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7 -
It was definitely the “morning after” for the hotel staff – they’d obviously run their legs off late into the night. The breakfast tables were set, but the dining room was locked. It didn’t bother me much, I was in no hurry, but the Italian couple who were leaving that morning started banging out a symphony on the bell at reception!
Amalfi today! It’s my last day in Italy and I’ve decided to spend it in my favourite town. Pausing only to photograph everything in sight en route, I set off down the coast. “La Signora” predicts rain this afternoon, so it’s a case of cramming it all in as quickly as possible. When I got to Amalfi at about 10.00am, the sea was already quite impressive, crashing against the cliffs and soaking unwary pedestrians on the harbour walls.
I bought 5 hours of parking at my usual spot (£2 an hour – ridiculous!) and went
into town to do all my holiday shopping. Amalfi is a natural for such a job and
within an hour or so, I had something for everyone and a traditional mug for school
as well. The sky was beginning to look decidedly ominous by now, so I decided to
take all the goodies back to the car and drop them off so that I could run for shelter
more easily. The next job was to go off in search of the famous Carloggio (a friend
of my parents) and I duly mounted the long hill path to his restaurant and presented
myself -
That being the case, I decided not to eat in his restaurant, (which looked rather
too posh and rather too empty at 1.30pm for my liking), so I returned to the cattedrale
for a final pizza caprisciosa at my favourite pizzeria. Amazingly, it didn’t rain
all day, but the sky had turned to twilight with the weight of clouds by 2.00pm and
the swell was impressive as it crashed against the jetties and the cliffs. I realised
that with weather like this, Amalfi was the best place to be on the coast, so I fed
the parking meter and spent a couple of very pleasant hours watching and photographing
waves and passers-
It was very noticeable when I left the hotel this morning that it was November 1st (All Saint’s Day) the road was lined with sombre men in suits and families in their Sunday best, all carrying flowers and heading for the cemeteries. On the return journey I met them all again as they were leaving and making their way back home. I hadn’t noticed the cemeteries before, but I certainly did now; stacked up the slopes of the hills in death as they had been in life, each grave shone with candles left by the families and whole sections of hillside glowed in the dusk. It made a very moving sight.
Back at the hotel, I started trying to make some sense of the packing before going
down to my last evening meal and got a good proportion of it done before heading
off for the dining room. They did it again of course! I ordered Parma ham and mozzarella
to start and a mixed sea-
