Driving the Amalfi Coast

We’ve visited the Amalfi Coast before, during the brief time we were travelling with our friends Tim, Jen and Annie. We have fond memories, and didn’t really do it justice last time (that, and Katherine has been wanting to re-visit the wonderful clothes shop she found in Positano), so we decided to visit again!

Using my brilliant new-found POI database and Google Earth, I found us a caravan park (actually, a hostel, Beata Solitudo, with attached camping facilities) right in the thick of it, about 3km as the crow flies (but 16 switchbacked kilometers as the Nettle drives!) from Amalfi, in a town called San Lazzaro.

Google Earth suggested a drive up through the outskirts of Naples and back down into San Lazzaro, but I didn’t want a bar of it; it was only a tiny bit further taking the coastal road, and it would be infinitely more enjoyable, adventure on the narrow roads notwithstanding.

So off we went, taking the motorway back towards Salerno, then veering off along the road clinging to the steep hillside over Salerno, which sprawled prettily way below us. It was heavily overcast, a decidedly grey day, but something about the cloud cover made the diffuse daylight appear as it was coming from low in the sky, which made it seem like a perpetual early morning, even in the middle of the day.

Our luck stayed with us as we negotiated the few tricky intersections, squinting at the map on my iPhone, and picked the correct route each time — except once, when the map’s blue dot indicting our location wandered slightly off (I think it gets bored sometimes), and told us we were somewhere else. We make a wrong turn, heading towards a pretty-yet-narrow cobbled street on Salerno’s eastern side, but easily did a U-turn (with guidance from a friendly police officer who happened to be beside us) and continued on.

Almost immediately, the road took to the edge of the coast, following the buttress-like spits of land that jut out into the ocean, with the occasional hairpin or bridge over a river valley.

Every turn brought new exclamations from us — such a feast for the eyes. The coastline itself was extremely pretty — craggy cliffs and bits of exposed rock poking out of the lush greenery, precipitous slopes down to blue water (even with an overcast sky), the higher reaches wreathed in cloud. With the addition of the delightful little villages nestled into each valley, often with tiers of vines climbing the steep valley walls, the place was just amazing.

Last time we were here, we’d taken a bus along this road, from Sorrento (to the west) to Amalfi and back. At the time, we’d marvelled at the narrow roads that the big buses barrelled down, honking their horns at each hairpin to let oncoming vehicles know they were there. We’d decided then there was no way we’d be driving the route in Nettle. Ah, but we’ve come so far since then! In fact, it was quite relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable — it was certainly tight driving, and I was swinging the steering wheel around the entire time, often doing my don’t-look-at-the-oncoming-vehicle routine (the way I see it, it’s like throwing a ball — if I focus on what I don’t want to run into, I’ll probably veer that way). At once point while passing a large van, there was a thud as the edge of the right mirror flicked against a bit of a stairwell, but no damage. Piece of cake.

Once we had passed through Amalfi, we took a right turn towards our destination (which was actually quite close, high above us). We continued winding upwards and suddenly we were in an impenetrable fog. Oncoming cars would loom out of nowhere, twin points of their headlights the only warning. It was wonderful and atmospheric; white nothingness off the edge of the road, except the odd skeletal tree poking up. Once, we paused momentarily, staring out over the sea we could only just glimpse below us though the roiling clouds, and when we turned back to the front, we caught a glimpse of a whimsical looking tower poking through the mist before it was enveloped again. Magical. The whole thing reminded me of some of the scenery in Half Life 2, oddly (particularly Ravenholm).

We made a right turn onto a steep little side road, which we barely made it up, tires slipping on the wet surface the whole way, then picked our way though the maze-like villages, skeletal trees looming out of the fog, deep green grass beneath them, and lots of adorable brick cottages with red roofs. It was so damp and green and rural we felt like we were back in beautiful Ireland.

The trusty iPhone led us to the caravan park, and I met the owner who welcomed us in. We had lunch of tasty leftovers, and then I went and spoke with the friendly English-speaking owner about local activities — he gave us a huge amount of information on hikes we could do, which sound absolutely fantastic. Looks like we’ll be walking to Positano from here, a few-hours walk with great views along the coast, apparently. Can’t wait.

