Return to Amalfi

On my final full day in Italy I decided to return to Amalfi. I was hoping to catch a boat there, rather than a repeat bus trip along the coast. Despite being a major port, there is no regular boat service there until April. Back to the bus. As it turned out, it wasn't so bad. The bus station is less than a block from the hotel. For 7 euros, you get a 24-hour pass to get on and off the SITA public buses, which run frequently and extensively throughout the Sorrento peninsula and the Amalfi coast. The bus was clean and comfortable, not unlike our cushy tour bus. Even though the SITA buses stop everywhere and anywhere, we got to Amalfi in under an hour and a half - faster than the tour bus did. It was still a little hair-raising, especially for those on the bus who hadn't done the trip before. I have to admit that I felt a little green under the gills this time too.

I had three goals for my solo Amalfi trip: 1) look for a majolica or high quality ceramic serving dish; 2) visit the paper mill museum I'd read about in my guidebook; and 3) do a short hike up the river valley to see the mill ruins I'd also read about. I intended to start with the hike. According to Frommer's, one great hike in Amalfi is an easy walk along the Valle dei Mulini (Valley of the Mills), which is the valley of the Torrente Canneto, Amalfi's small river. Starting in the Piazza Duomo, with the towering Amalfi Cathdral glitttering on my right, I made my way north and up the narrow street of Via Genova. This road leads through the medieval heart of the city. Via Genova, with its shiny black basalt cobblestones, wends narrowly between tall white washed buildings and beneath arched porticos. Both sides of the street are densely packed with shops of all kinds and eateries and bustling with activity of both tourists and locals. Steep stairways and "supporticos" (enclosed passageways that honeycomb through and beneath the buildings) intersect with the street at regular intervals, and these lead off, shadowed and maze-like, although bright, hand-painted, tile signs promise even more eating and shopping opportunities.

Via Genova turns into Via Capuano about 200 meters north of the piazza. At this distance from the city center,fewer people were around, the shops and cafes nearly empty. The road steepened but also opened up. In the distance, I could now see a narrow valley with pale orange cliffs. Around me, white washed walls gave way to older stone-colored buildings set further back from the road. From steel grates in the road I could hear the distinct rush of water - the Torrente Canneto as it ran unseen through some cavern or sewer beneath the city. I followed the signs for the Valle dei Mullini and for the Museo della Carta (Museum of Paper). At the top of a bend in the road I passed beneath a red portico and found the Museo della Carta readily enough - an ancient looking stone facade with wooden water wheels in front (I planned to come back after the hike). I continued walking for another hundred feet and the road ended. In my path was a wooden gate and a sign that said "private property - no entrance" (that's all I could translate from the Italian). Indeed, beyond the gate looked like nothing more than a small parking lot for an apartment complex. I could clearly see the river valley in the distance but no way to get there. To my right was the ubiquitous raised stone terrace on which grew lemon trees. To my right was a stone building, likely an old paper mill. Along this building, and below the level of the street, a stone sluice carried a shallow stream of water for about 30 feet before disappearing again. The Torrente Canneto, I presumed. I asked a man, "Dové Valle dei Mullini?" He responded, "This it. No more." "No more?" I asked. "No more," he affirmed. Two paper mills and 30 feet of stream is the Valle dei Mullini. My confusion and disappointment must have been familiar because he looked at me tiredly and walked away. I decided to visit the Museo della Carta.

According to Frommer's, Amalfi is believed to be the first European location where paper was made. The process, learned and adapted from the Arabs, used recycled cotton, linen, and hemp rags and came to be known as "Amalfi paper." This cloth paper was considered less durable than parchment or vellum (made out of animal skin), and in 1250 was forbidden for public use. Nevertheless, the paper industry continued to develop and Amalfi paper was sold throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This paper was made entirely by hand until the 18th century when machines were finally introduced. At that time there were 16 paper mills in the area. According to Frommer's, 10 are still active today.

The Museo della Carta is situated in one of the abandoned paper mills. When I entered the museum, the man at the front asked me to sign my name in a large leather-bound visitor's ledger. He provided me with a quill pen and an ink well. I immediately liked this place. For four euros one of the two young men running the place took me on a dedicated tour. In the lower floor of the building is the old work area which is filled with the original tools and machines. My guide walked me through the interactive process. The mill was powered by water from the Torrente Canneto, which was run through a maze of stone sluices to a wooden water wheel, which then provided the motive power to run machinery that shreds and pounds the cloth into a mushy poultice. It's important to understand that this machinery is mostly made out of wood with only a few metal parts. According to my guide, the equipment in the building dates back to the 15th century - and it still works. While I stood by, he went upstairs and opened up a sluice to let river water in, causing the water wheel to turn, which then set a row of wooden hammers (made out of local chestnut) into action, moving up and down, metal spikes on the business end pounding away at wet cloth. The product drained into a large stone vat, creating what looked like watery oatmeal. He handed me a wood frame with a fine metal mesh and told me to dip it into the vat (like panning for gold), bringing up a lumpy film of the cloth poultice. We then pressed/rolled this lumpy mess carefully onto a felt mat (sheepskin). Even though it was far from done, I could already see what the paper would look like - including the Amalfi watermark which I had not noticed was embossed into the metal mesh. If we were to complete the process, the next steps would be to press it beneath layers of felt to squeeze out the water, using a giant screw press, let it dry further in the sun, and then iron it. The result is beautiful and very durable paper.

