Sun 19.Jun.2022
Ravello, Italy
City of Music
(But No Horns!)
Some hotel pool, close to The Edge.
The Wedding Factory
You cannot blame romantic couples for wanting to tie the knot at the classic
duomo and its surreally picturesque piazza. On several days, I saw mutiple
weddings in the course of just the part of the afternoon I was down there. Multiple
sequentially - not in parallel. Some of the wedding parties reserved space in one
of the piazza's serveral open-air restaurants, for festivities before and/or after.
The Getaway Car!
The Endless Stair
It looks irresistable - an afternoon's walk down to Minori.
Walking back up would be absurd, of course. That is what the boat to Amalfi, and
the bus up to Ravello are for.
The fatal first steps!
Via Crocelle is the name of the "street"; there is no intermediate
place called "Crocelle".
Sometimes the stairs switchback along the terraces.
These gentle switchback sections come mainly in the middle parts of the
descent.
It is already too late to turn round, and still a long way from the finish.
The upper and lower parts were mostly straight-down stairs. Lot of them.
They could have given Tolkien's Endless Stair of Khazad Dum a run for
it's money. All that was missing was orcs.
At a point that I hoped was more than half-way down, I realized my legs were
not really handling this. Time to bail, and take some nice smooth path out.
Only problem is, there is no such thing. The only way out is through, and through
was becoming more painful with each step.
How much more through is there? No way to know. It does end somewhere,
though.
I lost the heart for pictures at about this stage.
Just numb yr way through, in what
backpackers used to call "the last mile".
I do recall, finally at the Minori waterfront, feeling my body shape itself
to a cafe chair like soft plastic on a hot day. The boat got me back to Amalfi,
and the hair-raising bus back up to Ravello.
The fourth morning after, it felt ecstatic to get out of bed without actual
pain! Count your blessings, as they say!
No more big adventures. I hung stiffly around central Ravello for
the remainder of the week. There's worse!
Invisibility!