Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
concrete boots and the insertion of a dead fish in someone's mouth.
The head waiter dashed over and bowingly reported that they had so far assembled a table for six, and
hoped to have the other places shortly, but if in the meantime the ladies would care to be seated ... He
touched the floor with his forehead. But this was received as a further insult. Adolfo whispered again to his
henchman, who departed, presumably to get a machine gun or to drive a bulldozer through the front wall.
Just then I said, 'Scusi' (for my Italian was coming on a treat), 'you can have my table. I'm just going.' I
drained my coffee, gathered my change and stood up. The manager looked as if I had saved his life, which I
would like to think I may have, and the head waiter clearly thought about kissing me full on the lips but
instead covered me with obsequious 'Grazie's'. I've never felt so popular. The waiters beamed and many of
the other diners regarded me with, if I say it myself, a certain lasting admiration. Even Adolfo inclined his
head in a tiny display of gratitude and respect. As my table was whipped away, I was escorted to the door
by the manager and head waiter who bowed and thanked me and brushed my shoulders with a whisk
broom and offered me their daughters' hand in marriage or just for some hot sex. I turned at the door,
hesitated for a moment, suddenly boyish and good-looking, a Hollywood smile on my face, tossed a casual
wave to the room and disappeared into the evening.
Weighted down with good pasta and a sense of having brought peace to a troubled corner of Sorrento,
I strolled through the warm twilight along the Corso Italia and up to the coast road to Positano, the high and
twisting Via del Capo, where hotels had been hacked into the rock-face to take advantage of the
commending view across the Bay of Naples. All the hotels had names that were redolent of another age -
the Bel Air, the Bellevue Syrene, the Admiral, the Caravel - and looked as if they hadn't changed a whit in
forty years. I spent an hour draped over the railings at the roadside, staring transfixed across the magical
sweep of bay to Vesuvius and distant Naples and, a little to the left, floating in the still sea, the islands of
Procida and Ischia. Lights began to twinkle on around the bay and were matched by early-evening stars in
the grainy blue sky. The air was warm and kind and had a smell of fresh-baked bread. This was as close to
perfection as anything I had ever encountered.
On the distant headland overlooking the bay was the small city of Pozzuoli, a suburb of Naples and
home town of Sophia Loren. The citizens of Pozzuoli enjoy the dubious distinction of living on the most
geologically unstable piece of land on the planet, the terrestrial equivalent of a Vibro-Bed. They experience
up to 4,000 earth tremors a year, sometimes as many as a hundred in a day. People in Pozzuoli are so
used to having pieces of plaster fall into their rag and tumbling chimney stacks knock off their grannies that
they hardly notice it any more.
This whole area is like an insurance man's worst nightmare. Earthquakes are a way of life in Calabria -
Naples had one in 1980 that left 120,000 people homeless, and another even fiercer one could come at any
time. It's no wonder they worry about earthquakes. The towns are built on hills so steep that they look as if
the tiniest rumble would send them sliding into the sea. And on top of that, quite literally, there's always
Vesuvius grumbling away in the background, still dangerously alive. It last erupted in 1944, which makes this
its longest period of quiescence since the Middle Ages. Doesn't sound too promising, does it?
I stared for a long time out across the water at Pozzuoli's lights and listened intently for a low boom, like
scaffolding collapsing, or the sound of the earth tearing itself apart, but there was nothing, only the mosquito
buzz of an aeroplane high above, a blinking red dot moving steadily across the sky, and the soothing
background hum of traffic.
* * *
In the morning I walked through bright sunshine down to the Sorrento marina along a perilously steep
and gorgeous road called the Via da Maio, in the shadow of the grand Excelsior Vittoria Hotel, and took a
nearly empty hover-ferry to Capri, a mountainous outcrop of green ten miles away off the western tip of the
Sorrentine peninsula.
Up close, Capri didn't look much. Around the harbour stood a dozing, unsightly collection of shops,
caf￩s and ferry booking offices. All of them appeared to be shut, and there was not a soul about, except for
a sailor with Popeye arms lazily coiling rope at the quayside. A road led steeply off up the mountain. Beside
it stood a sign saying
CAPRI
6
KM
.
'Six kilometres!' I squeaked.
