First Published: 19 Mar 2009I think I mentioned it once before, I like stone, rock, even brick. I’m not a professional geologist or even amateur part-timer by any means but I like their textures and that ageless sense of permanency about them. Since man first picked one up and figured out how to pile one atop another, we’ve been at it. Italy is stone of all types with some excellently fashioned by man and others just naturally lying around in heaps where, long ago, primal forces deposited them. Maybe it all started for me when my mom first read me “The Three Little Pigs” and I learned a moral that stone and rock endure, at least against wolves. With another being - stay away from wolves!
The southern side of one particular rockpile just south of Naples, known as the Sorrentine Peninsula, with its isolated jumble of towns that cling to its rockbound terrain, isn’t far from Calitri but is a world and mindset away when it comes to driving demands and congestion. Time of day and time of season also play important roles along with dreaded road construction, which can foul any excursion.
Yes, the views along the Costiera Amalfitana (Amalfi Coast) are spectacular, that is, when you can risk a glance away from the road. You know something is amiss when convex mirrors, attempting to show you what lies ahead, dot the roadside like wildflowers. In some spots, passage is so tight that, prior to reaching these narrow, blind switchbacks, flagmen with radios control traffic. With towering rock to one side and the possibility of a tourbus on the other, who’d want to joust with either? Each handful of vehicles awaits its turn to run the gauntlet. A whispered entreaty to Santa Maria for nerves of steal and a ‘quick-as-a-ballplayer’ sign of the cross and it’s your turn!
The non-existent shoulder of the cliff road to one side of you cascades sheer into the shimmering azure sea hundreds of feet below. This much celebrated coastline, its stone mantle weathered over the centuries, is a series of stunted spurs that jut out into the sea to be fondled in return by a probing sea, which swirls in the knurly chasms far below. Fjord-like, these ins and outs of land and prying sea account for the spectacularly picturesque coastline and its twisting, turning thread of a road, cleaved from the ridgeline, which travels its length in serpentine fashion. Here, where stone reigns supreme, my allegorical storybook wolf has given way to a rocky serpent!
On the other side of this precarious coastal trail, the side I suggest you favor, intermittently lay whitewashed villages spotted with churches, ancient warning towers and meticulously terraced slopes. They fill the ravines and cling to the mountainsides beckoning you, as did the mythical Sirens, first to come and stay or to return and explore anew.
There is a phenomenon among pilots know as “get-home-itis”. You might guess at what it is and probably be on the mark. Once you launch on a mission, there is this desire to make it home to the wife, kids, comara, whatever. It might even be as mundane as getting to the next base officers’ club for the bachelor types; ‘home’ being a relative term for where ever you are scheduled to land. It goes so far as to tempt some to bust through approach minimums in a hazardous attempt to find the runway, stomp on the rudder to line up and make it in. So here, on something so innocuous in comparison as a snaking road with the danger of unyielding stone to one side or going airborne on the other, my natural instinct is to press-on, get there and then talk about the harrowing experience later, over a beer!
I must be getting old though because the last time we made the drive, I unilaterally decided that in the future we’ll use one of the coastal boats out of Salarno for visits to the various coastal towns or farther off Capri. Maybe it’s just time to “Go Navy”! Going by boat does limit your flexibility some, especially if, for example, you wanted to venture into Vietri sul Mare for that special tableware or climb to lofty Ravello or one of the other ‘balcony on the world’ towns perched high-up, overlooking the sea. But enough time and a bus schedule to spend it on should do to get you just about anywhere.
On this particular day we were driving to the tiny Amalfi coastal town of the same namesake, Amalfi, a place we had been through before but had never had the opportunity to explore. We’d tried, but the lack of parking had done us in. This time our strategy was to leave Calitri early enough to insure this didn’t happen and if the Fates had their way, it might work. Two hours later, the delay due to construction, we nosed our little rental into a stall by the waterfront, safe and sound, mission accomplished. We were now free to explore this gem of a place. Things can be spectacular when nature and man’s stone handicraft come together, with Amalfi being one splendid example. Our first discovery, right on the waterfront, was a monument to local native, Flavio Gioia, a mariner who is traditionally considered the first to introduce the mariner’s compass to Europe. From there, we took a bearing north and headed for the town’s entrance.
Stepping across the coastal road beneath shadowy arches, careful to exploit gaps in the incessant traffic, as if we were characters in a “Frogger” arcade game, we entered the main piazza. It was dominated by a cherub and maiden adorned fountain each emitting streams of water into the surrounding basin. Crowning the fountain was a statue of Saint Andrew, who was martyred on an X-shaped cross, depicted behind him, in the year 64 AD. In an apparent act of reverence, a pitcher loaded with freshly cut flowers rested at his feet. A single red ribbon secured its handle to his leg. Somewhere nearby, at I suspect some nascent hour of the day, someone, I suspect daily, was responsible for this simple expression of admiration.
