Tag Archives: Ravello

Villas and Curves and Curveballs

Leave a reply

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

It was 2:30 in the afternoon when I arrived in Ravello, as the rain really started to come down.  I kept thinking of the cautions in the guidebooks to “be careful not to miss the last bus back to Sorrento.”  The driver said the last bus was at 7:00, but taking those coastal hair pin turns in the dark and rain and wind seemed like a bad idea so I aimed to leave at 4:30.  I know, I know.  Only two hours in Ravello!  But they were two wonderful hours.

This was one town where I did not get lost.  I hopped off the bus and right around the corner was my first destination, the Villa Rufalo.  I bought my 5€ ticket and started to wander.  In addition to being a “pleasure garden,” as the English would call it, the original home had been made into a hotel which was now apparently closed.  For the winter?  Forever?  All I knew was that I could ignore all the signs that said, “Hotel Guests Only.”

I walked with my umbrella in one hand and my phone in the other, trying to capture the rainy beauty of the place.

busts arm-waver

You could get an idea of how blue the sea would be on a sunny day from this overlook.

overlook

This is one of my favorite photos.

urn

I then followed the path to Villa Cimbrone.  It was well signed, but I had no idea how far it was.  I met this cat along the way.  Which would you choose—cat food or leftover pasta?

cat

It took me about half an hour to get there, and lo and behold Villa Cimbone (6€) was swarming with tourists.  I could make out Hebrew, Chinese, and maybe Russian or Portuguese.  Cimbrone was a more formal and extensive villa; I could easily have spent half a day there.  There were picnic grounds which would have been enjoyable, a bar that was closed.  Sigh.

formal-gardens twin-towers

Too quickly, I was back on the bus.  This is a photo I took at the Amalfi stop.

amalfi-at-night

The waves were high there, and groups of college kids were posing on the waterfront for selfies.  Man, were they going to be sorry, I thought, as I watched them get thoroughly drenched.

I got the front seat on the bus to Sorrento.  I could see the curves looming ahead in the dark, hear the driver cursing under his breath, and I watched him wipe his palms nervously on his trousers.  Signs said, “NO HORN BLOWING” at every curve.  The driver blew his horn at each one.

—

I thought about this day, this place.  Wouldn’t it be great to honeymoon here, especially in good weather?  I thought about my son, Vince.  How I wished he would meet a nice woman.  I had entered a drawing to win a Viking River Cruise a few weeks before.  I daydreamed about giving it to Vince and his wife as a wedding present if I won.

—

Back in Sorrento, there was still a crowd in front of the church, only now they were holding umbrellas so they were harder to get past.

As soon as I got to my hotel, my phone pinged with a Facebook message from a friend of the family, Jessica.  “I think I saw Vince on a date!”

“Who was on a date?” I asked, “You or him?”

“Both of us!”

Yikes, that was an interesting coincidence.  I don’t usually indulge in daydreams about my son getting married, and as far as I knew he hadn’t dated much since being released from prison, so both happening in one day was a bit odd.

—

I bounced back out into the street, thinking I would try again to find the Correale Museum, but I failed again.  Then I tried to find the “marina with wonderful seafood restaurants” and struck out.  I was walking reluctantly back toward the hotel, when I turned a corner and beheld what in my overactive imagination appeared to be a Fellini movie set.  This was going to be good, whatever “it” was.

Just a Child

Leave a reply

This is a series of posts about Italy, Malta, and Spain that starts here.

—

It was time to move on from Amalfi to Ravello.  From across the road I watched as a bus signed RAVELLO pulled away.  I walked to the schedule board.  There had been something online about the bus leaving every 10 minutes so I didn’t put a lot of effort into it but it was indecipherable anyway.

A tall pensioner dressed for a safari was also trying to make sense of the timetable.  After a few minutes we gave up and started to chat.

“I haven’t got much time left,” he sighed, “to see all the places I want to see.”  This made me uncomfortable.  Did he have cancer?  I had just met him and I didn’t want to but I felt compelled to ask, “I hope you’re not ill?”

“Oh no,” he laughed as though this were a silly question.  “My GP says I’m healthy.  I’m just old.  One of these days there will be a fall, or a burst blood vessel, and then I’ll be bundled off to a home.  Sometimes I think I should just jump off a cliff and get it over with.”  And here we were, surrounded by cliffs.  I didn’t ask if he was widowed or had children; they had probably been killed in a tragic accident.

He eyed me and said wistfully, “You’re just a child.”  This made me feel more awkward.  Was he just a nice old man, or a lecher trying to flatter me?

Based on his accent, I made the mistake of saying something about tough English people who were independent well into their centennial year.

“I’m not English,” he exclaimed.  “I’m from Jersey.  Have you heard of Jersey?”

He proceeded to inform me about the history of Jersey, the relationship between the UK and Jersey, and Jersey cows.  “You have heard of Jersey cows?”  Ye-es.  I don’t think he was patronizing me.  I think he was depressed and lonely—at home and everywhere.  He was one of those people who badly wants friendships but isn’t good at them.  He never asked me about myself, but launched into monologues about Italian history and his favorite country, Morocco.

He was one of those men who is a walking encyclopedia, with a library of books at home on history, geography, world religions, warfare, anthropology, and politics.  They have seen every war film and documentary, have visited Normandy and Pearl Harbor and spent days in the Churchill War Rooms at the Imperial War Museum.  They can name every regiment and what kind of tanks or planes were deployed and how many men died in the Battle of Nanjing and the siege of Leningrad and the Bataan Death March.  And now that these men have Google, it’s like they’re on steroids.

I sometimes worry that I have this tendency.  I am always conscious of not spewing people with verbal diarrhea, especially if I’ve been traveling solo for a while.

Of course there are men, and women, like this in every land, but the British and their cousins seem to produce more, maybe because of their national fixation on World War II.  That’s not a criticism—they had the #@$% bombed out of them and then my country forced them to pay war reparations, which prevented them from rebuilding as quickly as they could have.  We Americans would do well to emulate their habit of reflection.

Forty-five minutes passed and people were crowding onto the platform.  A young guy who turned out to be honeymooner from St. Louis asked if we thought they should go to Venice.  He was a stereotypical super friendly American.  A nice guy, to another American.

My new Jersey friend and I endorsed Venice.  “It’s dark and decaying, in a lovely way,” I offered.  “Don’t miss the cemetery island.”  Me and my cemeteries.

“Oh, I give up! I’m going back to Sorrento,” Jersey declared and walked off.

Five minutes later the bus arrived.  As we pulled away I could hear St. Louis behind me saying, “That old English guy is one of those people who knows something about everything.  Thank god he went back or he’d be talkin’ our ears off.”