The bus driver had us sailing along the perilous Amalfi coastline, twisting and weaving his bright blue behemoth of a vehicle around hairpin turns overlooking dramatic drops to a crashing blue sea. My stomach lurched every time he turned his back to the road in order to converse with a passenger behind him, but for this guy this trip was an ordinary occurrence.
"Good God, eyes front!" I wanted to scream, but my Italian wasn't up to the task.
The breathtaking ride was an exercise in trust I wasn't sure I would pass. I turned away from the ocean view and tried to focus on the tiers of lemon groves perched on the jagged hillsides. How Amalfi came to be was incomprehensible to me. Its rugged landscape was less than conducive to building a community, but nonetheless I was grateful to the nutty city planners who decided to ignore this and build houses on top of each other.
In the fifth century, Romans hid near this coastline while escaping invading Germans. It was good hiding place: if they found you, you could jump into that ocean and swim like an Olympian.
Amalfi is also noteworthy for being the birthplace of the invention of the compass, in the thirteenth century. It makes sense: lost Romans, on the run. Where the hell are we? Beats me, let's set up camp and hey, why not grow lemons while we're at it and make a tasty aperitif we can call...hmmm...limoncello.
To get to Amalfi from Rome I had taken a train to Salerno then hopped on a bus. We passed Positano and other lovely towns perched over the sea and continued to the jewel of the coast. Amalfi, which I had visited those many years ago on my first trip to Italy. It is one of my favorite places in the world. Other than a few satellite dishes and the addition of an internet cafe, the town had not much changed in sixteen years. The Duomo, the cathedral of Amalfi, sits atop a staircase so steep its parishioners often have to take rests while climbing it to reach Mass in one piece.
I found housing in a pensione up three curvy stairways. I was given a large room decorated with two antique beds, an armoire, a desk and a chair upholstered in brown chintz fabric. A tiny bathroom held a tiny shower stall. I parted curtains, opened shutters and doors to step onto a small private balcony with a view of the seaside sparkling in afternoon light. As with the convent in Cortona, I was paying thirty-five dollars a night. Another bonus of winter travel, to be sure.
Would I have wanted to share my five days in Amalfi with William? Of course, but there was something about this location that was conducive to my private journey. This rang true for others as well: E. M. Forester, Gore Vidal, John Steinbeck, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allen Poe and Henrik Ibsen all wrote here. Cocteau and Klee painted here. Greta Garbo and Margot Fonteyn rested here and Jackie Kennedy Onassis secluded herself nearby, high up in the town of Ravello.
I napped on my first afternoon in this magic place, I reckoned I was in good company, cocooned in a nurturing spirit. I drifted off sure that after a few days in the heady clear air of the Italian coast I could head home to write a masterpiece.
Absolutely...as soon as I have a tiny nap...that's right....
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