May 1, 2015
Between The Coast And The Mountain: Pompei to Sapri.
Friday
No breakfast. You give me only thirty euros, states the matronly hotelier this morning. Was I mistaken when I heard her say "Si. Breakfast" yesterday when we agreed the price of the room for thirty. I honestly thought there would be breakfast. I have come out to the reception area with a breakfast room to the side, but no breakfast table laid out, whereupon she appears and I ask. She replies bluntly and adds "Go to bar" then reaches out a hand for the room key. I tell her I need to get my stuff first. This would leave me with a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the day.
At the Bar, the café on the corner, the man that owns the quest house I stayed in last time in Pompei is sat conversing with another man. In retrospect I wish I'd stayed at his place. Another very fat and jolly man sits down across from me and opposite them. He says "buon giorno" to me, then to them and also comments on something; to which the guest house man looks at the other man and smiles before answering. Then the fat man takes out a fifty euro bill from a wallet, rises from his seat and goes over and put the fifty in the quest house man's hand. The latter looks at his companion again with a face that says "this man is nuts, giving away money."
The coffee and croissant I have come to three euros. I don't have change, to I hand the waiter a five. He goes in and doesn't reappear. I become anxious as the bill is already expensive and I hope he doesn't think I'm giving a two euro tip for nothing. Of course he can deny I gave five. I go in. When he sees me, a look of "Oh. I forgot" come over his face and he hands over the change.
I get on the road around half nine, undecided which way to take. Salerno is the short route south so at first I follow roundabout signs there. But it is more of the same Naples to Pompei I rode yesterday, that I remember from last March when I came that way: all urban street. So at the next roundabout I take a turning back toward the coast and soon pick up signs for Sorrento: a road which goes west pressed between the coast and near vertical mountainside, then eventually east on the other side of the peninsular. I face a day of traffic filled narrow coast road, it being the first of May holiday. I was for stopping a day in Sorrento, but when I get to the town at midday, both hostels are fully booked, something I predicted because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic into town and the amount of people in the town centre.
I lunch on a cone of chips and can of coke. Then riding on think it a good idea to stock-up on food and water before going further. There is a shop open on the piazza. I assume the only place open today. A two litre bottle of water, one and a half of ice tea and pack of biscuits come to over four euros. Only a few hundred metres further I come upon a supermarket on the left, open for business. I wished I'd known, as I could've saved two euros.
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The road is narrow, a terrace along cliff-face much of the way along the southside of the peninsular. Walkers at the many little coastal villages on the way, cyclists and motorcyclists make their way through the slow moving holiday traffic as best they can.
There is no chance of free camping anywhere here, which I would've liked after yesterday's expense of hotel, eating out and entrance to the ruins. It is all too steep and rocky; hotels are located on every available level ledge. I stop and ask at one, a classy looking place with glass panoramic view reception and breakfast area. Eighty euros for a single room. I keep riding.
In slow moving traffic I descend through a narrow two-hundred metre tunnel to Amalfi about half six: a seaside town crawing with visitors on the waterfront. There is quite a choice of accommodations, but unlikely any with available space. I decide to try anyway on the off chance. I ignore two hotels on the inside of the waterfront as looking too expensive and cycle into a courtyard behind the front street, with a number of alleys leading off; also, a residencia sign pointing up a flight of stone stairs. I lean the bike and lock it. Taking my bar-bag containing my valuables slung over my shoulder, I start toward the steps. Just before me passes a tall pretty East Asian woman. She must've known I am looking with interest at her slender body as she walks up the stairs before me, because on reaching the top step, she turn halfway, smiling back at me and says something. She waits until I join her on the top level and thinking she is a guest at the residencia, I utter "This is the way" meaning right to the residencia entrance. She cackles and smiles looking at me quizzically, then says "It okay, I just walking" nodding to the left up more stairs and continues. As expected the residencia is full.
Riding on much of it in the centre of the road in a line of scooters and motorbikes, the only way pass the snail-pace car-traffic, I reach the next seaside place at sunset. Lots of people about too, but not as crowded as the last. Pausing on the seafront, I doubt its at all possible to camp anywhere. I passed two hotels on the descent to the waterfront. If in the unlikely event they have an available room I could have a pizza and a beer at one of three restaurants here on the waterfront. I cycle back and the moment I pull up outside the nearest, an amicable silver haired man come out from reception. I ask and he replies "Si" we have a single room. How much, I ask. Forty euros.
It works out a good price. The room is immaculate. A very different establishment than the one I checked out of in the morning. And very different people running the place too. Next morning the breakfast is an all you can eat buffet.
Later when showered and changed I return for that pizza and beer. Another ten euros and another expensive day.
Saturday
Two other cyclists arrived late. I didn't see them but saw their bikes leant alongside mine in reception when I went out for pizza. This morning they are at breakfast, a sixty-something Italian couple in lycra, each duck-walking in cycling shoes from their table to the smorgasbord buffet table, not having spare shoes as they travel light and most likely are just away for the long weekend. They set off before me and I pass them as they pull over at the top of a hard ascent to admire the sea view.
