Hanging with Higgins

I was going to write about our last day in Palermo, but I realise that if it takes me three days before I have time for each new post, we will be here for a long time. Thus, the Amalfi Coast…

We arrived in Salerno after an overnight train ride, so I was a little tired and grumpy. But, the blue of the ocean and the fresh air cheered me right up. Our Canadian-Italian hostess (Dianne) had given us really good instructions on how to find her apartment, and it wasn’t long before the strangest pet I have ever seen was introducing herself. This is Higgins, Dianne’s ‘cat’:


Higgins is eighteen years old, tiny, and prone to sneezing fits. Each one feels as though it might finish her off, and it is quite unnerving eating breakfast whilst she quivers at your feet.

Anyway, Dianne was lovely, and her neighbourhood was a great spot. Crowds of sunburnt apartment buildings watch over a concrete piazza full of old and unshaven men in corduroy caps playing cards and (of course) smoking. Laundry and children hang everywhere, and the shopkeepers yell at each other over the buzzing traffic.

From there it is a pleasant-ish walk down a long seafront to the ferry terminals. I think this walk has a lot of potential, but Dianne explains that the local council has to fight two battles to clean it up. Firstly, the local mafia (the Camorra) own the refuse management contracts for the area, and dump rubbish along the shoreline because they know no one will prosecute them, and secondly, Sorrento and Amalfi complain loudly when there is any possibility that lucrative tourism might be taken from their own gorgeously maintained seafront.

So, this pretty much sums up the Salerno coastline:


On the plus side, it means Salerno remains an affordable place to stay. And it is easy to hop on a ferry for the half hour ride to Amalfi. Here’s our approach from the ocean:


Unfortunately, we were a little early in the season for millionaires and movie stars (or millionaire movie stars) – but this glamorously tranquil spot was a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. Lucy and I were even compelled to turn tourist and buy local souvenir type things like ceramics and limoncello.

The public beach was tiny, so we spent most of our time wandering the piazza and market lanes. I am amused to report that the most photographed thing in Amalfi wasn’t the glorious golden Duomo, the patchwork of terracotta buildings, the pretty view up the coast, or some of the funky pottery. It was this, in a grocer's doorway:


Sigh.