“That’s Amore”

A cool morning breeze welcomed us as we packed up and set off South after a fabulously cosy warm night in our super-heated tent. With no particular route in mind, except to hug the coast and ride South, we breezed through Naples and stopped 44 kms later in Pompei. What a lovely town, coffee bars everywhere. The tourist shop at the station gave us maps and instructions and we ignored them all, waved to the ruins and the queue outside and carried on. The sun is shining, bike perfectly balanced, B enjoying the roads and we’re singing my favourite song: “oh, what a beautiful morning ….“ as loud as we can inside our helmets. We really can belt it out within our own echo chambers.  

 We take the inland back road around Mount Vesuvius viewing it from all angles until we are back on the coast road. 71 kms from our start we are at Sorrento which is a bit tricky with tourist buses, but B gets past them all with calculated ease. The roads are twisty, jam-packed with just about every vehicle imaginable, luxury sports cars, silly little 3-wheeled pickups, ridiculous Ferrarris stuck in first gear, bicycles and buses. It’s manic but exhilarating. I lean back against the bedding pack and snap away. We ride beyond the tourist route almost to the end of the peninsula and wave to the ships sailing to the island of Capri. The sea and sky are glistening blue, eye-burning beautiful blue. There is no discernible horizon, the view is all a big blur of blue. I think I’ll paint a big canvas of blue when I get home. We find a little triangle of green grass in one of the villages and have a picnic. The houses are perched scarily on the side of the cliffs ready to fall into the sea. And then we get back on the road to Amalfi. At least 10 movies have had the Amalfi coast as their background* and it is easy to see why.

The Drama is in the domineering mountains and plunging cliffs. The Plots follow the twists and turns of the road, disappearing into tunnels and taking your breath away with the beauty when you emerge the other side. The traffic squeezes everybody like a toothpaste tube along this sinuous road, with dare-devil boy racers testing their nerve as they overtake into oncoming traffic around blind corners. It’s terrifying to watch. We hang back and try to take a rest in Ravello. Only for a second though as parking is at a premium and we are ushered to move on just as I’ve climbed off the bike. B really needs to take a break, but on we go through this crazy gorgeous funnel lined on the left by lemon groves and sheer drops on the right. We are in Limoncello Land. And then the fuel gauge flashes. At a stretch our limit is 300kms and we calculated we were at 289kms. Oops, according to the GPS the next big town, Salerno, is 30kms away. Not going to make it! Typing in ‘petrol’ on the GPS (leaning over B’s shoulder and on the move) we hairpin up left into these monstrous rocks along a very narrow road. The road repair taffic lights take forever, using our precious fuel as we wait and wait. Another bike pulls up and ignores the lights, so we follow suite. At the top of the climb there a convergence of roads, help, we don’t know which one to take. We ask a chap in a car, nonchalantly parked in the shade, such a contrast to our near panic in the sun. No petrol = panic. He shrugs, and points hesitantly “that way, I think”. We are riding on fumes as we spot a lonely pump in a layby. Oh dear, it doesn’t take credit cards, CASH ONLY. We haven’t been to an ATM since visiting Rome 4 days ago and Lidl’s and coffee bars had consumed most of it. We have just one 5 euro note left. We feed the note into the mouth of the machine, and it promptly spits it out. Again and again , we try turning the note over, turning it around. Nope, not going to take it! And then a very nice Italian pulls up in his van. Luckily, he can't put fuel in his van until we move on. We did a bit of 5euro note swopping until eventually one of his worked. Many ‘Grazias’ later we took another hazardous road back to the coast. With 10kms of fuel left we had ridden from Ravello to petrol stop in Pietre (11kms). Pietre down to Maiori was a spectacularly stunning and dangerous 9.5kms. I say dangerous because we had a close one. I had been taking photos with my right hand but decided that the steep S-bends required more than just a balancing act. I really should be holding on to B. In one simultaneous moment as I leant left to tuck the camera away, B swung around a right bend, I straightened up and we over balanced skimming into a retaining wall, bouncing on the right-side pannier which threw us sharply left again. The next S-bend was immediately upon us but fortunately a small pull-off area allowed us to right ourselves and stop, next to a low wall below with a heavenly view of thousands of dangling lemons. Without thinking too much that we could have been dangling amongst them we unpacked the lunch bag and munched on last night’s left-over spaghetti pesto.  Time and space for a break, indeed. B was puzzled as to why the bike had veered into the wall for no apparent reason. I then realised the critical part that the pillion plays in the whole riding and cornering pattern and confessed that I'd been fiddling around at the back putting my camera away, which changed the balance of the bike. Not so good on a hairpin bend on a cliff face.

The coastal ride from Maiori to Salerno was 31 kms, where we filled the tank to the top and more. Including the miracle 5 euro pump’s input; we calculated we had done 326 kms on a 300km tank!

The ferocious wind and sand flying around down the coast after Amalfi drove us inland to Pontecagna, where we found a lovely sheltered empty grassy campsite. We tied the tarpaulin to 3 trees, scrounged a rickety table and looked forward to a peaceful recuperative night. The disco next door started up at 11pm, the dogs joined in with the party, yowling and barking, the rain came down in a big whoosh, the firecrakers went off until 5 am together with the disco and the pine trees left a sticky residue all over the tarpaulin.

But the best thing was the sweet smell of Star Jasmine as night fell. "That’s Amore."

 * movies

·         1950’s La Macchino Ammazzacattivi, Beat the Devil

·         1990’s Only You

·         2000’s Under the Tuscan Sun, A Good Woman, Scandal in Sorrento, Talented Mr Ripley

 2010’s Love is all you Need