I decided to give my back a day of rest by not standing about and trailing round ruins all day, so it seemed sensible to do the sightseeing sitting down in a bus. We weren't able to make an early start, as we had to make a phone call after 10 to arrange our transport back to the airport on Monday, and what with one thing and another, it was almost 10.30 when we set out. By the time we'd bought our tickets and found our stop, the 10.30 bus had left, but the 11 o'clock one was waiting at the stop and was almost full. We got on hastily and managed to get two seats together, but after that the bus filled up quickly and soon it was standing room only. In fact, the bus became so full it left early - clearly, this trip is much in demand.
I should perhaps explain that we took the public bus, not a tour. The road is so narrow a tour bus can't stop for photos anyway - though I daresay it might have driven slightly slower than our bus did. And tours cost €75 while the public bus costs €7.60. But photographs were difficult; the bus windows were not too clean, and because there were people standing in the aisle, there was no possibility of taking photos out of the other side of the bus. However, the views were still stupendous, even if the photos weren't great.
The bus climbed out of Sorrento and headed across the peninsula towards Positano. From the highest point on the peninsula, there was a view down to Sorrento, with the Bay of Naples behind and Vesuvius looming over everything in the misty distance.
That truly enormous cruise ship has been reduced to a bath toy.
The drive across the peninsula was fascinating because it passed through so many olive groves and we could see the olive harvest must be getting close. Many of the olive groves had their nets out already, though some were just in position and not spread out. The hillsides are so steep here that it seems the nets can't be pegged to the ground, so they are anchored to other tree trunks and to posts so they are more or less horizontal at about three feet off the highest ground; otherwise I daresay the olives would just roll off down the steep slopes. I did try to take photographs of this, but the bus went too fast!
The terrain is very rocky, and the road isn't very wide. As you can see, the cliffs rise sheer from the sea.
The bus drives along close to the cliff on one side, with a sheer 150 foot drop on the other side, and in places the road isn't any wider than about 20 feet. And you can see there isn't much of a barrier to prevent you going over. The bus can't manage the hairpin bends unless it drives on the wrong side of the road, which it is doing in the photo above.
We decided to miss Positano and go on to Amalfi, principally because Paul was worried that nothing in Positano seemed flat, the houses were all piled up one on top of another, in a way he described as insane. In fact, he felt the whole road was insane, especially when he saw the way people were driving - all very fast, and often on the wrong side of the road.
We passed through other villages, all very similar, with piled up houses in ice-cream colours, and deep blue morning glory, purple or rust-coloured bougainvillea and red or yellow hibiscus tumbling down the hillsides and draped over the fences.
Paul felt a bit happier when we reached Amalfi because we were then at sea level - even if the houses were still all piled up one on top of another.
Amalfi has a beach, though you have to pay to go onto part of it. However, we weren't there for sunbathing, so we got off the bus at the terminus and went into the town, which is just beyond the terminus. Big buses can't get into the town, the streets are far too narrow. Indeed after sitting lunching in the street we began to see a market for very narrow cars. The town is compete madness, with little twisty narrow streets with no pavements, fringed by tables full of people eating, pedestrians wandering slowly along and cars and motor scooters driving down them as well. I loved it! This is the rather bizarre fountain in the main square.
The chap on top of the fountain is St Andrew, patron saint of the town. He was crucified on an X shaped cross, which you can see behind him. I'm not quite sure where the mermaid comes into this story, but she is the figure down at water level, and yes, water is supposed to be flowing out of her breasts. There's also a rather strange Pan-like figure on the left, and neither of us could make out exactly what the weird-looking creature on the right actually was.
We ate our lunch quite close to this main square, at a little table in the street, which gave us the opportunity to admire the driving skills of the local population at close quarters. Then we wandered further up the street and in and out of quite a few shops. We stopped for ice-creams, and found they were far too large. We made the mistake of not asking the price first. Paul said, as we were eating them, that he was sorry he hadn't photographed them, he felt he wanted to remember what €10 worth of ice-cream looked like! Anyway, we sat at a different table in the street and watched the mayhem a bit more, before returning to the main square to see the Duomo.
We climbed up the steep flight of stairs to go into the building, which you can see has an almost gaudy facade of glazed bricks. This part of the building was started in 1100. The great bronze doors (below) come from Constantinople and are dated even earlier - 1066.
You can see that they are not currently in use, they're roped off and an official watches you carefully as you photograph them so you don't touch.
There's quite a bit to visit inside. There's a cloister, which is almost Arabic in feel, with pointed arches and palms in the central garden. It houses some early sarcophagi (2nd century) and some fragments of the ancient Byzantine pulpit that was originally in the cathedral, inlaid with mosaics, as well as some early frescos.
You go downstairs into the Basilica, whose origins are claimed to date from 596. It is now a museum, and has some quite interesting objects.
This is an 8th century wooden carving of the prophet Elijah. Steps from here lead into the heavily decorated Crypt, which houses the remains of St Andrew. His bones are buried under the altar. They were brought here (minus his head) from Constantinople by the Knights of Malta in 1204.
Upstairs is the cathedral itself, which is now largely baroque, as you can see.
The original church has now been completely concealed by the baroque decoration. The pillars have been faced with marble and the ceiling has large inset canvas paintings. The two granite pillars that support the apse come from the ruins at Paestum. The baptismal font, which you can't see, is made of porphyry and probably comes from the ruins of a Roman villa.
It had been my intention to go on up to Ravello, but Paul wasn't too keen on that idea, having had enough of twisty dangerous roads where he felt he was constantly about to plunge into the abyss. Also, when we looked at the timetables, we realised that we would end up getting back very late, so we decided to head back to Sorrento.
This is our final view of Amalfi. It really is a very pretty little harbour.
The trip back was, if anything, even more eventful. There was more traffic on the roads, and we met more buses and coaches coming the other way. There were several occasions when cars were obliged to reverse so our bus could round the corner on the wrong side of the road, and on one occasion, the only way our bus and the oncoming bus could get round the hairpin bend was by both driving on the wrong side of the road!
This is our final view of the Amalfi coast, as we climbed over the ridge before descending towards Sorrento.
We were back in the bus station in Sorrento by 10 past 5. I was slightly disappointed to have missed Ravello, but it would have meant we wouldn't have been back until 7 or so, and we were both quite tired enough by 5.
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