Friday,
August 03, 2007
Praiano:
The New Steinbeck Italian
The
ANNOTICO Report
John
Steinbeck, penned an essay about
''You think, if I
tell, it will be crowded with tourists and they will ruin it, turn it into a
honky-tonk and then the local people will get touristy and there's your lovely
place gone to hell,''
53 years later, Positano hasn't gone to hell, and is still beautiful, but
it is far more crowded with honky-tonks, and the town is very touristy.
But just six
miles east he would find Praiano, very much
like the beautiful, peaceful Positano that he loved.
While visiting
these villages perched what appears to be so inconveniently on a cliff edge,
keep in mind that, until about 500 A.D., the Pax
Romana made the Mediterranean safe for the
But the dark ages
that followed the fall of
From
the
By
Eric Sharp
Friday , August 3, 2007
PRAIANO,
Italy -- Proving that even very smart people can get things wrong, John
Steinbeck, one of my favorite writers, penned an essay about Positano, Italy, in 1953 in which he said ``always when you
find a place as beautiful as Positano, your impulse
is to conceal it.
''You think, if I
tell, it will be crowded with tourists and they will ruin it, turn it into a honky-tonk
and then the local people will get touristy and there's your lovely place gone
to hell,'' he said. ``There isn't the slightest chance of this in Positano. In the first place there is no room. There are
about two thousand inhabitants in Positano and there
is room for about five hundred visitors, no more.''
Steinbeck
probably would be saddened if he could see the changes that 53 years have
wrought on the
But if Steinbeck
traveled six miles east along the spectacular cliff road to Praiano,
he'd find it much like the beautiful, peaceful Positano
that he loved.
During an October
visit, we stayed in Praiano at Laconda
Costa Diva, a 14-room hotel created from an ancient coastal home nestled in a
lemon grove on a cliff above the
The
One day we
visited
As we cruised
along close to the cliffs of the mainland, we were always in sight of ancient,
fortified towers that dot the coast. It became obvious that the medieval
inhabitants of the peninsula had built a tower at every cove and inlet where
raiders could land; the towers were close enough to each other that signal
fires would quickly relay a warning to villages many miles away.
Until about 500
A.D., the Pax Romana made the Mediterranean safe for
the
But the dark ages
that followed the fall of
It also can mean
that many places, including restaurants and hotels, are located at the top or
bottom of several flights of very steep steps and hills. So people who have
problems walking must keep that in mind when making reservations.
The peninsula
also is laced with excellent hiking trails, mostly in the hills that rise more
than 4,000 feet behind the towns. My wife, Susan, and I did a six-mile hike on
a trail around Praia Gorge where the backcountry scenery was wonderful,
offering views of impossibly terraced hillsides, isolated farmsteads, tiny
mountain villages and Homer's ''wine dark sea'' gleaming far below.
The
The southern side
of the Peninsula is the
We traveled in a
rental car, but if you've been put off by stories about ''those crazy Italian
drivers,'' most of which are probably true, there is an excellent and
inexpensive bus system that will take you anywhere in the area.
Amalfi gained fame as a
playground for the wealthy, and there are still plenty of five-star resorts to
pamper the rich. But with its streets lined with shops selling the same
T-shirts, leather goods, ceramics, limoncello liqueur
and women's clothing, today's Amalfi reminded me of
an up-market
We did celebrate
Susan's 60th birthday at a delightful, elegant restaurant in Amalfi, da Gemma,
where diners sat at tables on a second-story terrace that seemed to float like
an island of serenity above the bustle and noise of the street below.
Another great day
trip from Praiano was to the excavated ruins of
Walking its
streets gave a sense of what life must have been like before that Aug. 24 in 79
A.D. when Mt. Vesuvius, hulking ominously on the horizon, erupted and buried
Pompeii and most of its inhabitants under 30 feet of super-hot ash.
Most surprising
was
Some of the
standing villas still have colorful paintings on their walls, reflecting owners
whose taste ranged from excellent to abominable. Interestingly, the only
building where people were lined up to get in was the ancient brothel, whose
pornographic wall paintings are favorites with modern photographers.
Leaning on a
2,000-year-old storefront snack bar, where pots of hot food fitted into holes
in the counters and served Pompeiians too busy to go
home for lunch, it was evident that despite our technological advances, we're
not much different than the people who walked these streets in the time of the
Caesars.
Pizza is a staple
everywhere in
Restaurant meals
throughout Europe are expensive compared to the
When we visited
the
Susan and I
stopped at a grocery and, for less than $10, bought the makings of two picnic
lunches, including ham, a great local cheese, bread (always good here),
wonderful tasty tomatoes and local red wine.
And, by the way,
while many great Italian wines are available in the restaurants for $10 or so,
the grocery store wine at $2.50 was very drinkable.
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