It is good to descend down to the port of Salermo midmorning and stop for a coffee in town. Salermo is a landmark for this journey as I've decided no longer to continue to Sicili. Italy with all the mountains in the way is taking longer than I'd anticipated. Simple it's still quite a way down, west and south then turn round and all the way up again. Furthermore it's an island with hanging around in port-towns for ferries to consider, which often as not you arrive at the port in the morning and the once-a-day sailing is in late afternoon, arriving after nightfall the other side when you've then a dilemma finding somewhere to sleep. As another touring-cyclist said to me once, he didn't like small islands (Sicili isn't particular small) because you've to get a boat there, then you can't ride very far until you've got to get a boat back or on to another island or continental mainland. The ferry from Ireland to France, and the one I'll take from Southern Italy to Montenegro on the other hand are inevitable.
So from here I intend continuing along the coast south for a day or two, then cutting inland across to Bari. Another good reason for this decision is, it is now May, the best month of the year and time to be turning North where Spring is still in full flow.
Yet another area in which Italy fails me, is the horrendous neglect of secondary roads, which appear to have no maintenance work done to them for a generation or more. I zoom across France on what is undisputedly the best roads in the world: snooker table smooth and every direction well signposted. And everything generally well ordered and civilised. Then cross into Italy; Northern Italy which is supposedly a rich country; and suddenly, the roads are a disaster: everything is shabby and chaotic like the third world.
I continue by the waterfront out of town. On the way I stop to tension the front-derailleur cable; it was slack, but now tight, I can use the big chain-ring and pedal to suit the road which is flat and fast with a light tailwind bowling me along. Only I'm stopped much of the time checking the map, because of poor signage and no signage at all in places. An experience I've kind of grown accustomed to when trying to find my way out of Italian towns. Eventually I come to a left-turn junction with signs, though all pointing inland, none point straight on along the coastal road, which has become rough and looks like it will come to a dead end after a kilometre or so. So I turn left following the signs; then turn right, passing warehouses on an empty road, I soon realise I'm passing through an industrial estate. The empty road, which on a week day would have artic-trucks trundling along it making deliveries, swings right again, then another right, round in a loop, so I come back out on the road I started on. At this point it dons on me the road straight on is none other than the route south. Before I re-join that road, by happy co-instance I'm passing a supermarket, so I stock up with enough to drink and food to do me through Sunday.
The road remains flat, and improves to a fairly good single-carriageway highway with a bike-width shoulder. There is an agricultural plain on the left and a band of tall conifers between the road and the coast on the right with occasional tracks into the beach where I lunch around two.
Later I reach Agropoli, where I stop for a mid-afternoon ice-cream, mainly for a rest because the way on is confusing as all signs point me either back to Salermo, or to the Autostrada. And, this point marks where the plain starts dwindling and hills ahead reach the coast. The way on when I find it after much stops, looking at signs and scratching my head wondering, is winding road with high hedgerows and blind bends and no shoulder. The holiday traffic are all funnelled along this tight road; one car after the next. Such holidays bring the stupidest drivers out on the road. The hoo-haa ones that shout abusively from open car windows while passing cyclists. The ones that drive pass without slowing and missing you by inches as if you don't exist. Or, in this case, pass you too fast and close on a bend, then on the other side of the same bend are right out on the middle white line.
Then there's a fork and the sign for Sapri, the way south, points left and there follows a steep climb inland for the next few kilometres, only to descend abruptly back to the coast. Passing through a village, it is growing late and the road ahead continues climbing across a near vertical coastal headland with waves lapping upon rocks below. There's nowhere level for a tent. But then on reaching a summit where the road turns into a cove and switch-backs down to the next village, there's a rest area on the outside of the bend. It has tall round topped conifers and a few picnic tables upon a terrace step down from the road, the embankment providing perfect cover for my tent. Darkness falls but a full moon rises, as I relax sat at a picnic table steaming veg which I would then fry with bacon lardons providing flavour.
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Sunday
I am on the road at nine and passed by many Sunday morning club-cyclists. A group of which that passed are stopped in a village where I stop for coffee. One asks where I'm Going. I reply Bari. He asks to see my map and unfolding the map out which has sellotape holding it together at the folds, he point out the route I should take: "Alora. To a Sapri", he continues in broken English as he points then inland "to a Laura". Thereafter the road is near enough straight to the crescent coast of the bit of sea before the jutting heel of Italy, then inland again, north east to Bari. "Quattro giornos" he states. It looks straightforward, but then he adds "molta mountans" moving his hand up and down drawing an imaginary mountain range, and smiles in a jester of good luck.
The Sapri 96km sign I saw midday yesterday has to be wrong as since then I've covered a lot more than ninety-six and I'm still no where near Sapri. Though most likely the sign meant via autostrada, which is dead straight on viaducts strung between hills out of sight inland. Meanwhile on my road Sapri is elusive. It isn't so much a north-south road, more a collection of roads built long ago between one hilltop village to the next, usually taking the most ridiculous route as it climbs from the coast inland, then back to the coast.
The highlight of the day is when I reach a nice village around two, just as I though it difficult finding shade to stop for lunch, with locals sitting outside a café chatting. There is a bench in the shade of a tree where I lean the bike and lunch and later before I get up to leave, I play touch football with a three year-old girl. Then a nine year-old boy takes over and I rest, until his mother, a cross woman come out of a cafe and drags him away.
I eventually reach Sapri at sunset, where I turn inland and with four kilometres of gradual climbing, come to a service track off down a slope to a pylon with a grass level pause two hundred metres down and a view over the town and bay, but no house in the vicinity. I set up my tent and soon a full moon rises as I cook pasta.
Today's ride: 348 km (216 miles)
Total: 3,577 km (2,221 miles)
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