In the 19th century, a process for making paper from wood pulp was introduced. With rapid development of increasingly efficient machinery, wood pulp paper almost completely replaced cloth-based paper. The wood pulp-based product is what almost all of us know. However, cloth-based paper is still used for special occasions or important documents where archiving is important. Indeed, the oldest sheets still in existence date from the 13th and 14th centuries. The Vatican uses Amalfi paper exclusively for all of its correspondence. I bought some decorative examples from the museum gift shop, which were produced by the local working mills. My guide told me that this quality paper will last a thousand years. I kept the receipt.

After the museum visit it was time for lunch. I sat in the outdoor patio of a nice pizzeria restaurant just a short distance away. I had pizze Romana - mozzarella, garlic, capers, and anchovies, on a thin, and unevenly shaped, crust. I sat out there on the patio, people watching, enjoying my pizza (with knife and fork, of course), and washing it all down with a bottle of sparkling water and a half liter carafe of red wine (which I could not finish, of course). I took my time eating. This is something the Italians are brilliant at - the proper pacing of a meal. The weather was comfortable and everything around me seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun. Well fed and buzzing warmly from the wine, I decided to try hiking again.

The guide at the museum pointed out a small side street that I hadn't noticed directly across from the museum. It was a narrow and unremarkable asphalt street that rose at a really steep angle. I followed the road. At first it looked like I was simply walking into another apartment complex but then I noticed a woman walking up an unusually long and steep set of stone stairs that hugged the hillside in the direction of the valley. I followed. The stairs were steep and seemed to rise without end. The woman ahead of me was carrying groceries and moving at a good pace without pause. I was flushed and panting and imagining a headline in the local papers: "Out-of-shape American collapses from heart attack on stairs; carried to safety by old woman." Eventually the stairs leveled off onto a relatively gentle, paved stone path. To my right was the side of the hill or mountain, held back by a high, stone terrace wall. To my left a low stone wall separated the path from a steep drop to the river valley below. This was it.

The stone path followed the contour of the valley wall, rising ever higher up into the mountainous valley. On the opposite side of the valley the cliff walls glowed pale orange in the afternoon light, streaked by black varnish and capped with the dark, olive green of pine trees and oaks. Looking back down the valley I could see the tops of the white limestone hills that face the Amalfi harbor.

As I made my way up the stone path I passed terraced lemon groves, hanging on the steep valley edge, where workers were tilling the soil and organizing straight wooden poles to make repairs to trellises. At the bottom of the valley, along the river, the facades of mill ruins began to peak through - multi-story buildings with little left except for the outer walls, the window arches and the edge of once terracotta tiled roofline. This was the path of the Mulino Rovinato (Ruined Mill) I'd read about. These mills once milled flower for pasta before local production was undermined by superior production up north. As I continued up the stone path, the vistas grew more spectacular. Looking back down the valley I could appreciate the amazing terracing of houses and lemon groves, almost all covered with the protective dark green and black netting. In front of me, emerald green rock lizards scurried out of my way and up the walls, diving into the numerous crevices of the walls where flowers and weeds poked out of the stone.

I continued deeper into the valley, and the stone walkway and walls eventually gave way to an unimproved dirt path. The river was now much closer and the valley less deep. The air grew damp and cool and the vegetation more dense, shading the path with a continuous canopy of trees. All along the path, little clumps of bright blue and yellow flowers (I suspect spring bulbs) lit the way. I came across more stone and brick ruins and facades, this time along the path and covered with thick vines, moss and ferns. Dark, open doorways of these old buildings seemed to lead down steps into ruins nearer the river. It was like walking through a ghost town. As I continued up the valley, the ruins looked older. I suspect that I was in the Vallone delle Ferreire (Valley of the Iron Mills). According to Frommer's, these have been here since the Middle Ages and were actually operational until the 19th century. The hike was growing steeper, although now I was walking alongside the river, which cascaded down small waterfalls and into rocky step pools. I stopped at one of the more impressive arched ruins that straddled the river. It was getting late and the sun was setting, so I headed back.

One of the more impressive elements of this landscape for me is all the masonry. I am reminded of accounts I've read about European visitors to the U.S. in the in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who commented on the extraordinary abundance and (seemingly wasteful) use of wood for everything, from excessive heating of homes to the construction of buildings. For Europeans, wood had long been an expensive commodity. Their cheaper materials were stone and labor. For this American visitor, the abundance of masonry and the incredible amount of labor that it implies is almost inconceivable.

I made it back to Amalfi's main piazza by late afternoon. I poked around a little bit to inspect the ceramics, but I was tired and the prices were all over the place. I boarded a return bus. The trip back was uneventful (and faster, if you can believe it). The sun was setting as we pulled into Sorrento. The last evening. Half of our group (including myself) needed to be on the bus by 4:30am the next morning to catch a 7am flight from Naples. So long Italy!