At the end of our recent trip to Italy, we spent three days in Ravello. It was among my three favorite days ever.
I’d never been to the Amalfi Coast, for the same reason that it took me about five years to “discover” Bob Dylan: some kind of personality defect/reverse snobbery that makes me try to avoid things that are “too” popular. Rather than accepting that many people love things for good reason and checking them out, I’d be like, “I prefer Tim Hardin,” or “I’d rather go to Tuscany.” Not that there’s anything wrong with ol’ Tim, or with Tuscany, but it’s a silly kind of go-your-own-way-ism I’m trying to outgrow.
Anyway. I’m sure there are horrible things about the Amalfi Coast, especially in high season (which this wasn’t, though there was a fancy wedding every day we were in Ravello, and I’m certain that trend will only accelerate as the weather warms), and there were parts of town where you could imagine you were in some ticketed Disney creation, with tickets sold only to English-speakers, mostly Americans. But it is an ancient hilltop town of astonishing beauty, hard to get to from almost anywhere (including the neighboring towns, and especially because a bus fell off the road a couple of weeks ago, thus forcing 90-minute detours for buses and other vehicles and scaring the daylights out of everyone), two thousand or so feet above sea level at its height, and looking down at a number of neighboring towns and up at the peaks of higher mountains.
The thing to do here is hike. You can’t run, unless you’re way tougher than I am, and the food is “special,” which is to say pretentious and not particularly on-the-level traditional (with little focus on local ingredients, either), except there is your Neapolitan pizza, which I personally think is overrated even if it IS the world’s best, but maybe that goes back to the Dylan thing. You can of course buy things, and the pottery is distinctive (you already have, or know someone who has, one of those rooster-pitchers), and you can drink (which you can do anywhere, but here you can do it in more charming places, especially in nice weather), but the thing to do is walk, because the scenery is breathtaking, and then, if you have the energy, do a real hike.
Which we did, and I’m only going to brag about it a little, which is to say we climbed up about a thousand feet to an old convent and then down two thousand feet to Minori (spying, on the way, that snail resting on a fava), a lovely seaside town where we stopped for lunch at De Riso, the new restaurant of the town’s popular Pasticceria (more on that later.) Then, slightly wobbly from hiking six or eight miles and then eating and drinking, we walked up something like 1500 stairs/2000 feet back to Ravello, and as I write this four days later my legs are just starting to feel like their muscles aren’t broken.
Lunch in the middle of the hike is usually a few pieces of cheese and bread, but at De Riso we had a full-on meal (they started us off, if you can believe it, with a steamed bao – yes, the Chinese bun – with no pork, in fact no flavor at all, not a good portent), wine, pasta (gnocchi with saffron and anchovy butter, not bad), and a lovely bit of roast chicken (rooster, actually, if the menu is to be believed), accompanied with a scene-stealing salad of shaved cedro, the thick-skinned citron, and some lettuce. (Am I going to complain that Italian restaurants don’t know how to make salad? No. But I’m going to mention it.)
It wasn’t easy to get started up those stairs, but we did it and, needless to say, went out for dinner too.
One more thing about Ravello: We stayed, on the recommendation of our friend Linda, at the Hotel Parsifal, which it turned out Emma (my daughter) and Jeff had stayed at on their honeymoon, a wild coincidence, and everyone recommended we befriend Antonio, the proprietor, and we did, and he’s a great guy (and a runner), and knows everything about the local hikes. I don’t like straight-out recommending things, because then you get emails saying (OH I WENT THERE AND IT SUCKS) but I’m going out on a limb and saying it’s so pleasant and old-fashioned and beautiful, and a way better value than the $5000/night joints down the street (and about 95% less expensive). Run, don’t walk, because the real tourist hoards arrive soon. Or maybe wait until October.
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