 24hours I sat there awhile, listening to the silence.

The meal that I ate on that last night in Amalfi was at a seafood restaurant down on the harbour. With the sound of the sea lapping beneath the decking, I watched the sun go down on this short, spontaneous Italian getaway.

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