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5 -  Giovedì

Not a good start!  -  Fog (low clouds anyway) lashing rain and wind.  I went down to breakfast just a bit depressed.  The mood was lightened a bit when the patrono’s grand-daughter (all of 5) decided to be my personal waitress and wobbled to the table with intense concentration on the orange juice / brioche etc. that she was carrying. She finished off each load by saying all the right things, delivered with impeccable politeness and clarity – obviously well practised!

I went back to the room to decide what to do.  Either I could stay there all day watching Italian daytime TV, (I’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals!) or I could pretend it was going to brighten up and head off somewhere.  Sense prevailed and I loaded up the car with umbrella and cagoule (and sun-tan lotion – always the optimist!) and decided that if the weather did clear, I’d rather be in Sorrento when it did.

The drive was impressive.  This particular route is the famous “white-knuckle” section of the Amalfitana riviera and to make it even more interesting, soon after setting off, I had the wiper blades going at full-speed.  The rain heaved down throughout the journey, and by the time I reached Positano, the roads had literally turned to rivers.  I’ve heard that said so often, but never really experienced it like this.  The roads are never flat, always climbing or descending and the water that was landing on the surface and flowing away was joined by all the overflow from the cliffs above.  The whole surface of the road was moving and it was a very strange sensation to drive through it.   On top of this, the roads narrowed and it became harder and harder to pass the buses and tourist coaches coming the other way.  If only I could have taken some photos to show what it was like, but as usual, stopping was impossible.  Thankfully, by the time I reached the outskirts of Sorrento, the rain had stopped and I was even treated to the occasional burst of weak sunshine.

I parked the car in the first car park I found and went to look for the ‘pay and display’ machine – No chance! – Sorrento has its own system based on scratch cards that you buy in bulk from tobacconists and then you scratch out the time you park.  It was a bit of a fuss getting the cards, but on the plus side, 3 € bought me five hours of parking as opposed to the usual one hour.  Mind you, it took at least an hour to scratch out all the details on the five cards needed for the stay!  ;o)

From the car park, I went off for a walk through Sorrento.  I asked where the sea was and was directed down a road which I duly followed for nearly a mile before I came to the edge of a cliff and found a magnificent view of the Bay of Naples, with Ischia in the distance.  The sun even came out for a bit and all seemed well.  Unfortunately, there was nothing else there (all the cafés were closed for some reason) and I had no choice but to walk the mile back up to the centre and try again from there. The signs were very confusing here (“Centro” to the left and “Sorrento” to the right!) and I wasn’t even sure if I really was in Sorrento after all.  Oh well, on the bright side, it wasn’t raining at the time and I got a very warm welcome in a café, where I was given a delicious hot brioche free with my cappuccino because I spoke Italian to the patrono.  

Finally the mystery was solved.  I was in “Piano de Sorrento” not Sorrento.  It’s an industrial centre some miles from the tourist town.  I had followed signs to Sorrento, and then Centro and just assumed I had arrived.  No wonder it all seemed a little strange.  I got back in the car and drove off in search of the real Sorrento, which, in the end, turned out to be a race-track with parking difficulties.  I finally found a space and discovered (of course) that my car-full of parking cards weren’t valid in real Sorrento, only in Piano de Sorrento, (different municipality, different fee-structure).  I carried on driving looking for a solution and, when I didn’t find one, I ended up instead heading out of town on a road leading into the hills towards St Agata and back to Positano.  

On the way, at the top of the climb, I discovered a secluded roadside restaurant with a view of the Bay of Naples that was absolutely to die for, and ate a delicious spaghetti with cherry tomatoes and smoked cheese, and polished off a half-bottle of Chianti as well, all the while gazing through the window in front of me at Vesuvius across the bay.  (In fact it was a fabulous panoramic view from Sorrento on the right to Capri on the left with Vesuvius in the middle across the bay – a wonderful hour to remember).

On the way back, with the sun shining, I even managed to find some places to pull over and take some photographs of the road and the views along the route, looking back towards the setting sun.  In fact, I got so used keeping an eye out for available spaces and then slipping quickly into them as I shot past, that the inevitable happened and I tried it once too often.  The space was small and the traffic flow was quite quick at  that point.  As I swung in, I realised that the black bumper on the white car next to the space was deceptively large and stuck out ridiculously far for a small car.  Mostly I realised this as I heard the bumper scraping down the side of my paintwork as I passed -  oops!  The guy in the other car, (who had been sitting there admiring the view and minding his own business), was very calm and stoical, and his car was far from new (in fact, even after the swipe, his bumper still looked to be the least damaged part of the car).  He was reluctant to fill in any forms or details as he didn’t see the point.  He had no desire to put a new bumper on his old car, but he played the game and took the piece of paper I gave him with my details on it and wrote down his own (in totally indecipherable writing that I had to get translated later at  the hotel).

Back at the Bacco, I rang AVIS and was pleased to find that they didn’t require me to spend most of tomorrow reporting the incident to the local Carabinieri.  In fact they sounded all too used to the story and most unconcerned.  I expect the Amalfitana coast roads take quite a toll on hire cars.  I was told to just carry on as before and report the incident to the AVIS staff when I handed over the car.  I wrote out a report while it was all still fresh in my mind and decided when I’d finished that I couldn’t read what I’d written and that I ought to have two copies anyway, one for me and one for AVIS just in case.  So, I set off to reception to negotiate some time with one of the many networked computers they had lying around, (posh new PC’s all wireless networked with broadband connections – whenever you walked into a room, you would find the reception staff and waiters busily surfing or downloading MP3s).

Within half an hour I had an acceptable report typed out as a Word document (with diagrams) and I had printed off the two copies and e-mailed another copy to myself in England. I love ICT!

Lethal Weapon 4 was on the TV after dinner, so I got drawn in and watched it again.  (It was the Chinese version! - but it was easy to understand, because all the Chinese dialogue was subtitled in Italian!)

Not many days of the holiday left ...  I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

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