Ravello and Amalfi

Friday 5th February
Ravello/Amalfi
Yet more wonderful food appeared for breakfast, including a selection of marmalades. We had to guess the ingredients (tricky and only just worked out the yellow Courgette marmalade) which was delicious. It was good to set off for a long day’s outing to work some of it off. We had a quick look around the Duomo and the paper mills up the Amalfi valley, which had been going since 1300. At this time of year the town has few tourists. Whilst waiting for the bus to Ravello we met another couple from the UK, got chatting and had a very happy day talking non-stop discovering we had much in common. The bus trip is a white knuckle ride zigzagging up the mountain over spectacular scenery and sheer drops down to the sea. This area is completely covered in lemon trees harvested for the Limoncello, there are several different types of lemons and some are twice the size of grapefruits, some sweet some bitter. The lemon farms do nothing to enhance the view which should look really pretty but the farmers cover their trees in black netting from November to April as a precaution against frost or heavy rain, which is very rare- but either can write the crop off completely.



Our charming hostess' lemons!





We were deposited at the top of the mountain in Ravello which has quite a history. It became a playground for the rich and famous including Greta Garbo, Richard Wagner, and the Bloomsbury set, amongst others. We walked around the gardens of Villa Cimbrone which was bought and rescued from dereliction by Lord Grimthorpe (presumably coal mining money) in the late 1800’s and is reputed to be one of the most beautiful gardens in Italy. It was difficult to tell in February what it would look like in full bloom, but there were some lovely statues, one in particular of David with Goliath’s decapitated head, and views. (We have since heard that my father also spent some time in Ravello drinking with the locals and admiring the same views we had taken just taken in)





View from Ravello and the route we came up in the bus.





Ancient Roman steps - 2,000 of them!








Something for everyone - 'cept rock and roll.









Statue of a rather effeminate David with Goliath's head.















Door to Amalfi Duomo made in Constantinople in 1066!





Tonight after yet another 4 courses we had to try the Myrta liquor which was as good as the limoncello. We really need to get back on the bikes tomorrow.