The Beautiful Amalfi Coast and Sorrento

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Tuesday 13th October
The Beautiful Amalfi Coast and Sorrento
We moved the dining table over in front of the window that looks out over Sorrento to the Bay of Naples and the Isle of Capri and sat down to munch our way through our muesli followed by poached eggs on toast.We have a choice of coffee cups....BIG.........or tiny.Those of you that know us well won’t have to guess that we chose the BIG ones for our morning coffee fix.
We need to do some administration today and therefore will spend the first hour or so plugged into the internet to get that out of the way.Washing is also a priority to keep ahead of while we have fine weather to dry the clothes as there is no dryer available here.
Something has happened to the weather further north of us though because the mild temperatures of yesterday have gone and its probably only in the mid teens out side.I will keep up with wearing shorts today in the hope that the day will continue to warm as time goes by but I think long trousers will be coming back into use before too much longer.
There is at least bright sun this morning and it makes reading the laptop screen which is running on battery power much more difficult to see and that slows down the progress of getting the things done we want to.
We also need a visit to a supermercati this morning to get in supplies and dinners to last us the further 3 nights we have here.So bearing in mind that the supermercati will probably close for the Italian ‘siesta’at sometime around 1pm we headed off down the hill to do the shopping.
We travel down a different road than the one we come up to the apartment to get to the bottom of the hill about 3 or 4 km away by the winding road.This effectively makes a complete circuit.We need to do this as once we start down from the crest of the hill on the road where the apartment is there is no easy place to turn RR around and carrying on down is the only real option.It is an exciting drive of around 5 minutes with so many blind bends to negotiate that it is easy to lose count of them.
Some cars using the road toot their horns on the bends that are completely blind but we are not sure this is really of any use as unless the cars coming up have their windows open and are travelling at a slow enough speed(and most don’t!!!)then they are probably not going to hear the car horn and be careful as they drive into the bend.
On this trip down we didn’t thankfully meet any other cars in a place that was too tight for two to pass.Perhaps it was the time of the morning that we making the trip that meant there were only a couple of cars that we passed.It seemed like that between 8am and 9am when people from around the area were going to work that cars seemed to be passing the apartment,which is on one of the blind corners,in greater volumes.
We made it the supermercati just before noon and we were right,the place was going to close for a couple of hours at 1pm.
Now most supermarkets have either a large car park behind,beside,in front of or even perhaps underneath,for patrons to park their car while they do their shopping. This one in Sorrento has a car park next to the shop and has an employee on the entrance way directing cars to an available space.
First however we had another close miss with RR although this time it wasn’t a frontal near miss but a car waiting to be directed into the supermarket car park deciding to reverse without looking in his rear view mirror!!Poor Renee has been assaulted from all directions since we picked her up and we are fearful that we won’t get her back to Marseille at the start of November without a dent although we are determined it won’t be us who cause it.
Gretchen sat on the horn and just in the nick of time the other driver braked.He looked out his driver’s window and gave what looked to us like a shrug.That’s Italian drivers for you.
We were directed into a space that was easy enough to get into but was most difficult to get out off after we returned with our shopping.It was made more difficult by another larger car parking next to us than the smaller one that was there when we arrived.We should add here that the supermarket is just like the roads and drivers of the town.....narrow lanes and crazy trolley drivers who cut corners and leave their trollies double parked!!!
So with me directing Gretchen eventually managed to extricate RR and we were on our way back up the hill to the apartment with Gretchen swearing she wasn’t going to drive in Sorrento again except for when it is time to leave.!!
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and doing some more administration until we thought we had better get some exercise before the day ended.
Being on the top of the hill we really only have one way to walk and that is down which also means we have to walk back up again!!Still it was exercise we wanted so the deal was an hour down and an hour or whatever it took,back up.
There are no footpaths outside of the immediate town area so walking can be a dangerous endeavour and it usually pays to ensure you walk facing the oncoming traffic.Italian drivers don’t seem to notice pedestrians and they will overtake other vehicles in the most narrowest of spots on a road even if there are people(us)walking at the same point of their overtaking manoeuvre.
So this was the way it was as we headed down the hill taking the route we drive up.About 25 minutes into our walk we turned off the main road and took a more direct downhill road with slightly less traffic into the township area of San Martino,next to Sorrento.
We had with us a couple of postcards going to NZ and Australia and were hoping to find a Post Office.We did find one but it had closed for the day at 12.30pm and it was now 4pm.
We had done just over an hour in the downhill walk and so now it was time to turn around and walk back up the hill.This wasn’t as hard as we thought it might have been even though we hadn’t had this much strenuous exercise since doing some mountain climbing with Di and Sebastion back in Switzerland.In fact we made pretty good time and it only took 10 minutes longer on the return journey when we might have expected to be perhaps an extra 20 or 25 minutes given that it was all up hill.
Of course it may have been the fact that ‘walking director’Gretchen decided that we should keep off the busy main road without footpaths altogether and chose some little narrow obscure lane that to my tired legs seem almost vertical.She set the pace and sure enough we were back home in next to no time!!
Before dinner we sat up on the terrace with a cocktail and surfed the net and checked our emails while watching the cruise ship in the port sail off as the sun set.During the day we have managed to get the Sky TV working so although many of the channels are still in Italian we do have the choice of a few English ones like BBC,AlJazerra and a couple of Fashion Channels so we should at least be able to keep up with the news again and what the spring 2010 Paris fashions will be!!

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Comments

[KJ]

Those drivers!
I know what you mean about the Italian method of driving like they own the road. Its almost a case of who dars wins- who will give in first in the stare down between drivers on the same piece of road. I drove in Italy- in Rome and on the ring road you mentioned- back in the mid 80s not too long after I got my drivers licence and maybe that is why I now have grey hair! KJ