Late in May Karol and I flew to Rome on a direct flight (which is a great convenience) from Philadelphia and had a delightful couple of weeks roaming the countryside. Some lasting impressions:
As we travel extensively up and down both the east and west coasts of Italy it becomes more apparent than ever to us that this is a land where a mountain of some type is never more than a few kilometers away. This creates enormous challenges for highway builders, and the autostradas (superhighways) are an endless series of tunnels and bridges, many quite spectacular. Of course severe changes in altitude also contribute greatly to drama in the vistas, and it provided us with countless breathtaking views, particularly on the coastlines.
Places like the Amalfi Coast, Capri, and Taormina at many points drop directly into the sea at grades of 70° or more. And, south of Rome where it rarely freezes the wildflowers which grow out of these craggy landscapes provide a gentle, usually softly pastel contrast, to the severity of the rock formations. To be there in late spring is perhaps to catch it at its peak of beauty.
Along the winding, twisting, ascending, and descending roads of the Amalfi Coast, barely two-lanes wide (no autostradas here!) there is a riot of color as wildflowers blend with bougainvillea and oleander profusely. As we dodge the buses, each time wondering “how did we possibly miss each other?”, it is a visual feast. Making a major contribution are the white and pastel-colored houses nestled into these hillsides.
As we near our destination in Positano, fairly drained from the kaleidoscopic drive, suddenly the road is closed, and everything stops abruptly – for more than an hour! And why not? It’s Giro Italia, the annual bicycle race from one end of the country to the other! So we back up to a pizzeria and accept the inevitable.
A surprise for us is that we are able to travel from Naples on the west coast to Bari, a seaport on the east coast on a terrific autostrada in barely more than two hours (again, through a couple of mountain ranges). Below Bari is an area perhaps 40 miles square, where there are hundreds of homes and other structures with stone roofs which are dome-shaped; the roof is self-supporting, on the principle of the arch. Some of the buildings combine two, three, or as many as six of these “domes”, as the family grows, I suppose. The town of Alberobello has block after block of these remarkable structures in excellent condition. They are unique, perhaps in the world, and for us, enchanting; definitely worth the detour.
We then trek across the “foot” of this land and the Strait of Messina to Agrigento in Sicily, where the Greeks created what is known as the Valley of the Temples. Of the 18 temples, built by the Greeks between the Fourth and Second Centuries, B.C., all are in ruins, destroyed by early Christians as places of pagan worship, except for one, the Concordia Temple, which is about the size of the Parthenon in Athens and was converted to a Catholic church in the Eighth Century – and salvaged. All of the temples were constructed of an ochre-colored stone, and while the ruins are all fascinating, Concordia is extraordinary in its beauty.
Nearby, in Sciacca, an ancient fishing village, we meet a distant cousin who takes us to my Dad’s birthplace and then to a lively seafood restaurant among the fishing boats. A real treat.
Also on the southern coast of Sicily is Taormina which is nestled into a hillside a couple of hundred feet on a sheer drop to the Mediterranean. Given, it is a tourists’ delight, but that makes it no less inviting. Ancient buildings are gloriously overrun with bougainvillea and oleander everywhere, to say nothing of the geraniums, petunias, impatiens, etc. leaping off of balconies. The population is 10,000, and the ratio of restaurants to people may be one-to-one; the shops are mostly quite enticing.
Pasta we have in all of its permutations, though there’s no merit to the rumor that it was rigatoni for breakfast! It’s said that you must go out of your way to find a bad meal in this country; we find ourselves planning dinner as we are barely finishing lunch. Everywhere, eating is a wonderful adventure, something the Italians take very seriously.
The calendar inevitably runs out on us, and reality is the airport in Rome. Wistfully, as we explain to the security folks that, yes, we packed our own bags, and, yes, they have been in our possession exclusively since, our serious thoughts are scanning the menu for the first bowl of penne attabiata on our return.