Mafia Pizzas and Million Dollar Boats

Well with Rome in the bag and most the famous sights checked off the list we find ourselves moving south down Italy’s coast line for Naples, the home of the Mafia.  With a brief uninteresting stop over at a little beachside campsite for the night we headed for the little seaside town of Sieano on the southern side of Naples (near the Almaffi Coast).  One thing was clearly evident as we headed south from Rome; this part of Italy is definitely poorer than the north.  With the aid of our brilliant Garmin GPS we found ourselves taking little backstreets through villages and all other manner of cattle tracks which allowed us to get a good feel for this fact.   I am sufficiently up to date with all the dead end streets of Naples right now.  There were a fair number of areas you would consider to be bordering on slums, most with the odd whiff of a third world country.  It is a shame to see so much garbage around the place as the natural surrounds of this part of Italy are still quite stunning.

 Sorrento harbour

 Sieano beach at sunrise

 Typical Italian house along the road into the campsite

 Sunbathing locals - Dids wanted me to take this photo

The next major observation is that the people here are absolutely nuts!   Their driving is far more third world than European and they seem to take extraordinary risks without the slightest care or moment of consideration.  Maybe a distinct catholic belief in the afterlife is some contributing factor?  I have had to adjust my driving massively to fit in with what is happening around me because if you don’t fit in, well then you’re the one who is in the most danger.  I have made the following observations that may help others who wish to experience this idiocy:

  

Don’t slow down if you want to fit in.  Concentrate on your driving and not those pesky road speed signs.  Your speed is set here by the crowd.

1. Know your car well, especially how wide it is and if your mirrors deflect when hit.  And know how to hit a narrow as hell gap at 40km/h.
2. Don’t take offense to anything that happens around you, no one else does (unless someone runs into you, then you can lose it Italian style).
3. Use your horn for everything and make sure you have a good one.
4. No one wants to crash, so use this philosophy and get a little lose.
5. You can and must overtake at every chance, no matter what the necessity ie. Road width, shear cliff proximity, potential for gross pedestrian harm etc.
6. Parked cars and people chatting can be found anywhere, including in the middle of a highway, busy intersections etc.  Don’t ask them to move either, it is not appreciated…
7. Finally, if you are worried about the police (all 3 kinds!?), well don’t.  They are simply so flat chat handing out parking tickets that if what you are just doing is just what everyone else is doing, well they don’t care.

Now that is just the road etiquette as I have observed it, there are other things I must warn of:

1. All Italians here fight for the center line of the road so expect to round a corner and have a car or vespa heading for you, this is normal.  They always seem to get out your way JUST in time.
2. Impatience is the rage, so get into it.
3. Pedestrians are nuts.  To cross the road here you just need to jump out and walk.  If you make the mistake of looking at the cars hurtling towards you with nothing but full commitment in your eyes and the stare of a demon, they WILL call your bluff and you WILL not be happy.
4. Italians are excellent at multitasking.  They can ride a vespa, dangle  a cigarette and chat with their mate on the back (or on the odd occasion in the car adjacent) while on their daily commute to work (or I assume they head to work, but considering I haven’t really seen anyone working this may be a mistake on my behalf.  I’m dedicating this comment to every Italian road worker and tradesman I have seen).
5. Finally, nothing can be taken for granted.  Just because you haven’t seen it or would never have thought it doesn’t mean it isn’t around the corner.  I saw a guy the other day jogging down the ACTUAL middle of the mountain highway here in his sweats pumping out the calories with his hand weights while a full time stream of cars, buses and trucks dodged him (barely) at a million miles an hour.  I had my money on this guy becoming the most glorious of hood ornaments, but alas, and did he seem to care at all about his predicament….Nope.  Cause he was an IDIOT!

Could it be the olive oil and a ridiculous amount of coffee consumption that is causing this craziness?  Dunno, but I did have the best croissant I have ever had in my life here so eh, who cares.

Well with our desire to keep driving here to a bare minimum, we found better ways of commuting.  We managed to see Pompeii which was big and old, enough said.  We went for a swim in the Med, it was rocky and fresh.  Then…..we did a COOKING CLASS wooohoooo and it was awesome!  We learnt how to make Napoli style pizza, fresh ravioli, baked fish in crazy water and tiramisu!  Best of all, following the cooking, we got to have a sit down lunch and eat what we had made.  The chef Mina who taught us was really nice and the whole experience was quite enjoyable as was the company.  I have a fair few videos of it all to allow Dids and I to reproduce the recipes again and again, which we will. 

 Our cooking instructor Mina

 Dids and I getting out cooking on

Pompeii street living

Well the next day brought around a good old long forgotten friend of mine called torrential rain.  Being a cliff side town, there was a massive amount of run-off that accumulated around the place which turned roads into streams and turned me and Dids from happy dry campers to drenched hysterical chappies (note: Dids is not a chappy, this is a figure of speech) This wrecked our plans to travel to the Island of Capri and basically forced us to up end our stay and head to the other side of the country for sunshine and a ferry across to Croatia. 

We didn’t quite make the port town of Bari for the ferry so we had to pull up short in one of the nearby seaside towns for the night.  The decision was to stay at an Agritourismo (farm stay) where Dids told me we’d be helping out on a ranch, sleeping in a barn etc, living it Italian peasant style.  Well, not so much.  The only one we could find was huge and grandiose.  It had 2 pools, a massive courtyard, grassy manicured lawns, marble statues etc.  I was thinking oh man, this is going to cost me a mint!  But after a long while of trying to find someone who spoke English to help us we found out that the place wasn’t open yet and was undergoing some renovations.  With a little negotiating  through an interpreter ( a young lad of about 15) we managed to stay the night, get free internet, free breakfasts, a free laundry service, a cheap 3 course dinner, all at hock and all for a ridiculously low price.  It was one hell of a score and simply worth it just to sleep in a proper bed.  I cannot stress how big and crazy this place was and we had it to ourselves!  It did feel like a bit of a hotel California though which had me a little concerned.  I don’t want to meet all those pretty, pretty boys she calls friends…..

The next day we headed for Bari and the ferry with just the briefest of stops in a big sports store called Decathlon where we bought up big.  Lads, the spear fishing gear in Italy is one quarter the price when compared to Adrenaline in Australia!  And all for exactly the same stuff, no exceptions, it is all cheaper!  I just wanted to punch someone in the face when I saw my latest diving mask here for 29 euro (about $35) when I had just paid $100 for it on super special in Australia!  And to top it all off it is all those rubbish brands like OMER and Beauchat that are the most common…..  So with more essentials for the car (new masks and snorkels, a dive watch and more) we headed to Bari and onto a ferry for Croatia.  Coooool, cheap beer, gangstas and crystal waters.