by Glyn Matthews
Longlisted: PureTravel Writing Competition 2024
Sometimes it’s the journey rather than the destination that lingers in your mind long after other memories have faded. And so it was with our autumn trip to Sorrento.
Vesuvius seemed to tilt in the heat haze and rise above us as we came in to land. I double-checked my seatbelt as the easyJet flight breathed in and squeezed itself between the famous volcano and the less famous multi-story flats that lined the runway of Naples Airport. Fumes and dust billowed to refresh the bedding that hung from jutting balconies, so close they seemed in danger of being snatched by the port wingtip.
October for the British is normally reserved for bonfires and tidying the garden, not thirty degree heat as we plunged back into summer. I am, at heart, a home-bird, but when my wife complained that life is short, so pack a suitcase, I felt inspired to use the trip to feed my creative soul (I am an artist/poet) and the Bay of Naples tempted me with Pompeii, Vesuvius, Amalfi and so much more.
Our taxi was waiting as we stepped into the wall of heat outside the airport. The driver was obviously determined to break the back of the seats as he threw our cases into the boot and he pulled out into the maelstrom of traffic before we’d even closed the doors. We were thrown back into our seats to a trumpet voluntary of car horns. He was gesticulating and shouting, maybe to himself, maybe at other drivers or perhaps appealing to St. Fiacre, the patron saint of taxi drivers and haemorrhoid sufferers. I observed his dark eyes in the rear-view mirror, set below brows that looked like crows landing on road-kill. I glanced briefly at my wife. Our matching expressions screamed, ‘Help!’ as we gripped the edge of our seats and looked ahead over the driver’s shoulder. I tried to close my eyes but my face had assumed a kind of palsy as I was transfixed by objects, vehicles and bodies intent on smashing through the windscreen in a re-enactment of an Indiana Jones movie.
I think the driver desperately needed to be somewhere else. Perhaps he had seen Vesuvius erupting in the rear-view mirror, or perhaps his daughter was being held hostage by the Mafia and they’d already sent him her severed finger in an envelope. Whatever the reason, clearly he resented our presence in his mobile pressure cooker.
Why me? Why us? We deserved better. The brochure never mentioned this. It emphasised the wonderful climate, the food, the olive oil, extended families gathered around tables, al fresco, laughing beneath a bower of vines and drinking valpolicella in dapple shade. I expected Italians to be different from us Celts. Vive la differenza, I say. But this was a degree of culture shock to rival ECT.
When the traffic snarled to gridlock on the SS145, or Strada Statale della Penisola Sorrentina, to give it its full and unabridged title, the temperature in the car climbed towards the melting point of lead and the driver became increasingly agitated. Perhaps his haemorrhoids were particularly inflamed that day and, being the helpful type, I wondered if I should suggest one of those seat covers made out of beads. But I decided trivial conversation was inappropriate, even dangerous, considering the language barrier. So I contented myself with looking out of the window trying to decide if the cars by the curb were parked or crashed. This Italian phenomenon stimulated a game my wife and I played all week – spot the undamaged car. We did eventually find one but then ruled it out on the grounds that it was parked on a showroom forecourt, probably brand new.
Our driver began to mutter more loudly under his breath as the queue inched forward, only to stop again after a few metres. He may have been praying but, somehow, I didn’t think so.
Approaching the centre of Sorrento, the traffic had to squeeze along a road choked with parked scooters. Thousands of them, virtually identical. Where the owners were and how they ever retrieved them was a mystery, perhaps they employed the same technique penguins use to find their chicks. I mean, Italians are clever people, look at Leonardo da Vinci.
Such thoughts were truncated as the driver swerved across oncoming traffic, aiming for a narrow cobbled alleyway. Presumably, he knew a shortcut.
Local knowledge is a valuable thing. If you ever want to know anything when in a strange city, like where to buy corn plasters, adopt a rhino, get a decent meal, anything really, always ask a taxi driver or a barber. I find it works. Barbers are my preference, though, as they have a tendency to stand still for longer.
Anyway, we were forced to trust our chauffeur as he confidently aimed at a gap more or less the same width as his car. Credit where credit’s due, he certainly knew the width of his vehicle and I began to see him in a new light, with only a couple of centimetres to spare on either side.
Unfortunately, he had not taken into account the wing mirrors, a forgivable mistake. They shattered as he accelerated through the gap, shrapnel spraying through the driver’s open window. Strangely, he didn’t seem bothered, never even touching the brakes. Once that guy had made up his mind, he went for it, like Mussolini with Ethiopia in 1935. The Latin temperament is mercurial and perhaps beyond the understanding of us foreigners.
The alley was a steep, sun-kissed, pastel-shaded idyll enhanced by window boxes burdened by geraniums beneath terracotta eaves. On any other day I would have been able to admire its picture postcard quality.
On cue, an elderly woman in a shawl walked towards us, down the hill, carrying a basket laden with local produce, a photo opportunity that could have won a prize. But I wasn’t ready with my camera. Avoiding death by a whisker, she dived sideways into a doorway. Perhaps the locals are used to the sudden whims of taxi drivers. A Mediterranean diet of extra virgin olive oil, whole grains and green vegetables, evidently enables octogenarians to remain limber. It all happened before you could say insalata di pasta. As we passed, I glimpsed the woman, flattened against a green door set within a stone frame, her basket held protectively above the level of the taxi roof.
Our driver never flinched, never said a word, just kept going, the engine revving in low gear as the hill became steeper. I presumed it was one-way, at least I hoped it was, if it was any legitimate way at all. Tyres squealing, we negotiated a hairpin bend and breasted the hill, bursting onto a tarmacked road and blinding hilltop light. We were back on the SS145, the car now a little lighter than before and entered our hotel carpark in a bow-wave of sharp gravel and shreds of vehicle accessary dangling from the doors.
We staggered out and clung to each other on the hotel steps while the driver flung our cases after us and drove off without even an arrivederci, leaving us shaking and speechless in his wake.
Photo by Damiano Baschiera on Unsplash
