Beside the Seaside

« In Which I Throw A Strop (Or Two) | Home | In Which I Go Drinking With Johnny Depp.. Sort Of »

In Which Things Get Better And Better

June 20, 2008 by Mike

Marina de Camerota

Route: Paestum - Agropoli - Castellabate - Palinuro - Marina de Camerota

Two nights in a campsite near Paestum.

Yesterday, I just hung out in the campsite and the nearby beach. Actually, that's a lie. The beach is five minutes' walk away so I just stayed around the pool instead. Read Border Roads by Richard Grant (brilliant: highly recommended, as is his first book Ghost Roads. In case you were wondering)

This morning, I managed to unfold myself early enough to break camp and head into the hot, hot summer sunshine.

My first destination was Paestum itself - after Herculaneum and Pompeii, the ruins of a third great city on this stretch of coast. Paestum wasn't lost under the eruption of Vesuvius; rather, it's star just faded, but somehow extensive remains survived the centuries. 18th century engravings show local peasants getting drunk and sleeping amid the overgrown ruins -- and who am I to say that wouldn't be typical behaviour by the people of Campania even today, if they could get away with it?

Let's just be grateful they were too curly, or too lazy, to dismantle or demolish these ruins to build places of their own. The upshot is that the modern-day visitor to a spruced-up Paestum can marvel at three significant temple buildings, Doric columns still intact. It seems miraculous that they have lasted so long. The rest of the ancient town (and the small museum) are no great shakes, to be honest, though I can recommend the mozzarella & ham panini at the first bar on the left past the ticket office.

Here's a temple -- and my new best friends Wayne and Margit. Good people. Really interesting to get their perspective (from Newcastle and Innsbruck by way of South Africa -- yes, he's a Geordie and he *isn't* wearing a Newcastle United shirt) on Italy, and I was able to recommend the San Crispino ice-cream shop in Rome. (I feel it's my duty to tell the world about this place, and their cinnamon-and-ginger ice cream in particular.)

A good word, too, for the Paestum Tourist Information office, which is the first one I have seen open *anywhere in Italy*. (Remember, this includes central Rome, the Vatican City and any number of touristy spots.)

But it. Wouldn't be me if I did. N't complain abou. T something, would. It? So step for. Ward the audioguide for the Paestum ruins, and. The women who staff the audioguide. Office. It's not. Exactly an audioguide for. A start. Some bright spark had the idea of producing a small film a. Bout the site and making it avail. Able for 5€ on a little PDA. All well and good, but in the bright sun. Shine it was quite impossible to see the screen, while the size. Of the film. Was too big for the little. PDA which stopped. And. Started in a most annoy. Ing manner.. as I have tried to demonstrate in these few short, annoying lines.

Oh-a, and-a the-a commentary-a ees-a by-a a woman-a with-a such-a a strong-a accent-a that-a eet's-a genuinely-a hard-a to-a unnerstand-a.

Then it packed in altoget----toget----togeee---pfft!.

Then the woman at the audioguide office shouted at me (LOUDLY) when I brought it back, informing people within 300 metres THAT IT WASN'T HER FAULT.

I didn't doubt it, but suggested it wasn't my fault either.

She agreed in as much as I got a refund but never have I met anyone less likely to say (or even shout) SORRY. Sorry, but I think she should have.

The second half of my day, riding away from that bl**dy audioguide woman, just got better and better. And better.

I rounded a knuckle of coast called Cilento: and I was in heaven. The road from Agopoli has been, simply, One Of The Great Roads Of Europe. Sweeping curves, up and down and left and right. What I always think of, in the words of Clive from Benidorm, as 50mph curves. i.e. he'd take them at 50 on his Goldwing, scraping the pegs as he leans into each turn.

What I call a 50mph curve is something that I take at about 50 *kilometres* an hour. I'm not sure Clive would be too impressed.

