Unlikely Words

Today we woke up at exactly the time we’d planned. (Victory!) By 9:00 we were upstairs and arranging a shuttle bus to take us into Amalfi at 10:30. The plan was to spend an hour looking around Amalfi and then to take a bus up to Ravello, which several people (including our new best friend the bartender) had recommended highly. In expectation of a long day, I added some yogurt to the continental breakfast that the hotel offered.

The shuttle dropped us off right in the center of Amalfi, a few steps away from the spot where the SITA bus to Ravello stopped. We joined a throng of people when the bus arrived and were about to get on the bus when we heard the Australians in front of ask if they could buy their tickets on the bus. The answer was “no,” and since we didn’t have tickets either, we snuck out of line. It took a good 10 minutes of wandering around to find where to buy bus tickets, and then we had some time to kill until the next bus came, so we walked around the beach and pier in Amalfi. I was struck by the odd geometric concrete forms that made up the jetty. There must be a story here; is this some kind of art installation? Or is there a practical advantage to these shapes? Inquiring minds want to know!

Before too long the bus arrived, and we crammed on board, and we started to wind our way up the mountain roads. Now, I’m sure you want know: are these Italian bus rides on the roads along the Amalfi coast as scary as everyone says they are? Well, dear reader, I am here to tell you that the bus trip from Amalfi to Ravello is not, in fact, scary.

It is fucking terrifying.

It’s not really even the sheerness of the cliffs – the all-too-solid rock wall on one side and the precipitous drop to the rocky water below – and the paltry 3-foot guardrails. Nor, strictly speaking, is it the cars parked on both sides of a two-lane road that would, in the United States, be marked both “one way” and “no parking.” Nor is it solely the pedestrians walking up and down these roads, crossing the street as if they were not taking their lives into their hands. No, it is the combination of all of these things, coupled with a bus driver content to navigate the hairpin turns and switchbacks and cobblestone streets and blind driveways at speed. I am convinced that our driver used the horn more often than the brake pedal. It felt like a roller coaster (and I hate roller coasters) except that, as Rachel pointed out, roller coasters are on a track, and are inspected for safety, and have seatbelts.

The roads really are something. I mean, I’ve driven on winding roads before. I even nearly got carsick riding on some of the curvier stretches of US-1 in northern California. It’s probable that these roads are, in fact, curvier than California’s, but what makes them seem orders of magnitude more precarious is that California’s mountain highways are bounded by trees and the ocean. These roads are bounded by sheer cliff walls in some places, but in other places by houses, shops, restaurants, and parked cars. It simply would never occur to Americans to build houses (much less farms) on terrain like this.

We made it to Ravello alive, however. It’s a truly charmingly beautiful town. The views of the mountains and the water are spectacular, and the houses and shops have 100% of your recommended daily allowance of quaint. Before simply walking around and taking in the scenery, we needed (OK, I needed) to eat, so we consulted our Lonely Planet guidebook and ate at a restaurant called Cumpa Cosima. The food was perfectly fine, and when the owner came out to overcharge us she did so with a winning smile, but in our walking around we saw many more charming places to eat. I can only assume their markup was even worse.

We saw and photographed many beautiful houses, gardens, and vineyards. We bought some ceramic house numbers from a very friendly shopkeeper. We found the street named after Richard Wagner and took my picture under it as if to say, “Screw you, Wagner, you anti-Semite bastard.”

Then there was a long, long wait for a bus back to Amalfi. There appeared to be some confusion as to what bus we were supposed to take; when one finally arrived and we asked if it was the bus to Amalfi, the driver told us “no,” then got on his cell phone for several minutes and called out, “OK, Amalfi!” So we got on for another death-defying ride.

Here we also had our brush with the law. When you board an Italian bus, you’re supposed to put your ticket into the little validating machine so you can’t use the same ticket indefinitely. In the confusion, we boarded this bus through the back doors, not the front door, and didn’t see anyone else going forward to punch their ticket. Since no one even asked to see our ticket, we thought we were probably fine.

Wrong. At one of the stops, three SITA agents got on the bus and started going from seat to seat, checking tickets. The fine for failing to get your ticket validated is €34 per person. The agent, who spoke no English, indicated that he was willing to let one of us slide. This was very nice, and it cut our fine in half, but we still had to cough up the cash. It was tense, it was embarrassing, it was awkward and complicated, and it made us feel like the stupidest Americans ever to travel abroad. (We comforted ourselves by repeating over and over: “We’re having an adventure!”)

We finally made it back to Amalfi just in time to catch our shuttle bus back to the hotel. Once we got there, we decided to strip off our sweaty clothes, put on our swim suits, and get right into the pool to try to shed some of the day’s stress. This we did, despite the fact that it started to drizzle as soon as we were handed our pool towels.

When the rain and lack of sun made swimming less appealing, we went back upstairs to kill some time reading before dinner. At the bar, I asked the bartender to make me a Manhattan, and although he made fun of me for ordering a gratuitously American drink, it was the best Manhattan I’d ever tasted. Seriously, this guy was good.

Dinner was, once again, delicious. Rachel started with a margherita pizza that was spectacular. The crust was much softer than I expected, but not at all doughy the way “thick crust” pizza is back home. I had a plate of salmon and anchovy filets in olive oil and lemon juice, and it was just incredible: light, summery, and delicious. For our entrees, Rachel had a cod filet in a tomato sauce, and I had veal scallopini. I made sure to get the cod recipe from the maitre d’. For dessert we had something called, I think, “rum baba.” That’s what it sounded like the waiter said. It was a round bit of pastry filled with pastry cream and soaked in rum. Yes, please.

It had been quite a day. We staggered back down to our room, swearing to do nothing – nothing! – tomorrow.