Positano

Excursions to the principal towns along the Amalfi Coast were on offer, but Cath and I figured we could save a heap of money and make our own way there. So we found out the bus routes and timetable and hitched a stand up ride to Positano.

From on high the place looked good. Deep down, within its bowels, it was rammed. Rammed with pedestrians and scooters and every kind of 4-wheeler from beat up Fiat to blacked out, chauffeur driven Mercs, from muck truck to delivery lorry.

We thought it wise to get out by mid-afternoon, since otherwise we'd be stuffed for a bus. Plus hunting for a cool drink which came with a seat got tiresome. So around 3:30 we hoofed it up the hill to where the bus stopped, at a Y junction, with pathless sides, a plunging cliff to the sea and vertical rock to the tiered road above. All rock laden with parked up scooters.

There doesn't seem to be any correlation between the arrival of a bus and the timetable. Worse, without a timetable match it is impossible to pre-determine whether a particular bus will call at your destination. Busses herald their ultimate destination, but that's all. So guess what - here comes a bus to Sorrento. But some call at all villages on the way through to Sorrento and others go direct without stopping. So with no shows for the bus at 3:45 nor 4:05, when eventually a bus arrived at 4:20, was that bus the 3:45 direct, the 4:20 direct, or the 4:05 calling at all villages? There's only one way to find out, and that's to join the tornado of inward and outward passengers swirling in the yard or so that separates the bus door from the vertical rock. And throughout this jostle all other traffic is stationary for there is no way around.

We must have seen 4 or 5 busses come and go. Some we got on to be told it would not be calling at Sant'Agata. On other occasions we'd find the person who arrived three minutes before the bus jumped on easy. And we'd be stranded.

Later, by when it was around 6:00, I was literally the first person in what I imagined was the queue. Bus comes round the corner, I raise the hand and stand in the road supposing the driver would sooner halt where I wanted him too rather than roll over my foot. Ha! Did he care? My foot! He stopped about 10 yards behind me where some lucky chap had rolled up perhaps 10 minutes earlier. There was no room to rescue my position. There was the tall sided bus, the vertical rock, a clutter of scooters and 100 or so people wanting to get on a 50 seater bus. I gave the bus a good kick.

We eventually got a bus around 7:00.