Hitch-hiker

Today

As usual, Christmas and New Year have flashed past. Paul and I decided to spend New Year (including, of course, my birthday) with Arblaster & Clarke in Amalfi.

We and about 25 other like-minded people visited Campanian wineries, sampled wines from unfamiliar grapes such as Fiano and Aglianico, and learnt that the vine stock in Campania, alone out of almost all Europe is not susceptible to Phylloxera, which wiped out the rest of our wine stock.

The wineries were quite modern with much stainless steel and computerised temperature control, which contrasted with the craggy mountain scenery. We were taken by coach (driven by the imperturbable Grazziano) from Amalfi to Furore. This was only 20 kilometres but, along the twisty roads, the drive took well over an hour.

The hills stretched above and below us. Every inch, in true Italian fashion, was utilised, with vines, olives, vegetables, tennis courts, hotels and dwellings. We were told that there were also sheep on the hills although I didn't see any, and that many people planted beans and potatoes in the soil beneath their vines, thus maximising the use of each bit of soil and preventing the soil from becoming depleted.

"Only the Italians could name a place Furore, meaning "frenzy", " I said to Paul. "But I remember this road."

In My Day

In 1969 my friend Angela and I decided that the way to spend the Summer was to hitch-hike our way around Europe. The rest of the world's young people were doing it and what could possibly go wrong?

We set off, with backpacks, £40 each, a map of Europe and high hopes. In our studenty and egalitarian innocence we had simply not reckoned with the view that many European males would have of two girls on the road without protection.

As we worked our way through France and Italy we had to fend off all kinds of approaches, from the furtive to the dangerous and outrageous. The man who offered us a lift a little way from Florence on the way to Rome offered to take us the whole way if I'd have sex with him. When I refused he simply threw us both out onto the Autostrada.

So, by the time we were preparing to leave Rome, heading for Naples, we were prickly with suspicion. Outside the Hostel at Rome another student was offering lifts to Naples. We decided to accept, sizing him up as harmless and, anyway, much smaller than us.

We hopped into the car. Our driver didn't speak much English and I had only pidgin Italian. We both had reasonably good French. Angela refused to try anything but English so I got into the front and chatted about this and that in an amicable fashion as we sped along the autostrada.

As we approached Naples there was a division in the road "Napoli" one way, "Bari" the other. Our driver confidently took the Bari exit. Now, Bari is an East Coast port, nowhere near Naples. I asked the driver what the hell he was doing.

He protested "I'm just popping home to pick up a few clothes and see my Mama. Then I'll take you wherever you wish." Was he one of the stealth seducers? I suggested he pull the other one and said I was fed up with stupid men who thought we were for up for anything and couldn't keep their trousers on. I called him every name I could think of in every language I could muster.

Angela, squirmed in the back seat. "DO something, Julia"! she said. I said that a) there was one of him, two of us, b) we were a good deal larger than he, c) we were on the autostrada.

Soon after, the driver turned off up a side roads and twisted and turned up the mountainside till he reached a small hilltop town. He stopped outside a shop, got out of the car and entered, calling out, "Mama!". I began to blush with embarrassment.

But it was true. He took us into the shop and introduced us to his mother, a typical Italian "potato" lady, dressed in black. We were made welcome and taken into a vast dining room that looked like a furniture store (perhaps it was; our marble table was covered in plastic). There a huge meal was prepared and put in front of us. Angela looked at it in horror. "I can't eat all that!" she said. "You eat every mouthful", I hissed, "You don't know the names I've called her son!"

When we had finished and said our thanks and farewells, we got back in the car and were treated to the most amazing drive along the Amalfi coast, all the way to Sorrento. There was less traffic then than there is now and I expect the road was less good, too. I gazed enraptured and appalled at the vertiginous mountain, covered with vineyards, olive and lemon trees. I apologised to our driver, explaining that we had had some rather funny times and he was very gracious.

We stopped at Sorrento and decided that this was as good as it got and never made it to Naples.

Our patient driver, a medical student in Rome, was called Dante and it did seem churlish, as we sat in the harbour overlooking the hazy sea toward Capri, not at least to reward him with a kiss.