Across the stone patchwork surface of the plaza, broad stairs lead to the dominating ninth-century Duomo di Amalfi dedicated to, who else but, St Andrew. From the square, looking up at the face of the church, you have the impression it was adorned by a ‘majolica’ artist; majolica being a kind of tableware decoration common to this area. The storefronts are full of it, so why not the facade of the Cathedral!
Amalfi is basically a stylish strip of a town laid out at the mouth of a deep ravine with a single main avenue stretching from the waterfront to the base of encroaching mountains. Along this spine of a thoroughfare, which traces the natural cleavage between inhospitable stone, you find a robust historic community born of the sea. With hostile uncompromising terrain to their backs, the people of Amalfi have always looked to the sea for trade and maritime power. Before the rise of Venice, in fact, the Maritime Republic of Amalfi rivaled Pisa and Genoa in its domestic prosperity and maritime importance. In the twelfth century Amalfi was conquered by Ruggiero II, then the Norman king, with Ruggiero just happening to be the name of our street in Calitri! With the shifting politics of time and the accelerated destruction due to a Mediterranean tsunami in 1343, its fame and grandeur waned, never to recover. In recent times, the streams of past invaders have been replaced by “assault tourists” who, once disgorged from landing craft launched from cruise ships moored offshore, breach the beach and soon flood the town. In the past, these marauders would have been Pisans, Saracen or Normans looking to plunder and control. How times have changed – today’s modern, Euro-laden invaders will leave you your head and at most haggle, only to then leave behind their treasure for that single, foreign afternoon in Amalfi!
The majority of our time in Amalfi was in the cathedral. Saint Andrew, a fisherman and close to the sea, was the brother of Simon Peter and is the patron saint of Amalfi. In 1206, remains of Saint Andrew were brought to Amalfi following the sack of Constantinople by crusaders - a notably similar tale to how St Mark’s remains arrived in Venice. Today, this cathedral’s crypt is said to contain a tomb still holding a portion of the relics of the apostle, to include his skull.
The Duomo is reached after climbing 62 steps - I think that was the count. For a moment there, I had flashbacks of our ascent to the Lantern atop Rome’s St Peter’s (see an earlier Blog entry). The church is a fusion of eastern geometric design and Christianity with its exterior strips, colorful checkerboarding, mosaic accents and complex intertwining pillars. We first entered the Paradise Cloister. This is a rectangular courtyard, strong in Arab architectural overtones, with a covered portico of double columns and an interior garden that was once a burial ground for Amalfi's elite (see related photo album).
Next, we wondered through the adjacent museum. It filled a soaring room that undoubtedly, in its former life, had been the main church. Today, it accommodates an array of treasured art pieces including a magnificent windswept crucified Christ (or possibly Andrew?), religious icons, golden chalices and sunburst monstrances.
Finding a stairwell, we descended into the crypt of St Andrew. It was a cool, somber place of contemplation and worship. You could feel the pious mood of holiness that permeated this place, reinforced overhead by coffered, ornately decorated domes, which pocked the ceiling. Each contained scenes from Andrew’s life. Lifelike statues and dimly lit niches with gated side alters added to the sense of the place. Here indeed was a fitting resting place for the Apostle Andrew’s remains.
A flight of stairs later, we emerged into the nave of the present-day grand cathedral. Here was the ‘new’ cathedral, in the relative scheme of things. Massive, soaring, veneered in marble, again with grand coffered ceilings, this space was gilded and brightly accented with the illumination of stained glass. Light, passing through one window in particular, projected the shadow of a cross across the transom to produce a glistening, yet ghostly shimmering image of itself on a rising column and stained a nearby chandelier with its color pallet.
Outside once again, we sat at a street-side cafe, enjoying a tall, cold ‘limonata’, made from the grapefruit-size lemons native to the area until the sun cast little shadow between adjacent table umbrellas. By this time, people, newly discharged from ship tenders, continually prying the lane between ship and shore, gorged what limited street space there was. The sight put us out of the idea to explore any further. Making a pact with ourselves to return another day to this chaotic yet scenic place, we decided it was time to head back to the peace and quiet of Calitri, a place not nearly as diverse with the clamor of globalization.
For a great roadtrip, why not mosey on over to the Amalfitana coast, run the gauntlet if you dare, and visit one of the richly historic towns you’ll find there, Amalfi being just one. Forgo hesitation and instead unite with the willing, for how else can you dance with the Fates in their beckoning, siren-world of stone and sea?
Divertiti, la vita è buono!
Paolo
For related photos, click here on Eyes Over Italy. Look for and click on a photo album entitled “Amalfi”.
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