Breakfast in the dining room of the hotel Pisacane in Sapri. Very good, but no fresh bread rolls, just yesterday’s sliced bread. And like almost every place, prosciutto crudo, but not cotto. When I was checking out, the Boxer was still there, dozing on his bed. Has he moved since last night? Oh, yes, he doesn’t sleep here at night.
Tumblr is more broken than usual today, and all the photos appear at the bottom.
Sapri would be a great place to spend a few days. A little like Apollo Bay. It’s beautiful, quiet and cheap. Not too many tourists find their way here.
The weather today was perfect, crystal clear, 22 degrees. My plan was to follow the coast as closely as possible, on the SR 562. It was a minor road, but went through quite a few villages. The sea was on my left, sparkling blue. The first town from Sapri was Scario. With its large rock behind, it reminded me of Morro Bay, north of Los Angeles. The country was similar to the west coast of California, with green, scrubby, mostly treeless hills. I guess this climate might be similar.
One small town had a market. It was tempting to think this was the real deal, how rural Italians really live. But there was an obviously foreign couple at the market, and a souvenir shop. I bought an ice cream and sat there for half an hour.
The road was falling apart in places. Just after the broken section pictured below was a partially built viaduct, which would have bypassed this bad section, but construction had been abandoned. Most of the road was fine though, with so little traffic that minutes could go by without a car.
From Sapri, this wonderful road went for 100km before leaving the coast and becoming very ordinary. Next target was Paestum, just a few km away. I arrived there at 2pm, an hour later than I intended, as always, so right on schedule in a way.
This turned out to be a most beautiful place. Three almost intact temples, with the remains of the houses and public buildings of the people who lived there and built them. And very few people there. 1.5 hours was enough to stroll around. You can walk right into the temples, among the columns. I skipped the museum. It was time to set Zumo for the hotel I had booked in Amalfi. It meant going right through the centre of Salerno, which I rather liked the look of. I drove through here 13 years ago, but don’t remember Salerno particularly, I was probably concentrating on driving and navigating. I took advantage of being on a bike and passed cars on both left and right, as you do here, but the panniers sticking out so far on each side call for circumspection. Once onto the Amalfi Coast Road, the memories came back, but I hadn’t remembered how spectacular it is. Trucks and cars going in both directions with centimetres between them, and bikes and scooters zipping through whenever a gap appeared. Stone wall on the seaward side, with a precipitous drop beyond. Every right hand bend is blind, and many left hand bends too. Buses go only eastward. When you see one coming, you have to stop short of the corner and let the bus use all the road. The road is chiselled out of the cliffs, a couple of hundred metres above the sea in places. In one place it was so narrow that the traffic was one way for a few hundred metres. A marshal flagged us to stop and sternly admonished the cab driver who had wanted to pass me for many kilometres, just to gain a car length and 2 seconds. She waved me on with a smile, she must like bikes. So I had the privilege of riding against traffic that thought it had the road to itself, including buses.
It all worked out somehow, as Italian traffic does. Zumo announced our arrival at the Hotel La Ninfa, Via Mauro Comite 35, Amalfi. I parked the bike and removed my bag and shoes, ready to walk into the adjacent hotel. The numbers on the high side were 34 and 36, average 35, but the hotel on my side was number 7. I walked uphill for a while, carrying the bag, then consulted Google Maps. Another 500m. I would have to move the bike anyway, so 10 minutes later I was checked in, with the bike safely parked outside next to the hotel manager’s Vespa. The hotel is 2km uphill from Amalfi Centro, a 20 minute walk along the road with mostly no footpath. It hardly deserved its good location rating in Booking.com.
More problems became apparent when I was shown my room. There was no window. The hotel being on the low side of the road, the rooms open onto an enclosed terrace, with a great view of the ocean. Each room has a pair of glass doors, and a privacy curtain, but to get any ventilation, I had to leave my door open all night. In the morning, leaving for Capri, I had to close the door, leaving the atmosphere in the room decidedly tropical after my shower. This would explain the mould on the bathroom walls. But the big problem was the bed, which was about as soft as the tiled floor. After a few hours of torture I raided the cupboard with the spare blankets and folded two under the bottom sheet. That made it bearable. Tonight (Thursday) I’ll put both spare pillows under there too. This hotel was rated only 7.8 but was the only remotely affordable hotel in Amalfi. None of the reviews complained about the bed, strangely. 7.8 is too high, my review will lower the average rating a bit.
Dinner was Capricciosa, beer, gelato in Amalfi Centro. This is becoming my diet here.
The new way with Tumblr looks to be to insert all the photos and then paste text between them. I’ll try that.