For now, though, we’re hanging out in Nettle, heater on against the cold, the wind howling outside, sometimes rocking us from side to side; every now and then, a church bell rings atmospherically, even in the middle of the night. To our chagrin, there’s no 3G here either, but the EDGE is very good, and the laptop has a night ahead of it of gathering new episodes of TV shows we’ve missed!

We love Italy!

Ksar Ouled Soltane and Chenini

We awoke in our Ksar home, to the very loud and rather grating call to prayer coming from the mosque right beside us. Whew! We’ve definitely heard some nicer voices. We dozed for a while and got up, waved to the friendly hotel attendant guy, squinted at our maps for a moment, and headed off, bound for Tataouine.

A little detour through Medanine due to a road closure, through one of the many “road blocks” with a big STOP sign and a couple of police standing around — I always slow right down at these and look over at the police, and they invariably smile and wave us though, along with everyone else. By “Stop”, of course, they mean “Whatever, it’s all good!”

As we headed away from Medanine the wind was getting quite strong, conveniently counteracting the gentle rightwards steering drift that Nettle has had since bumping into a couple of kerbs on some of Italy’s insanely narrow streets (we’re thinking we’ll get her aligned again once we’re in France!).

The countryside became very desert-like and the sand became so fine that it was pouring across the road, driven by the wind, looking like tendrils of mist. It was quite hypnotic, streaming along in front of us as I fought the steering wheel against the wind. We thought sympathetically of Tara and Tyler riding through this.

We arrived in Tataouine after about 45 minutes; I was a little surprised to find it quite a big, modern-looking town, not quite the sandy collection of huts-filled-with-techno-junk than George Lucas would have you believe. That guy makes terrible documentaries.

We drove on, headed for Ksar Ouled Soltane south of Tatouine, another ksar (the Berber mud-brick huts/storage facilities that look so cool) which sounded promising. The drive there was fascinating, getting ever-more deserty. We passed through a few towns, men, women and children waving cheerfully as we drove past.

We parked by the road and hopped out to wander around the Ksar, which was indeed impressive. There were lots of whimsical little alcoves and organic-looking stairways.

We met a friendly local who attended the site, ran a little mini-café inside one of the little rooms (ghorfas) and made and sold watercolor paintings. We chatted for a little while (he spoke English), and we bought one of his paintings that we liked.

We drove onwards, to the ancient village of Chenini, a Berber hilltop village perched high above the surrounding landscape. When we entered the new village, we were flagged down by several young guys making somewhat inscrutable gestures. After a little incomprehension, it become clear they were offering tours. We conferred and then agreed, and we welcomed aboard a youngster who would accompany us to the old village.

After winding our way along the mountain with some amazing views, we stopped first at a cool ancient mosque that kinda looked like a miniature of itself, all organic and handmade-looking. We were invited inside for a look around, and our guide explained many very interesting things, in French, that we made the appropriate noises in response to but understood not a word of. Oh, well. The mosque was awesome though, as was the view from the hillside behind it.

Back to Nettle and happy she hadn’t been blown off the cliff yet, we drove back around the corner to the village proper, parked, and struggled on foot up the road, battling the grit-filled wind that became a gale at the top of the hill, making it hard to stand.

Our guide flitted us around, us fighting the wind the whole time, popping in and out of some abandoned cave-like rooms with tiny little doorways; he took us into the home of a very old woman with tattoos over her face (we are kicking ourselves that we didn’t take her picture), again, like a cave — funny to see a stove and fridge there.

At this point we would’ve loved to just roam around the village at our own pace, and afterwards we really regretted accepting a tour, but instead we headed back to Nettle for the last part of the tour.

As Katherine was getting back into Nettle, the wind caught the door with enormous force and slammed it right into the side of her head — Shit! I jumped out and found her crouched over in pain. Very luckily, she swiftly recovered and was fine — a bit of a lump, but okay. Writing about it makes me realise how poorly I handled the incident — I should’ve had her sit down and just be still for a while, at least, followed by close monitoring. I need to brush up on my first aid. This time, anyway, everything was fine. We now have a healthy caution of the door on windy days!

Shortly after, we drove on down the road a little, following our guide’s directions — a copse of palms, with a well, the significance of which was lost on us due to the language barrier.

So alas, we’d run out of time — it was time to start heading back to Metameur before it got dark. We feel like we sorta wasted the opportunity to see Chenini, and if we had a second chance would avoid the tour. Damn. We drove back through the amazing countryside, and settled in for the night back at the ksar in Metameur.