Amalfi, Alberobello & Apoplexy

We set off along the (apparently) scenic route of the Amalfi Coast despite having a long drive to Alberobello, our home for the next three nights.

I did suspect that it was going to be crowded given what we had experienced on Capri and we decided we’d see how bad it was, but hopefully we would be able to stop in at least one place and have lunch but once we had enough – would head for the motorway.

Well … scenic it was but what was unexpected was people parking on both sides of the road (illegally) for 2kms before Portofino and 2kms after, meaning we now had the equivalent of a single lane for cars, trucks and buses driving in both directions. And there were plenty of them all. Then in the town itself, cars double parked pretty much everywhere, people walking in the road, cyclists, and motorbikes, not only driving on my f*cking side of the road (coming from the opposite direction) but expecting me to move out of their way!

Prior to losing my will to live I decided to bamboozle and confuse them with keeping to the speed limit, using my indicators and turning it into a game of chicken with said motorbikes … guess who won? 🙂 One particular guy got stuck right next to my window (because I’d positioned myself in the stopped traffic so he couldn’t get past … I’m nasty like that) and he was mumbling something at me – showed him the finger at close range which had the desired effect 🙂

What is absolutely infuriating and leaves me (almost) speechless, is the sense of entitlement – even if a car is parked on their side of the road, they expect you to stop so that they don’t have to stop/slow down; if the traffic is stopped, bikes weaving in and out on the opposite side of the road, even had a car driving towards us at one point. You have right of way? – forget it, they come straight through intersections, turn in front of you when you’re going straight – I think what was the final straw was being cut off by a man walking with two horses and being forced to drive behind them at 2mm/hour. As I read somewhere, Italians consider road signs/rules a mere suggestion.

Unfortunately, by the time we decided to throw in the towel, we were past the point of escape and were forced to continue on the now not so scenic route, getting caught up in a massive traffic snarl with trucks from the port at Salerno. So all in all, a great 7 hours on the road.

Anyway, onto Alberobello in Puglia. What a delightful, charming, little place famous for its unique houses, called trulli (pronounced “truly”). Houses are made with limestone and whitewashed with conical roofs made of stone. The trulli were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996. Initially they were built without any mortar in order to avoid paying a tax imposed on permanent homes.

The narrow little streets are lined mainly with shops and they hang all sorts of items across the street at roof height; wooden spoons, hats, tea towels, flowers etc. Some of the roofs have symbols which have religious and spiritual importance painted on them.

Unfortunately it is plagued by an infestation of narcissists, the likes of which we have witnessed in every country on our travels so far, but seems particularly prevalent in Italy. They are of all ages, but mainly in their 30s not only taking selfies, but coming armed with tripod, camera with timer and their fakest smiles (stopping just short of a lugging wind machine and lighting with them), creating supposedly “spontaneous”, “candid” action shots in front of every iconic building, statue, view etc. The problem is, not only do they take about 10 minutes to take a pic of themselves reclining on a rock, staring off into the distance, with the ocean behind them (Capri), but they then take half an hour to analyse whether the 300 pics are of a satisfactory standard – whilst 3 dozen more people are lining up waiting to do the same thing. THEN one idiot had the audacity (and misfortune) of asking me to move out of the way because she hadn’t finished her 3 hour photo shoot and for some unknown reason didn’t want my gorgeousness in her pic!!! You can imagine how well that went down. Oh … and please don’t picture just females … there are an equal amount of men staring off into the distance, hat in one hand, other hand on hip, chin lifted just so ….

But I digress, back to lovely Alberobello (try saying that after a few wines) – we thought it was a bit off the beaten track and probably wouldn’t have many people around. How wrong we were … it was packed by 10.30 am and when we returned at night for both dinner and to take pics of the streets with all the party lights – it was even busier. Fortunately, we were staying at a hotel within walking distance and where we could lounge by and in the pool in the heat of the afternoon.

Alberobello by night is even more lovely, if that is possible. Like a fairy wonderland.

Unfortunately, we had some pretty ordinary meals in Alberobello but the one that takes the cake as the most tasteless and biggest ordering mistake was on our last night. I thought I was ordering fried calamari – turned out to be that large platter of sundry fried things (potato, chicken-like stuff, olives, onion rings and what even resembled a deep-fried sandwich) ?!? Appeared to be everyone else’s left-overs 🙂 Jarrah ordered smoked salmon bruschetta and as it was a starter, thought she’d better order some other starters – as you can see, portion was huge. We nearly died when we saw the quantity of food!

Daily Giggle:

Jarrah has been trying to learn some Italian and we keep hearing “allora” thrown into conversations as well as just being used on it’s own. When we’ve looked it up, said it can be a variety of things like, “so”, “then” or just a filler-in like “uhm”.

I decided to try it out on our waitress (who only spoke Italian), saying “allora” as she finished taking our order. After seeing the somewhat nervous/bewildered look on her face, we decided to do some more research … apparently used on its own, it also means “NOW!” 🙂

LOST IN TRANSLATION