Under the volcano
Oscar Humphries explores Naples and the Amalfi coast See Naples and die. Grand Tours often ended in Naples. By the time the young aristo arrived in thisbeautiful Italian city he was probably feeling a bit homesick — and syphilitic. I didn’t see much of Naples from the coastal road to Positano but I could smell it. The stench of garbage warming as if beside an Aga hung in the air. Every scrap of ground that wasn’t built on or Tarmacked was strewn with plastic bags and decaying Vespas. Our taxi driver said that the garbage men have been on strike since Christmas. I asked the sort of question favoured by Marie Antoinette and American tourists — why didn’t they employ new Polish garbage men? The Camorra run ‘waste management’ throughout most of Italy. So the Mafia was to blame for the piles of filth that looked like tiny Technicolor volcanoes — their tops spewing paper that was carried away by the gentle breeze. ‘No Mafia in Positano,’ I was firmly told, and as I weaved my way along the coast, gradually the air became sweeter, the sky clearer, and my questions less persistent.
Positano clings to the rocks of the Amalfi coast. It is a town of steps, with houses stacked on top of one another from the high cliffs to the sea. From Positano you can visit Pompeii, Capri, Panerea, Ischia and Ravello. Like Portofino, Positano attracts smart Milanese, Roman weekenders, wealthy Americans and a handful of bored people who cruise the Mediterranean every summer. It has none of the flashiness of St Tropez or Sardinia. The Russians have yet to discover this part of Italy and while it is expensive it’s also small. What is the point of spending money if there’s no one there to see you do it?
Sara and I were staying at Le Sirenuse to celebrate our fourth anniversary and I aimed singlehandedly to spend my way out of the recession and crunch my credit cards into oblivion. The hotel has been run by Franco Sersale since 1951 and has a charm unique to Italy. Painted Pompeii red, like many of the buildings in Positano and Capri, it is edged with bougainvillea which cascades over the balconies. It’s Cipriani sur la mer, only without the hookers and the hedgefunders yelling into their BlackBerrys. Despite the sloping landscape the hotel boasts one of Positano’s few pools, where the barmen serve bellinis to American guests who are slathered in coral jewellery and factor 60 sunscreen. Looking at Sara, framed by bougainvillea with the blue of the sea behind her, I understood why this part of Italy has endured barbarians, volcanic eruptions and the Mafia. It’s scarily romantic without being kitsch.
After a night of minibar excess, Sara and I took the ferry to Capri for a day trip. The island, with its famous rocks and flowers and seagulls, emerged from the Neapolitan haze. All around us couples embraced and applied sunscreen to each other: a simple act of love, vanity and protective caution. ‘Do my back,’ Sara said and ruined the moment. More steps. More jasmine. More wisteria. More bougainvillea. The island in Norman Douglas’s South Wind is still recognisable in the Capri of today. It remains largely unspoilt, despite the Guccis and Puccis which now line the town’s alleys. The water in Capri was heavy and dark like dirty velvet. The rocky beaches are netted off to protect swimmers from boats. The nets also collect trash, which floats in clumps and would otherwise lap at the shore. From the sea, the island towers above you. In the shadow of pine trees and whitewashed villas, however, it’s easy to forgive a little rubbish. We ate a lunch of tiny prawns fried in salt and pepper. Then vongole, the spaghetti barely cooked but perfect.
From Ravello, one can see the Amalfi coast below. It’s a sleepy, dreamy place that was largely empty when we got there. It was siesta time and the town had a sedative effect. The old ladies in black dresses who sat (always with cats) on steps looked with disdain at Sara’s skirt, which didn’t cover her knees. In Ravello we bought bowls and plates with animals painted in pastel colours. The Villa Cimbrone can be found at the top of an alley that leads up from the main square. A sign says that ‘the divine’ Greta Garbo eloped to the hotel with Leopold Stokowsky in the late 1930s. The hotel gardens are open to the public. The balcony is lined with now forgotten Roman worthies, frozen in white marble.
This area of Italy is entirely unique. Ravello with its views, Capri with its chalky perfection and Positano with its endless steps all leading to the same place. At the time I remember cursing my overpriced sandals and the blisters they gave me. In retrospect, though, they were romantic wounds and had they been on another part of my body would have resembled the kind of thing Byron might have caught in a Neapolitan brothel.
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