Inland to round a hilly crag, I rode along a verdant valley, a jagged set of switch-backs bring me up to the saddle of a long promontory and a fresh view of turquoise sea and the red-tiled rooves of Santa Maria de Castellabate.. there ahead is Castellabate itself, the town melts over the rocky top of a marvellous hill, all creams, and reds and shades of ochre.. and yes, even the names of the towns are cute.. Perdifumo in the hills.. past Ogliastro to the little beach at Licosa.. everything nestling amidst a cornucopia of greens.. trees and bushes and grasses.. so it rains here, clearly, but not today.. clear blue sky above.. fresh tarmac (for a change).. and again, the curves.. 50mph.. 60mph.. up and down and round the houses.

In the sunshine, both bike and rider feel liberated; the lack of traffic is such a bonus -- my secret being to keep going when everyone else stops for lunch and a snooze.

But suddenly - a reason to stop.

Parked up by the side of a little country lane joining the beach at San Marco to the main(ish) road is a sight for sore eyes. A Moto-Guzzi Falcone.

Now I'm no bike expert, but an article about the Falcone that I happened upon several years ago was one of the spurs that got me to where I am today. The incongruity of it struck me first - examples of this classic Italian bike had been unearthed by an importer in.. Leicester. Fast for its day, beautifully styled, the Falcone is Italy's Bonneville. And here's one standing right in front of me. Or rather, I am now standing right in front of it. Drooling. Which causes much amusement in the house which the bike is standing in front of.. if you see what I mean.

The owner of the bike leans out of an upstairs window. He's wrapped in a sheet, clearly still half asleep. It's 1.30 in the afternoon. But he recognised the sound of the Bonneville engine; recognises the kinship.

His brother bounds out of the house when he hears there's a Bonnie parked outside. And then their mother is at the gate, offering fresh coffee and ohhs and ahhhs of her own at the sight of the two bikes together. Turns out this is a '71 Falcone (a good year?) owned first by the grandfather, then the father and now the be-sheeted son. It's a working bike: three generations have gone to work and back on it. But it's in pristine condition, pipes gleaming, seat snug, all the paintwork freshly scrubbed. I'm tempted to offer a swap.

OK, I offered a swap, but (luckily) my Italian remains unrecognisable.. to any Italians. They replied by agreeing that, yes, it was very hot and sunny.

The Falcone family were lovely people -- a real boost at a time when, much as I'm loving Itay, I find it hard to love the Italians. Not these ones: they gloried with me in the beauty of the roads of Cilento, tipped me off about the road to come, congratulated me on the trip so far and wished me all the best for the trip still to come, considered coming along themselves on the Falcone, and in parting made me promise that i'd come back to live in Cilento with a beautiful woman. Oh OK then, if you insist. ("But not an Italian woman," said the older son when his mum wasn't listening. "They're crazy.")

And then, a couple of miles down the road, below another hilltop town, Montecorice, I am witness to a magnificent sight. Snaking up the side of another hill, with the whole green valley stretched away to my left, as I switched back on myself, there was an eagle, riding the currents of hot air, just a stone's throw away and slightly below me. A stately, elegant creature, totally in control, in its element, wise to everything but completely without regard for me and the human world.

I like to think that, in the film of the book of the website of the trip, that eagle will actually be played by a falcon -- artistic licence by Mr Scorsese in an effort to make the Falcone family even more central to My Experience.

The road continues to hug the turquoise sea. Only a belt of olive groves between me and the water. Houses and homes are few and far between; there's precious little traffic outside the small towns -- Pioppi and Ascea and Marina de Pisciotta. Palinuro relies too much on a nearby grotto to attract the crowds -- and the bar on the waterfront has the chutzpah to charge 2€ for a Coke. A *glass* of Coke!

It's not far to the more realistic, and just as pretty, little town of Marina de Camerota and a campsite on the cusp of a hill overlooking the sea.

Beside the Seaside

In Which Things Get Better And Better

Comments

Leave your comment

Latest comments