Vertigo, with a Chance of Scorching Weather

It’s Thursday afternoon, October 4th, and I’ve been here in Positano since Monday. The train from Naples to Sorrento took approximately one hour in length, stopping at every stop and, on three occasions, Italian “gypsies” boarded with accordions in hand and sometimes, small children to pass the cup. At one point, the middle-aged, black gentleman sitting next to me (who had been fingering worry beads for the entire time) beckoned to the young girl who had just stepped on the train and gave her a few cents and a bag of sandwiches. A regular…

Disembarking in Sorrento, I was able to maneuver my baggage easily for there is a “Passengers with Baggage Only” sign and an elevator. However, when I asked a station agent where the SITA bus for Positano was, he pointed across the street down a long flight of stairs! And what a bus ride!! The driver, skillfully adept at driving the roads at generous speeds, tooted his horn at every hairpin curve and swept the vehicle along, passing views of sheer, cliff-hanging drops to the Mediterranean spectacularly far below. On the way, we passed olive trees with sheets of green netting hanging a couple of feet above ground, to catch the dropping fruit. Grapes growing are covered with netted tarps and every here and there are small fires in the hills which are farmers getting rid of waste. When we arrived in the upper part of the town, after consultation with a couple of bell hops at a nearby hotel, I decided to take the Interno Bus and ask the bus driver to let me off at Casa Celeste. The city is flat roofed and Moorish in architecture and so narrow are the streets, you automatically step between the small cars or scooters parked on one side of the road to make room for oncoming traffic.

Celeste Rispoli runs this small pensione, where my cousin, Joanie, lived forty years ago while studying art at the tender age of twenty. Celeste is now 81, and lives with her husband and their last son at home. While I am here, her daughter, Laura, who lives in Belgium, is visiting for a month. Marco, her son, owns or rents da Ferdinando Bar – Bagni at the Spiaggia di Fornillo – the beach. One thing that I must attest to is that the beach access is via stone steps and to reach it up and down they number about three hundred fifty just to and from Casa Celeste!! Celeste and her husband walk them almost every day and have gone out in a boat around the bend in the ocean twice collecting what I think are “cockles.” I went down there Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday. I like swimming in the Mediterranean but this beach is very rocky and my feet feel like a baby’s bottom! Today I walked down to the main portion of town (which is restaurants and boutiques) which is something I have been doing everyday and night because it’s great exercise but I am, unfortunately, not really interested in shopping or tourist activities. One activity I noticed on a few corners is a target-practice of shooting bottles for, I guess, free drinks. Tomorrow, I’m going by ferry to the Isle of Capri, home of Tiberius in his later years…

I am frustrated at not being able to find any wireless internet access and do not feel the obtrusive act of having to run wires just to satisfy my needs is worth it. In fact, I am totally spoiled coming from the Bay Area where there is free internet access in the city of San Francisco. So, I’ll be downloading whenever possible, which should be a feat of sorts…